From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sun Dec 8 01:53:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA18519; Sun, 8 Dec 1996 01:53:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 01:53:03 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612080653.BAA18519@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #651 TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 Dec 96 01:53:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 651 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (David Scott Lewis) WebTV: Problem With URLs; Remote Control Options (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Sad Story (R. Van Valkenburgh) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Doug Sewell) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 00:24:10 -0800 Organization: Recommendations.net (http://fab.stanford.edu) Several days ago (last Tuesday and Wednesday, to be exact), I had the opportunity to demo WebTV at the San Diego (Central County) Computer City. Over the two days I gave their unit, which has a live 'Net connection, a helluva workout. My conclusion is that WebTV FINALLY got it right! Let me rephrase that: FINALLY somebody got it right ... and it is WebTV! WebTV is so simple that it's elegant. They've done a superb job with just above everything. Sure, it can't do some of the neat things that we've come to expect, like frames. But overall, it's what we've all been waiting for; I'll go so far as to say that it may be exactly what's needed to reach the mass audience of TV viewers that are not particularly 'Net- or PC-savvy (and don't want to be). I'm so jazzed by WebTV that I'm going to go and buy it, even though I have access through a PC to PBI. What I've done to make my surfing really easy is to add links on my personal Excite Live! page (http://live.excite.com). Hence, my WebTV home page will become a jump- station to numerous Internet marketing, advertising, and PR resources; Fab, the Stanford AI Lab spin-off technology that I've been working with for the past several months; over 200 international daily news- papers; several search engines, including the new ProFusion metasearcher, ZD Net, inquiry.com, et al; direct links to The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, et al; Sun Server (my favorite Sun Microsystems source); a couple of intranet pointers, since I'm doing some intranet consulting these days; NewsLinx, my favorite up-to-the- minute Web info source; Web Commerce; my personal BusinessWire profile; and numerous other Web-based information sources, such as AnchorDesk, DQi (courtesy of DataQuest), FaulknerWeb, The San Jose Mercury News "A.M." news source, my personal c/net edition, PC Week, InfoWorld, Computer Reseller News, Web Week, @Computerworld, AgentNews, mobilis, Telecom A.M., Hyperstand, ... Plus, I have instant access to my NewsTracker profiles on agents, Internet trends, servers, venture capital, mobile computing, Web design, animation, intranets, ... Although WebTV does have the capability to receive e-mail, I still plan to use my PC for e-mail correspondence. However, for those that can forward mail to other accounts (e.g., those in an Unix environment using the .forward command), why not just go ahead and send copies of your e-mail to your WebTV account? This would be especially nice for those of us that receive lots of publications by e-mail, or for those that are subscribed to a lot of mailing lists. (By last count, I receive at least a couple of dozen e-magazines. It would be great to have my YPN, NewsTips, Tipworlds, et al, forwarded to my WebTV account.) Better yet, use USA.NET to have your mail viewable through ANY Web browser located ANYwhere AND forwarded to a RadioMail/Wynd-type wireless access account AND a WebTV account. And don't worry, there are plenty of good, usable mail filters to help with routing. I believe that it's time to refine the prevailing views on mass access to the Web. WebTV creates a new paradigm ... a paradigm that reaches out to over two hundred million potential users -- just like broadcast TV itself! It will be fascinating to observe the adoption and diffusion patterns of this new Internet media outlet. ==================== ADDENDUM (POST-PURCHASE): I bought my Sony WebTV black box on Tuesday night. I got it up and running in eight minutes. Well, almost. If you use an S-Video input, you better make sure you know how to set your television to switch to it. Personally, I had never used this option before. Also, my television, which is a 29" ProScan (Thompson), has two remotes: a master remote and a small, sleek remote (which is the one we always use; it looks like Voyager). Of course, I soon discovered that the only way to access the S-Video input is through the master remote. And, as fate would have it, the batteries had died! Oh, well, this added about another 10 minutes (and some colorful language) to the sign-on process. I've already used it for over 20 hours; I've had very little sleep over the past few days. Here are some of my observations: 1) The best thing is the music while you wait to connect! I like the "Downtown" song, but a user can select from three other options. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to change your option once it's selected. Hence, you have been warned: Select your music choice very carefully; you might be stuck with it for a long, long time! Now to more substantive issues. 2) First, I'll address e-mail (no pun intended). Well, there's no blind carbon option. For me, that's an important feature that they're lacking. There's also no way to create lists. And, it's not really easy to send regular carbons; the set-up is far more conducive to sending all recipients in the "To" header. Fortunately, it is possible to add names to an address book. Unfortunately, it is NOT possible to add names to your address book from e-mail that you've received. It's also not possible to change your header. That's bad news. I am, for example, really sending this message from my Pacbell account, but most of you see this as coming from my IEEE address. Here's the problem: When I send a message from my WebTV account, message recipients that hit their "Reply" function will send their messages back to my WebTV account. That means that I'll get WebTV replies only when I use my WebTV account. That's definitely NOT cool. I'd like to be able to designate my own e-mail and reply-to address. I ALWAYS use a forwarding account, like my IEEE or ACM accounts, which is turn forward to my USA.NET account, which then explodes to my Pacbell and WebTV accounts. Since the only place that I can store (and, for now, print) messages is with my Pacbell connection (which really sucks, by the way), I use my Pacbell account as my so-called "master" account. But I can still view ALL of my messages through WebTV or through any browser anywhere in the world through my USA.NET account. If I get RadioMail (or Wynd) ... or the MP 2000, I'll add forwarding to those accounts as well. So here's the scoop: Replies to messages that I send from my Pacbell and old Presence accounts (yep, I actually have a couple of more Internet access accounts, plus a CompuServe account) AND from my USA.NET account get distributed to my PacBell account, my WebTV account, and my USA.NET account. That's very cool indeed. But, those WebTV-originated messages will receive replies only at my WebTV account. That's NOT cool; WebTV needs to fix this immediately! Good news: It seems that most of the problems with WebTV, not just their e-mail limitations, can be solved with a software solution that doesn't require any equipment modifications by the customer. Oh, I can see a need to replace the keyboard or remote every few years as new function keys are added. And we'll need to buy WebTV "Smart Card" peripherals as they become available. But, overall, it seems to be an EXTREMELY low maintenance piece of equipment. Conceptually, it's a good model to support the cause of NCs vs. PCs ... but I don't want to get on this topic; it's almost like a religious war between Unix and MS Windows. 3) More on e-mail. You can't reply to individual portions of a message. That can make things a bit awkward. And changing the "Subject" field is a bit cumbersome as well, but it's doable. BTW, the "Reply" function does NOT allow an option to include the original message; you have to do that through the "Forward" function. Hmmm. Web documents are easy to forward/transmit from WebTV, but they do NOT include the entire document, only the link. That's a real bummer. Since I use Navigator Mail (Go Netscape!), I'm spoiled by the fact that I can receive Web pages and view them in their full glory in my Navigator Mail account. (For the record, for those of you using primitive e-mail systems, you can view Web documents that are sent to you as e-mail in their full glory via a USA.NET account.) OTOH, Web pages sent as e-mail to a WebTV account CAN be viewed in their full glory via WebTV, although I find that it looks much better when I simply click on the link and thereby take advantage of a full screen, versus a smaller e-mail viewing screen. A big question for many might be about data input (or shall I be quaint and call it "typing"). The Sony keyboard is terrific. I'm not sure what kind of IR they're using; I didn't check the spec. I get the impression that it's a line-of-sight IR. I would have been happier with a diffuse IR link. But, overall, it seems to work fine. It's a very light keyboard and very well designed, IMHO. Data entry through the remote control is a snap. Well, maybe not a snap. But it's okay for enterings URLs and the like. Users have an option to choose between an ordered keyboard (i.e., "ABCDEFG ...") or a Qwerty keyboard for their onscreen keyboard. (Don't worry, the "real" keyboard is a Qwerty keyboard.) The onscreen keyboard needs to go through a few iterations. For example, they need to add the major hierarchies as one-click entries; it's silly for me to have to type the letters c-o-m or e-d-u all the time. Also, a one-click input for w-w-w would be nice, just to save a bit of time. They also need to add their "Continue" key and "." key to a couple of more locations on their onscreen keyboard. 4) Viewing. Viewing can be a bit annoying. The output tends to be rather bright. Sure, I might be able to adjust the contrast on my television set, but that would (or should) impact by regular television or videotape viewing quality. I'm not sure what WebTV can do about this. Hmmm. They can probably change the background to be slightly off-white ... versus the GLARING WHITE SCREEN that I get on most Web pages. 5) Bookmarks. Their bookmarks are called "Favorites". They're easy to access from the keyboard by hitting the "Favs" key. Hey, that's easy! On the remote, they can be accessed through a two key input process: "Home" and then moving over one space and clicking on "Favorites". Easy. Very easy. I don't know if they have a limit, but I wouldn't push it. Each "favorite" shows up as a first-screen icon; hence, they tend to be a bit large. It would be nice if WebTV allowed a text-only display option. To aid in my surfing journeys, I selected my extensive Excite Live! page as my first favorite. From there, I can go just about anywhere. (BTW, Excite Live! does have limitations. For example, only so many links can be added to each category. Hence, my categories don't have much resemblance to the links that they contain. That's a silly limitation on the part of Excite Live! After all, I'm getting the same number of links, but now I have to put them in separate categories that don't correspond to the links ... just so I can have all (or most) of the links that I want.) 6) More on "Favorites". My second and third favorites are AltaVista and InfoSeek Ultraseek. I've added the dailies that I MUST read to my "Favorites" page. Hey, here's something quirky. It is now NOT possible to name the "Favorites"; it's necessary to accept the default. That, too, is a bit silly. For example, my Ad Age Interactive Daily "Favorite" has the date of the first issue that I used as my "Favorite" input. Also, a couple of my favorites have titles that don't really suggest what they're about. I should be able to override the HTML "Title" defaults and use my own titles. Overall, though, their "Favorites" are efficient. BTW, you can't use a "Favorite" as your home page. The home page defaults to a page offering a menu for e-mail, favorites, explore (which is like Yahoo!, of sorts), and search. 7) Last item on "Favorites". Their system has a built-in list of bookmarks. I deleted all of them. Except one. Keep their "JumpCity" bookmark. "JumpCity" kind of works like VCR-Plus. The Sony unit comes with a 472 page book describing all sorts of Web sites. It reads a lot like a Wolff book, e.g., NetGuide/YPN. The book evidently shows the home page for each described item. That's good and bad. Sometimes it's a bit much visually. But, overall, it's a GREAT book, especially for newbies. Here's why. With a simple four-digit input, which is easy to do with the remote (although it's another example as to why the "Continue" function needs to be added to a couple of more places on their onscreen keyboard), it's possible to go to thousands of sites. Okay, for those of us that have lived on the Web for any reasonable length of time, it's simply a cute feature. But for newbies, it's a TERRIFIC idea. Good job! I haven't checked the printed guide for political correctness, but it seems to have a lot of key sites. 8) More on e-mail. When a user first gets on, the system lets them know how many new messages they have. And it does this for all accounts. (See the next paragraph.) The system also beeps when new mail is received. Those are nice, albeit standard features that many of us are already getting. 9) Multiple accounts. You can set-up multiple accounts, each with their own favorites. I've set up accounts for myself (thewebguy@webtv.net), my fiancee (thewebgal@webtv.net), and my daughter (thewebkid@webtv.net). My daughter, who is slightly over three, doesn't receive too much e-mail, so I haven't done to much with her settings. My fiancee is in Europe on business this week, so she can arrange her own "Favorites" when she returns. However, both of our USA.NET accounts forward to our WebTV account, so she's already getting mail at her WebTV account ... even though she hasn't been around since I purchased the Sony unit. 10) Last observation (also about e-mail). Deleting messages is a VERY SLOOOOOW process. WebTV should, at the very least, have a checkmark and delete function (and a trash function as a back-up, but with automatic trash disposal since they probably don't want to keep an overabundance of someone's e-mail on their server/s). This, too, is a standard feature on some e-mail systems. Even USA.NET has this. Oh, and WebTV e-mail does NOT have filtering capabilities, nor does it have sorting capabilities. 11) Image maps. Oh, boy! They're not easy to navigate with either the remote or keyboard. And without a hardware change, I don't see an easy solution. If you absolutely must deal with a torrent of image maps, then WebTV is not YET for you. Yet, for all practical purposes, I don't find the arrow-key based navigation too cumbersome. Bottom line: It's fine, at least for the next year or so. Overall, WebTV is GREAT! I love it! The WebTV folks still have a lot to do ... probably a lot of job opportunities for programmers. RealAudio is key, as is some sort of streaming video. The logical choice seems to be VDOlive, but they should see what they can do with VXtreme, Xing, Vivo, ... Speech synthesis would also be nice. (Speech recognition would be great, but that would require a significant change in their hardware.) When I mean speech synthesis, I'm really talking about TTS -- text-to-speech. (My fiancee is in this area; she can be reached at thewebgal@usa.net, which, as I stated earlier, will forward to her WebTV and her personal Earthlink accounts. But, she can review mail while in Europe via her USA.NET account ... accessible through over 1,000 cybercafes worldwide! The firm that she's with was touted by guru Amy Wohl during the recent COMDEX as providing _the_ view into our computing futures.) Happy Holidays! David Scott Lewis d.s.lewis@ieee.org For further discussion, see http://www.webtv.net/HTML/home.yankelovich.html P.S. -- I have a couple of more observations about WebTV. They both relate specifically to optimizing for WebTV. Assuming the WebTV phenomenon catches on (and it will, even if WebTV does NOT prevail as the lead player), it might be very wise to have so-called "Designed for WebTV" pages and sites. (Call it what you will; you get my point.) Let their servers handle the tough stuff, but take advantage of everything that can be optimized via their servers. Also, it might be important to rethink e-mail for WebTV. Hah, not so obvious of a problem, but a problem indeed! Hitting hard returns is generally a good practice, but it can really chop up WebTV e-mail. Yet, the WebTV screen leads to itty-bitty columns. I'd like to see WebTV come up with a solution from their end, but in the interim, if I were offering a text-based e-mail service, I'd be very careful about how things look on WebTV. That's especially important for consumer-oriented sites, like the portfolio companies with idealab! Are you listening, WebTV? FINAL COMMENT (NO KIDDING): In response to my "Are you listening, WebTV?" question, I received a timely reply from WebTV: "We are listening." Good for them! ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV: Problem with URLs; Remote Control Options Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 10:34:52 -0800 Organization: Recommendations.net (http://fab.stanford.edu) I ran into this problem when I first started using my Web TV unit last Tuesday night, but I forgot to comment about it in my postings. However, it just came back to light a few minutes ago. A feature they need to add is a way to view URLs and manipulate URLs. For example, if I find a bad URL, I'll usually try to truncate the URL and see what I can get. More often than not, that seems to work ... or at least help. But URLs are NOT displayed and can't be manipu- lated from the "Location" position. Matter of fact, the only time a user can directly manipulate a URL is during the "Go To" input. That's too little user control. Here's a real example of this limitation: A little while ago I wanted to add Seidman's newsletter to my Excite Live! home page. I used to get Seidman's, but it seemed like it fell off the face of the earth, just like my old e-newsletter/e-magazine! :-(... Anyway, I couldn't add Seidman's new URL to my Excite Live! through WebTV. There is simply no way to copy and paste the URL. Hence, I had to go to my highly unreliable PacBell account to do the appropriate manipulations. (BTW, I beat up on Pacbell, but I really have a soft spot for them. After all, it was old Web design firm, Presence Information Design, that was the lead contractor on their "AtHand" site. That's why I'm STILL sticking with them. I hope they solve their problems, although I'm starting to lose all hope.) So for me, it's a pain to have to go to my PacBell account to do some basic functions that I can't do with my WebTV account. However, for a lot of people that may get WebTV and NOT have any other accounts, it's an unacceptable limitation. Remember, I really love WebTV. In some ways, I view myself as their third-party/user evangelist. However, I don't want to pull my punches. Once again, this is a problem WebTV could fix from their side. And, it shouldn't be too difficult to fix. Another suggestion (but much less important): "Favs" should be an advanced option through the remote control "Options" command. Yep, it saves only one step, but in general, a lot of the keyboard one-function keys should be accessible as advanced options through the remote control "Options" command. That should be VERY SIMPLE to implement. Have a default settings/reset for newbies that get too crazy and too confused. But after a while, it should be very easy (and make sense) for most WebTV users (or are they "viewers"?) to add some additional options. David Scott Lewis Recommendations.net d.s.lewis@ieee.org For the record (and for the accolades), they're: John Lee, Corporate Evangelist, evangelist@corp.webtv.net or jlee@webtv.net Chris White, MTS, casper@webtv.net Good customer service, guys! ------------------------------ From: vanvalk@auburn.campus.MCI.net (R. Van Valkenburgh) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 01:49:05 GMT Organization: auburn.campus.MCI.net Reply-To: vanvalk@auburn.campus.MCI.net That's a very funny story, I think. I must say that I've gotten to where I prefer salesman who know nothing about their product, than salesmen who know just enough to be able to insert a few good lies. ------------------------------ From: doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 7 Dec 1996 12:46:23 -0500 Organization: Youngstown State University Thus spake Dave Sieg : > I had an interesting phone call from a guy who had bought one of the > "WebTV" boxes. It sits on the top of the TV and hooks to a phone > line, allowing "unlimited Internet Access" for only $19.95/month". I tried WebTV at Sears recently to bring up my home page. It was "painfully slow" - comparable to Netscape at 2400 baud. > But it would make sense for WebTV to allow a local ISP to be THE > provider in areas where they don't have POP's. Nope, can't be done. > Apparently, they use some proprietery encryption scheme, and are > making big plans for people to conduct all kinds of business solely > through their ISP. Another proprietary scheme. A pox upon them. Incidentally, my home page -- which is pretty ordinary -- had a .wav sound clip on it, and WebTV couldn't deal with that at all. I don't know if it supports any other type of sound files. It handled forms, however. I didn't bother to check my web server to see what the browser looked like to it. I'd suspect that many of the newer web browser features aren't supported, perhaps I'll have to head out to Sears again today and try it ... Doug Sewell (doug@cc.ysu.edu) (http://cc.ysu.edu/~doug/) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #651 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sun Dec 8 04:22:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id EAA25087; Sun, 8 Dec 1996 04:22:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 04:22:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612080922.EAA25087@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #652 TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 Dec 96 04:22:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 652 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Supreme Court To Hear CDA Case (Monty Solomon) The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Monty Solomon) Payphone Prices for 0+ and 800/888 Calls (Dave Levenson) Re: Area Code Splits - Why? (Dave Levenson) Re: Area Code Splits - Why? (Larry Lee) Re: Area Code Woes (Andy Finkenstadt) Re: Area Code Woes (Rey Hinckley) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Gareth Babb) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (David Clayton) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 03:16:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Supreme Court To Hear CDA Case Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 13:10:22 -0700 From: --Todd Lappin-- Subject: FLASH: Supreme Court To Hear CDA Case Salutations! Great news today from Washington DC ... the Supreme Court has officially announced that they will hear the US government's appeal of the recent lawsuits blocking enforcement of the Communications Decency Act. The judges are expected to hear the case in April, with a decision following a few months later. As Jerry Berman, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, says in the Trial Bulletin, "This case will determine the future of free expression in the information age, and is the most important first amendment case before the court in recent memory." (For background on why we're optimistic the Supreme Court will deliver a favorable runing on the CDA case, check out Mike Godwin's excellent analysis at: http://www.hotwired.com/wired/4.09/cyber.rights.html.) Stay tuned for further updates, and of course ... Work the network! --Todd Lappin--> Section Editor WIRED Magazine _______ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ |__ __| (_) | | | _ \ | | | | | (_) | |_ __ _ __ _| | | |_) |_ _| | | ___| |_ _ _ __ | | '__| |/ _` | | | _ <| | | | | |/ _ \ __| | '_ \ | | | | | (_| | | | |_) | |_| | | | __/ |_| | | | | |_|_| |_|\__,_|_| |____/ \__,_|_|_|\___|\__|_|_| |_| Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition Update No. 16 December 6, 1996 ----------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.cdt.org/ciec/ ciec-info@cdt.org ----------------------------------------------------------------- CIEC UPDATES are intended for members of the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition. CIEC Updates are written and edited by the Center for Democracy and Technology (http://www.cdt.org). This document may be reposted as long as it remains in its entirety. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ** 55,000 Netizens Vs. U.S. Department of Justice. ** * The Fight To Save Free Speech Online * Contents: o Supreme Court Agrees to Hear CDA Challenge ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SUPREME COURT AGREES TO HEAR LANDMARK CASE TO DETERMINE FUTURE OF FREE SPEECH IN CYBERSAPCE The United States Supreme Court today agreed to hear the government's appeal of a landmark legal challenge to the Communications Decency Act. The case, which will determine the future of freedom of speech in cyberspace, is expected to be heard in March or April. A special panel of federal judges in Philadelphia ruled the CDA unconstitutional in June. The Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC), which brought a successful challenge to the CDA earlier this year, applauded the courts decision to hear the case. "This case will determine the future of free expression in the information age, and is the most important first amendment case before the court in recent memory." said Jerry Berman, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and one of the organizers of the CIEC. "The lower court ruled unequivocally, based on a solid factual record, that the CDA was unconstitutional," Berman added, "and we believe the Supreme Court will agree with them upon review." The CIEC is a broad coalition of groups concerned about the future of the Internet, including on-line service and Internet service providers, libraries, book, magazine, newspaper and music publishers, software companies, public interest organizations, and more than 55,000 individual Internet users. The lead plaintiff in the case is the American Library Association. The Philadelphia court ruled the CDA unconstitutional in June, agreeing with the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition's arguments that: * The Internet is a unique communications medium that deserves free speech protection at least as broad as that enjoyed by print medium. * Individual users and parents -- not the government -- should decide what material is appropriate for their children, and; * Simple, inexpensive user empowerment technology is a very effective and constitutional way of limiting the access of minors to inappropriate material on the Internet. The CIEC challenge, also known as ALA v DOJ, was consolidated with a separate lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and 20 other plaintiffs, ACLU v. Reno. The cases were argued together before the three-judge federal panel in Philadelphia last spring, and the legal teams continue to work together as co-plaintiffs in the Supreme Court phase. The Communications Decency Act (CDA), passed by Congress in February 1996 for the first time imposed far reaching broadcast-style content regulations on the Internet. The full text of the Philadelphia ruling and other information on the case can be found on the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition Web Page (http://www.cdt.org/ciec/). Please also visit the CIEC web page for the latest news and information about the case. The 27 plaintiffs in the case include: American Library Association, Inc.; America Online, Inc.; American Booksellers Association, Inc.; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; American Society of Newspaper Editors; Apple Computer, Inc.; Association of American Publishers, Inc.; Association of Publishers, Editors and Writers; Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition; Commercial Internet eXchange; CompuServe Incorporated.; Families Against Internet Censorship; Freedom to Read Foundation, Inc.; Health Sciences Libraries Consortium; HotWired Ventures LLC; Interactive Digital Software Association; Interactive Services Association; Magazine Publishers of America, Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; Microsoft Network; National Press Photographers Association; NETCOM On-Line Communication Services, Inc.; Newspaper Association of America; Opnet, Inc.; Prodigy Services Company; Wired Ventures, Ltd.; and, the Society of Professional Journalists Ltd. WHAT YOU CAN DO -- JOIN THE CITIZENS INTERNET EMPOWERMENT COALITION If you use the Internet to send email, post to usenet newsgroups, maintain your own world wide web page, or participate in online discussion forums, you could face serious prison time and huge fines under the CDA if someone, somewhere, considers the material you put online to be "indecent" or "patently offensive". Since February of 1996, more than 55,000 individual Internet Users have joined the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition. The large number of individual Internet users is intended to illustrate to the Court, the press, and the public that each and every Internet user is a publisher and cold be liable under the CDA. If you haven't done so already, please take a moment to become a part of this landmark case: Visit the CIEC web site for details -- http://www.cdt.org/ciec/ It's fast, it's free, and it will help us preserve the future of the Internet as a viable means of free expression, education, and commerce. For More Information For more information on the CIEC challenge, including the text of the original complaint filed in early '96 and other relevant materials: * World Wide Web -- http://www.cdt.org/ciec/ * General Information about CIEC -- ciec-info@cdt.org * Copy of the Original Complaint -- ciec-docs@cdt.org * Specific Questions Regarding the Coalition, including Press Inquiries -- ciec@cdt.org * General information about the Center for Democracy and Technology -- info@cdt.org end ciec-update.16 This transmission was brought to you by.... THE CDA DISASTER NETWORK The CDA Disaster Network is a moderated distribution list providing up-to-the-minute bulletins and background on efforts to overturn the Communications Decency Act. To subscribe, send email to with "subscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. To unsubscribe, send email to with "unsubscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. WARNING: This is not a test! WARNING: This is not a drill! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 03:18:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 16:21:07 -0700 From: --Todd Lappin-- Subject: OPPOSITION: FRC on Supreme Court News We're not the only ones who are excited about the pending Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act. Turns out, the CDA's proponents are also looking forward to having their day in court. The following press release from the Family Research Council gives their side of the story, complete with Cathy Cleaver's usual rantings about the dangers of online smut. Remember ... despite what the FRC says, "indecency" is NOT a synonym for pornography. Work the Network! --Todd Lappin--> Section Editor WIRED Magazine FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 6, 1996 CONTACT: Kristi S. Hamrick, (202) 393-2100 For Radio, Kristin Hansen SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW COMPUTER PORN RULING WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will review the Reno v. ACLU decision to enjoin the Communications Decency Act made earlier this year by a three-judge panel in Philadelphia. Family Research Council Director of Legal Studies Cathy Cleaver said that the Department of Justice's appeal of the Philadelphia ruling is the right thing to do, and that now the Supreme Court has the opportunity to "reverse the radical ruling which gave Bob Guccione the right to give his Penthouse magazine to our children on the Internet." Cleaver continued, "Laws against selling porn magazines to kids are not unconstitutional. Why should we have to tolerate the same degrading images of women being given to those same kids on-line?" Family Research Council presented a "friend of the court" brief with the Philadelphia judges in ACLU v. Reno defending the cyberporn provisions of the Communications Decency Act. Cleaver said the Philadelphia decision contradicts previous Supreme Court decisions on the distribution of indecent material through the media. The Communications Decency Act: * Prohibits adults from using a computer to send indecent pornography directly to a known child; * Prohibits adults from knowingly displaying indecent pornography to children; * Defines "indecent material" as material, which in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner; * Imposes fines, prison sentences (up to 2 years), or both on violators; * Exempts those who merely provide access to a network or system over which they have no control; * Provides limited defenses for employers and those who make a reasonable and effective effort to restrict children's access to pornography; * Expands telephone harassment prohibitions to include harassment by computer. Arguments will likely be heard in early spring. Family Research Council and other pro-family and anti-pornography groups will be filing briefs in support of the Justice Department's defense of the law. FOR MORE INFORMATION OR INTERVIEWS, CALL THE FRC MEDIA OFFICE. This transmission was brought to you by.... THE CDA DISASTER NETWORK The CDA Disaster Network is a moderated distribution list providing up-to-the-minute bulletins and background on efforts to overturn the Communications Decency Act. To subscribe, send email to with "subscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. To unsubscribe, send email to with "unsubscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. WARNING: This is not a test! WARNING: This is not a drill! ------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I in general support the CDA although I see some problems with the way it is written and wish that instead of having the Supreme Court get involved this 'coalition' of Internet users and the other named organizations would get off their high horses, quit their scare tactics (i.e. 'you will go to prison if ...') and work with organizations like FCR to develop reasonable guidelines to satisfy everyone or nearly everyone. There *are* technical solutions to the problems FRC sees with the net, and there are relatively easy ways to implement some changes which ought to appease FRC while at the same time posing little or no addi- tional burden on the net. We do have to co-exist with the rest of the world you know. Other people have a right to use the net also, you know. That may come as a complete surprise to the folks at the ACLU and all the librarians, but other users of the net actually have the right to enjoy the web and not have to worry about their kids getting into territories they should stay out of. To take the reasoning of the ACLU, the librarians and other opponents of CDA to its logical conclusion, we should never have any laws forbidding children to be served in taverns because parents should have to be totally responsible for where their children go. We should not have any laws against selling cigarettes to minors because it is too hard to enforce, there will always be kids getting around the law and anyway, the parents should be the only ones to decide. It would cause a burden on the merchants who sell beer and cigarettes. We should never have any laws governing the interaction of children and adults at all because after all, some kids and/or adults will always find a way around it; enforcement will be difficult and unfair at times, and parents should be the only ones to decide. What was really insulting in the earlier litigation regards CDA was how the ACLU instructed their witnesses to just get up in court and lie about the technical aspects of the net, making all those outlandish claims about the technical difficulties involved in affording some modicum of policing. I assume they figured the judges would not know any better. The point is they don't want any policing. They want to be free to shove a bunch of ignorant and crappy newsgroups and web pages down everyone else's throat. That, plus their scare tactics and distortions of what CDA is all about has really turned off a lot of people to their cause. I hope the Supreme Court will permit truly independent -- i.e. unbigoted, and without any agenda -- internet experts to advise it in this matter before ruling. No ACLU'ers, no Socially Responsible computerists, no one with an axe to grind. The ACLU of course will object strenuously to any independent experts getting involved, just as they did in Philadelphia. The Court will hear all this malarkey about how impossible it is to control anything that anyone does here and how some poor innocent old-maid librarian in a children's library will wind up in prison for life because some web page or search engine lookup somewhere had a cuss word in it, etc. I hope this does not turn out to be a situation where 'a battle is won but the war was lost'. I see some real problems with CDA as it is written, but I can sympathize with the views expressed by its proponents as well, and frankly, the intellectual dishonesty (and I will suggest) fraud perpetrated on the Court by the opponents of CDA in Philadelphia almost has me to the point I hope CDA is ruled to be constitutional. Honestly, I wish Monty Solomon and others would quit sending me this junk-email ... and that is what it is. All it does is make me more angry each time I read it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Payphone Prices for 0+ and 800/888 Calls Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 20:49:34 GMT In recent discussions on this subject, at least one writer has complained of the inconvenience of requiring a coin deposit to make a toll-free call from a payphone. This is not what is happening. Under the FCC's Payphone Report and Order, it is the long distance carrier who is paid for the toll-free call by the recipient who is required to pay the payphone owner. The calling party is not required to deposit coins into the phone. Other writers have pointed at the differences between customer-owned and utility-owned payphones. That difference is going away, for all practical purposes, in April of 1997. The local exchange carriers will be required to operate their public telephones through unregulated, unsubsidized entities. With this change, virtually all payphones will be required to pay their own way, without subsidies from regulated ratepayers. The arguments which apply to COCOTs will also apply to LEC-owned phones when this happens. Today, when a caller at a utility-owned payphone calls an 800 number, the IXC who carries the call pays termination charges and CCL (carrier common line) charges to the LEC at the originating end. Part of this charge subsidizes the payphone. When the same caller uses a privately-owned payohone, the IXC still pays the LEC, but none of that payment subsidizes the payphone. After April, the same will be true for the call using a utility-owned payphone, if no other changes were being made. COCOT's today sell local calls at nearly break-even prices. This is because the local sent-paid rate is usually set by local regulations which are based upon subsidies to payphones from other services offered by exchange carriers. A typical outdoor payphone on a city street carries about 60% local calls which produce a minimal profit for the payphone owner. Another 20-25% of calls are to toll-free numbers, and these produce no revenue at all. Another 15-20% or so are long-distance sent-paid calls. These are the calls that cover the fixed costs of operating the payphone (local access, insurance, maintenance, etc). So where does the payphone operator obtain any real profit? From the 2-3% of the traffic which is dialed as 0+. This traffic is often routed to an AOS who imposes a surcharge. The problem is that 98% of the traffic is operating at a loss or at break-even revenue, and 2% of the traffic must generate all of the return on the payphone owner's investment. That leads to unreasonably high prices for the 0+ traffic. The recent FCC action will eventually lead to deregulated sent-paid rates, and to compensation for the toll-free traffic. Pending action at the FCC and in many states may limit the prices charged for 0+ traffic at payphones. The eventual result is that some of the traffic which was not paying its way will. Another result is that the justification for unreasonably high 0+ rates will go away. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Area Code Splits - Why? Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 19:57:28 GMT Eric Bohlman (ebohlman@netcom.com) writes: > Assuming that the customer just needs several separate *numbers* > (rather than the ability to handle several *calls* at the same time), > $100-$200 would be less than the yearly cost of 5 or more lines. But the original subject of this thread was somebody's objection to splitting area codes. Additional numbers, whether or not they involve additional lines, is what evenually leads to number space exhaustion, and area-code splits, no? > Another thing that could relieve number congestion: a lot of > residential customers get a line solely for modem use, and it's almost > always used purely for outgoing calls. Why should such a line need a > number at all? Why can't the LECs offer an "anonymous" outgoing-only > line? That would save space in the area code. But what would such a line deliver for Caller*ID? Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 18:34:23 MST From: lclee@primenet.com (Larry Lee) Subject: Re: Area Code Splits - Why? At 12:47 PM 12/1/96 -0800, rlm@helen.surfcty.com wrote: > On 28 Nov 1996 10:51:01 PDT, lclee@primenet.com (Larry Lee) said: >> If the phone company would extend DID into standard analog voice >> lines, then we could go to Radio Shack and buy an extremely stupid >> telehone switch ($100-$200 range) which would accept an additional >> digit and route the call to 1 of 9 extensions (leaving extension 0 as >> a default). This would allow homes/small businesses to have 10 >> separate phone numbers with little to no phone company participation >> in digits. I'm sure that popular conventions would arise such as 9 is >> a fax, 8 is the answering machine, etc. >> What's wrong with this scheme? Why are things being done this way? > Do you mean to force people to buy $100-200 worth of hardware if they > want additional phone lines? How would the lines be delivered? Doesn't > analog DID require a trunk bundle to be hauled to the customer? Who > and in what manner is this to be paid for? Well let's say that basic phone service costs $20/mo and the phone company would charge an additional $5/mo to have the extra digit delivered to your house. You certainly have the right to have two separate phone lines at $40/mo or you can pay $25/mo plus a one time cost of $200 and every person in the house will get their own phone number. I just thought it was a service that would be a natural sell, but no I don't want to 'force' anybody to do anything. Larry ------------------------------ From: genie@panix.com (Andy Finkenstadt) Subject: Re: Area Code Woes Date: 7 Dec 1996 22:59:31 -0500 Organization: Dueling Modems http://www.dm.net/ Reply-To: genie@panix.com In Joel Upchurch writes: > I suspect that there may be real world financial consequences, such > as loan elgibility or insurance rates that could be effected by > living in an 'undesirable' zip code. Insurance companies and underwriters use the ZIP+4 and TIGER Census data, along with their own claims experience, and the Equifax insurance claims clearinghouse database, to segment their insurance to a quite detailed level. A person who lives in 32308 (my zip code) might have significantly higher comprehensive insurance rates because the theft and damage claims experience in their neighborhood, as defined by their ZIP+4, is much higher than in mine. Andrew Finkenstadt, The Printing House Ltd, Also a GEnie Sysop "If A equals success, then the formula is A = X + Y + Z. X is work, Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. -- Albert Einstein" ------------------------------ From: Rey Hinckley Subject: Re: Area Code Woes Date: 7 Dec 1996 06:08:20 GMT Organization: Premier One The problem with area codes versus Zip codes is that using alphanumeric addresses is not as limited as numeric only numbers. Every area code can theatrically support from 200 to 999 (800) Central office codes with 10,000 xxxx numbers. Unless we start putting more unique digits on the phone, we have to split or overlay and area with duplicate phone numbers requiring another area code. Zip Codes are not as limited. The postal service came out with the Zip + 4 digits which makes zip codes almost as long as the telephone number, but with the exception of Post Office boxes, you can't be sure that there is one household to a zip+4 number. ------------------------------ From: hick@pobox.co.uk (gARetH baBB) Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Reply-To: hick@pobox.co.uk Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 16:39:38 GMT Organization: Gink In article , 0006540276@mcimail. com (Tim Dillman) wrote: > and he brought up the wildest idea I have heard yet. It seems that > the public utilities are using power lines as the transmission media > for internal ethernet transmissions (or so he said). I was very > skeptical about this notion but managed a smile and nod when my > customer told me of this, but sill I wonder ... Alot of my calls go via Energis, which is a company in the UK owned by the National Grid. They have fibre wrapped round the earth cable of power lines going all over the place. Energis also provide the transmission network (though not the transmitters themselves) for the BBC in the UK and other data applications for other companies etc. Demon Internet (mentioned here occassionally) also use Energis lines. It's a good way of using an existing network to create another one, though some customer service aspects of Energis as a company have been noted as being particulary, erm, nasty. www.energis.co.uk has more information. ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 04:17:33 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Tim Dillman <0006540276@mcimail.com> contributed the following: > I recently visited one of my customers to discuss future technologies > and he brought up the wildest idea I have heard yet. It seems that > the public utilities are using power lines as the transmission media > for internal ethernet transmissions (or so he said). I was very > skeptical about this notion but managed a smile and nod when my > customer told me of this, but sill I wonder ... I have heard of a power utility in New Zealand using their lines to communicate with "smart" meters for remote billing data collection, but they didn't mention ethernet connections. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #652 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sun Dec 8 23:10:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA03600; Sun, 8 Dec 1996 23:10:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 23:10:34 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612090410.XAA03600@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #653 TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 Dec 96 23:10:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 653 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The Problem With the Chat Feature (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Alan Bishop) Re: WebTV Sad Story (John Nagle) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (Brian Elfert) WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues (David Scott Lewis) WebTV: Excite Live! Page Creation; E-Mail Miscellany (David Scott Lewis) Compcon 97 (Joy Shetler) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 22:04:48 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: The Problem With the Chat Feature After observing it for a few days now, the one thing I've noticed is that two or more people rarely seem to be there at the same time. In most cases, someone goes to that web page, hangs around a few minutes and after seeing no response from anyone else then leaves. Time and again, five minutes or less later, some new person shows up. :( It might be a good idea to have some times given for chat by a general consensus; that is, people showing up there could usually expect to find others there at that time also. So how is this for a starting schedule ... and feel free to make your own arrangments with others to meet there at certain times. How about 10-11 AM Eastern; 4-5 PM Eastern; 9-10 PM Eastern .... At least for Monday and Tuesday .... to give those of you who are interested in using this feature a chance to meet others who like doing the same thing. If you wish, leave a message there at any time indicating the time you will be returning or would like to have others meet you there, etc. I have this feature set currently for only one 'room' or chat area, but I can set it for as many areas as I like; I was thinking of possibly setting it for about six 'rooms', meaning that many separate conversations could be going on. Also, some people have been leaving questions there looking for answers from others 'passing through'. You might want to make sure that if no one is there to answer your question you include an email address where you can be contacted with an answer, etc. The Telecom Chat URL is http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/chat PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 14:51:38 PST From: Alan Bishop Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Howdy. I'm a software engineer at WebTV Networks. I certainly don't speak for the company, but I can clear up some misunderstandings. dr@ripco.com (David Richards) writes: > It's apparent that "WebTV" uses a proprietary interface that is > totally incompatible with the PPP standard, so it can only be used to > connect to their service. Nope. It uses PPP. However, it does connect to our servers over the internet via TCP/IP. See below for more information. doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) writes: > I tried WebTV at Sears recently to bring up my home page. It was > "painfully slow" - comparable to Netscape at 2400 baud. [...] > Incidentally, my home page -- which is pretty ordinary -- had a .wav > sound clip on it, and WebTV couldn't deal with that at all. I don't > know if it supports any other type of sound files. It handled forms, > however. That's unusual. Perhaps that Sears had a noisy phone line? It's got a 33.6k modem built in. Plus, data is compressed further by our proxy server when possible. Some reviewers of our box have been perplexed when they get pages *faster* than their $3k computer. Version 1.0 of the client only supported MIDI. Version 1.1, due out shortly, supports Real Audio, .wav, .au, .aiff, mod, and others. All users will receive the upgrade free of charge. The important software in the box is all stored in flash ROM, and we can do upgrades over the net. The only thing the user needs to do is select 'upgrade now' when we announce the new release. The box takes care of the rest. Technical specs on the box are at: http://webtv.net/HTML/home.specs.html (.net, not .com) JP White writes: > In defense of WebTV they do provide a service where you give them your > area code and first three digits of your local number and they will > inform you if the call is local or not. However there is catch 22, > this service is available on their Web page, so if you havn't got Web > access your stuck. That's at: http://webtv.net/HTML/home.retail.html (.net, not .com) However, you can also call our customer service department at 1-800-GOWEBTV, and they can tell you as well. Dave Sieg writes: > But it would make sense for WebTV to allow a local ISP to be THE > provider in areas where they don't have POP's. Nope, can't be done. > Apparently, they use some proprietery encryption scheme, and are > making big plans for people to conduct all kinds of business solely > through their ISP. [...] > In our part of the world, business lines cost nearly $70/month, and we > have had our bad experience with the abuse of "unlimited" accounts. > It simply doesn't make sense for any local ISP to permit somebody to > have unlimited use of his dialin lines, modems, routers, etc for a few > bucks/month. Dave Sieg has some legitimate concerns. However, his article may confuse some people. We *are* contacting local ISPs and arranging for more coverage. Communications are via standard PPP and TCP/IP, so this is pretty easy. What he's upset about is that (a) we want to still be involved (i.e. we only allow customers to connect to ISPs that we have a business relationship with), and that (b) he's in a region of the US where (according to him) the economics don't work out for a $19.95 unlimited access plan. Hopefully, a description of our service will bring a little more light to the discussion. The key to understanding the decisions we've made is "user experience". Our goal is a system usable by anyone, not just those who know how to use a computer. If you've never touched a keyboard before, you've never heard of an ISP, or you're not quite sure what the internet is, you can still successfully use our system to browse the Web and send email. This is a consumer product, not a computer system. The user interface has been radically redesigned. There are no scrollbars. There is no horizontal scrolling. The primary interface is through a remote control, similar to the ones used for DSS. After you buy it at the store (either the Sony or Philips / Magnavox brand), you plug it into power, your TV, and your phone line, and you press the power button. You don't need to select an ISP and you don't need to fiddle with connection scripts, modem configuration, or phone numbers. It just works. Many areas have multiple ISPs serving them, and if the first one your box dials fails to connect properly, it just rolls over to the next one in the list without the consumer needing to intervene (or know). For one fee the customer gets the redundant services of multiple ISPs. Customer service and billing is all through us. Obviously, to pull this kind of transparency off, we need to have some sort of relationship with the ISPs involved, since we need to know who to call, what their connection procedures are like, and who to pay. Our systems have only been online since September, and it's not surprising that we started with the largest ISPs with the best coverage before working our way down. The box talks to our proxy server over an encrypted channel (using TCP/IP). This allows us to provide a better service to the user in several ways: - privacy for the user. The number of places that someone could snoop on a user's session are greatly reduced. We should be publishing a statement on user privacy in the near future describing what we will and won't do with information in our possession. I believe it's designed to answer the same questions as those posed in http://www.cdt.org/privacy/online_services/chart.html. We use strong encryption, and as some of you are already aware, we've been declared a munition by the US government, and the boxes have a "do not export" stamp on them somewhere. - response time for common sites is more consistent. The time to connect to a common site is the time between a user's box and the proxy server, not N different sites on the internet. - we transcode images and other media types. For example, image creators often make their images too detailed or store them in a format that doesn't compress as well as it should. We fix that in the proxy before transmitting them over the slow link to the user. It also means that if we want to support a media type, we don't need a new client release: we just add it in the server and convert it to an existing one. Mail is stored on our server. This means that even if one of your ISPs is down, you can still get your mail. We run a 24x7 operation with generator backup. Some ISPs do this too, but not all. So, it is true that users must connect to our service once they're hooked to the internet. It is true that you do not select your own ISP. In exchange, you get a system that anyone can use, redundancy, improved reliability, and performance in many cases, and a single point of contact for billing and customer service. alan a@corp.webtv.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for responding Alan. Please continue to follow this thread and perhaps in a day or two take a few minutes to summarize it for us with some followup comments of your own. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 18:53:03 GMT doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) writes: > I tried WebTV at Sears recently to bring up my home page. It was > "painfully slow" - comparable to Netscape at 2400 baud. > Incidentally, my home page -- which is pretty ordinary -- had a .wav > sound clip on it, and WebTV couldn't deal with that at all. I don't > know if it supports any other type of sound files. It handled forms, > however. It does forms. It does E-mail. It's actually rather clever about dealing with the width limitations of the TV screen. It didn't do QuickTime or .avi movies when I tried one. I was suprised; given the name, I though it would be oriented towards audio and video, not text. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 12:47:32 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies Rich Greenberg wrote: > Does the limited resolution of the typical TV distort the images/photos > on the web sites? Is it as good as 640x480? Nope! David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Was that 'nope' a response to the first question or the second question? PAT] ------------------------------ From: belfert@citilink.com (Brian Elfert) Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: 8 Dec 96 21:55:36 GMT David Scott Lewis writes: > When I send a message from my WebTV account, message recipients that hit > their "Reply" function will send their messages back to my WebTV account. > That means that I'll get WebTV replies only when I use my WebTV account. > That's definitely NOT cool. I'd like to be able to designate my own > e-mail and reply-to address. I ALWAYS use a forwarding account, like my > IEEE or ACM accounts, which is turn forward to my USA.NET account, which > then explodes to my Pacbell and WebTV accounts. Since the only place > that I can store (and, for now, print) messages is with my Pacbell > connection (which really sucks, by the way), I use my Pacbell account as > my so-called "master" account. But I can still view ALL of my messages > through WebTV or through any browser anywhere in the world through my > USA.NET account. If I get RadioMail (or Wynd) ... or the MP 2000, I'll > add forwarding to those accounts as well. WebTV is really designed for the person who doesn't have Internet now, and probably doesn't have a computer. Do you think the average person really has a half dozen Internet email addresses, and wants their WebTV mail to be returned to a different email account? Chances are, this will be the only email account for most users. Brian ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 13:54:22 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies Original message asked me about who's the ISP with WebTV, are their access points toll-free, and how much does it cost. There's a bit of marketing perspective/philosophy later in this message. WebTV IS the ISP. To determine if it's a local call, you can go to their home page and navigate until you find their local access indicator input selection. In other words, it's a form where you put in your phone number. WebTV then determines if you have a toll-free local access number. However, I'd check your White Pages just to be sure. In my case, both numbers they gave me were local. But I'm in Los Angeles and in the Marina; EVERYONE seems to have a toll-free access number from the Marina, so it's not surprising that I had TWO local access numbers for WebTV. (The ISI think tank is about a stone's throw away from my residence; they have the fastest pipes in L.A., and through their MFS connection everyone seems to be hooked-in locally.) The charge for UNLIMITED access is $20.00. It might really be $19.95 or $19.99, but you get the idea. Oh, that's per month, of course. The real question for the WebTV folks is what are the reservation prices? My complete unit ran about $440, including the IR keyboard. My hunch (and it's just a hunch) is that WebTV needs to price the hardware at less than $300; actually, that might be more of a call for Sony and Philips, since they're the two current hardware suppliers. (I don't know if WebTV has exclusives with Sony and Philips.) For monthly access, I believe they need to be in the $12 per month range for unlimited access. However, I'm going to urge them to offer an automatically tiered pricing. In other words, $3.95 per month for 3 hours; $9.95 per month for 20 hours; and, $12.95 per month for unlimited access. Like my PacBell account, it should kick-in automatically; unlike AOL's new pricing scheme, user's should NOT have to predetermine how much access they want. AOL is being a bit ridiculous and it got them in legal hot water. With this kind of pricing, WebTV's biggest problem will be meeting demand! Within a year, they would be the largest Internet-only ISP. Within two years, they would surpass AOL. Besides, within the next 18 months, I expect them to have integrated a lot of new, cool technologies, especially streaming video ... or, at the very least, Shockwave and QuickTimeVR. Plus, PDF must not be too far behind. Macromedia and Adobe must see the value of WebTV as the platform of choice for the public at large. Like I've hinted in the past, it's a switch to a market potential of over a hundred million new "viewers," versus the old, tired paradigm of "users." However, I expect this new generation of "viewers" (or at least a good fraction of new "viewers") to want interactivity. I wouldn't be surprised if WebTV is working with someone (hey, NetObjects would be cool) to develop an authoring toolkit so "viewers" could put up a very basic home page. There have got to be some interesting ways of taking advantage of the VCR/WebTV/television triad ... and why not add input from digital cameras, et al. VCRs, cameras, and other traditional consumer electronics products are what the public at large is used to; WebTV will simply be their seamless access platform to the Internet. And that's the real beauty of WebTV. Consumers will come to think of WebTV as another one of their appliances: "Yeah, I've got a microwave, a frig, a dishwasher, and WebTV." Word of caution: WebTV does NOT currently allow access to the Internet with the exception of the Web and e-mail. For most of the world that's more than adequate. (Even I can't recall when I last used Gopher or talk, although I do miss my Unix compression-related tools, especially since I read a lot of ftp accessible research papers, many using .z or .gz compression.) However, through DejaNews and other types of archives, such as the archives for Online-News, it's possible for those without access to a direct Usenet feed to read postings and directly post to Usenet groups. (I hope DejaNews is prepared to handle the traffic. Matter of fact, DejaNews should be a courtesy "Favorite" for WebTV. In other words, WebTV shouldn't charge DejaNews for the "Favorite" link/icon; DejaNews is, in essence, doing WebTV a big favor.) Once WebTV provides EASY Usenet access, perhaps through a relationship with DejaNews, then it will be really tough to argue against WebTV. With e-mail, access to the Web, and participatory access to Usenet, WebTV will provide (practically speaking) EVERYTHING that viewers would want ... at least until THE NEXT BIG THING, whatever that will be. Final observation for this message: I'm already finding that WebTV is my PRIMARY means of 'Net access. My PC is collecting a bit of dust! :-) Hey, I still use my PC access at least a few times a day, especially when I'm composing long (e-mail) letters, but I'm using WebTV to read most of the key Web publications that I regularly view AND to read many (actually, most) of my e-mail newsletters. Yes, WebTV needs Netscape InBox-Direct capabilities, but it's fine for 95+% of the e-mail newsletters and 'zines that I receive. Guess what: This lengthy message was originally composed on WebTV ... and it's pretty long. So go get your WebTV ... before they're all sold out! :-) For a peek at the most interesting threads I've seen about WebTV, go to: http://www.social.com/social/hypermail/news/index.html (As you know, yours truly has numerous WebTV-related postings in their archives.) Also, be sure to check out the copied newsgroups for the latest perspectives on WebTV. If you're on WebTV or don't receive a Usenet feed, go to: http://www.dejanews.com David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV: Excite Live! Page Creation; E-mail Miscellany Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 15:18:46 -0800 Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services A while ago I talked about the difficulties of setting up an Excite Live! page through WebTV. Some further explanation is required. Actually, it is possible to set up an Excite Live! page through WebTV; it's just cumbersome (or can be). Since it's not possible to "Copy" and "Paste", each URL for Excite Live! had to be inputted manually. Now that's okay for The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com), but not too cool for Technology Review (http://web.mit.edu:80/afs/athena/org/t/techreview/www/). But it's doable. Some other features that need to be added: 1) Ordering of "Favorites". Right now a "viewer" will get stuck with a listing of "Favorites" ordered by data, FIFO style. That's a pit of a pain, especially if a "viewer" has a lot of "Favorites". 2) Currently there is no "Reply to All" feature in their e-mail system. That, too, needs to be added. It's been noted before, but I'd like to restate it, that a red light message indicator signals when new mail has been received. The unit also beeps. Both are nice features. David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ From: jshetler@ohm.elee.calpoly.edu (Joy Shetler) Subject: Compcon 97 Date: 8 Dec 1996 21:36:21 GMT Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo IEEE's COMPCON 97 Set for Feb. 23-27 in San Jose Visit the COMPCON 97 World Wide Web page for more information and/or to register: URL: http://www.compcon.org or read the following :) SAN JOSE, Calif., -- One of the country's pre-eminent computer technology conferences -- Compcon 97 -- will be held February 23-26, 1997 here in the heart of the Silicon Valley. This continues a tradition of more than 40 successful years in the San Francisco Bay Area for this non-profit technical conference. "Hot Systems/Cool Software" is the theme of COMPCON 97, underscoring the importance of new computing technologies and applications in both the computer industry and society. "Computer technologies ranging from world-record 600MHz processors to eye-catching Java applets and VRML virtual worlds will all be featured at COMPCON 97," said Darrell Long, the conference chair and computer science professor at University of California-Santa Cruz. "COMPCON has the reputation as a one-stop, no-hype overview of the important developments in our industry. If you could only attend one technical conference a year to learn about the overall state of the industry, COMPCON would be your choice." Adds Dr. Joel Birnbaum, Vice President, R&D and Director of HP Labs: "COMPCON has been consistently a valuable conference presenting a broad technical program on state-of-the-art computing technologies." IEEE COMPCON 97 will be held at the San Jose Hilton and Towers Hotel (300 Almaden Blvd.) in downtown San Jose, Calif. COMPCON is sponsored by the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a non-profit professional association, and has been held in the Bay Area annually since 1955. Its 27 technical sessions and six in-depth tutorial topics run the gamut from the design of advanced central processing units and networks to computer systems, advanced programming and world wide web technologies. In addition, five well-known industry luminaries will give plenary talks. COMPCON has no marketing presentations or product exhibitions. COMPCON 97 program overview: INTERNET/INTRANET TECHNOLOGY: Trends, Environments, Applications SYSTEMS: Superservers, Mobility, Software Architecture MICROPROCESSORS: High-Performance, Low-Power INTERCONNECTS: Parallel Computers, LAN and WAN, Wireless VIDEO: Advanced Displays, Digital MULTIMEDIA: Technologies, Software Environments, Applications PARALLEL/DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS: Applications, Hardware, Compilers OPERATING SYSTEMS: Object-Oriented, Microkernels PERIPHERALS: Mass Storage, DVDs, Display Technologies EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES: GigaHertz Devices, Advanced Hardware, Java Tutorial topics include: 3-D graphics, virtual reality, web site design and security, advances in computer architecture. Plenary speakers include: Federico Faggin (Synaptics) -- "The Microprocessor: Its History and Future" Hector Garcia-Molina (Stanford) -- "Meta-Searching Across the Internet" David K. Gifford (MIT and OpenMarket) -- "The Future of Electronic Commerce" Ted Laliotis (Laliotis and Associates) -- "To Tax or Not to Tax Internet Transactions" Dave Nagel, AT&T Advance reservations to Compcon 97 can be made through the web site or by contacting: Dave Hunt, COMPCON 97 Registrar Lawrence Livermore National Lab PO Box 808 MS L-130, Livermore, CA 94551-0808 E-mail: hunt-dn@llnl.gov Updated information will be placed on the Compcon 97 home page on the World Wide Web at URL: http://www.compcon.org Additional contacts include: Dr. Darrell D. E. Long, General Chair University of California-Santa Cruz Baskin Center, Computer Engr./Info. Sciences Applied Science Bldg. Santa Cruz, CA 95064 Phone: 408-459-2616 Fax: 408-459-4829 E-mail: darrell@cse.ucsc.edu Dr. Michael Harrisson, Program Chair University of California, Berkeley Computer Science Division 775 Soda Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-1776 harrison@cs.berkeley.edu Michael Ross, Publicity/Media Relations IBM Corp., Almaden Research Center 650 Harry Road, K03-802 San Jose, CA 95120-6099 Phone: 408-927-1283 Fax: 408-927-3011 E-mail: mikeross@almaden.ibm.com For more information about this posting contact: Dr. Joy Shetler Cal Poly Computer Engineering Program San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Phone: 805-756-2309 Fax:805-756-1458 E-mail: jshetler@calpoly.edu http://www.elee.calpoly.edu/~jshetler ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #653 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 9 01:02:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA11269; Mon, 9 Dec 1996 01:02:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 01:02:03 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612090602.BAA11269@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #654 TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 Dec 96 01:02:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 654 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Payphone Prices for 0+ and 800/888 (Michael Mantel) Re: Area Code Woes (Hillary Gorman) Re: Connecting Non-PBX Line Powered Equipment PBX Line (Barton F. Bruce) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Barry F. Margolius) Re: COCOTs and 800 Numbers (edongp@aol.com) N11 Codes (Marty Tennant) Replacing a Cell Phone (Yigal Arens) Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? (Shawn Barnhart) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Joe Jensen) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Henry J. Becker) Wanted: AUDIOVox/Spectrum Cellular Interface (Jeffrey Race) Calling a Spammer Collect? (Lisa Hancock) Win95 and Areacode Overlays (Christopher Wolf) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 13:25:00 -0800 From: Michael Mantel Reply-To: mantel@hypersurf.com Subject: Re: Payphone Prices for 0+ and 800/888 dave@westmark.com wrote: > ...The local exchange carriers will be required to operate their > public telephones through unregulated, unsubsidized entities. With > this change, virtually all payphones will be required to pay their > own way, without subsidies from regulated ratepayers. I question how common it was for LECs to claim that their payphones (taken as a whole) were operated at a loss. Even if they did, it would be pretty much an accounting fiction, because so much of the costs of operating a telephone network are fixed costs... so the amount charged per line, per call, or per minute is pretty arbitrary. On the contrary, it seems likely that prior to the introduction of "competition" into the payphone business, payphones would have been helping to keep local phone rates down. I would like to know who has benefited from COCOTs. The LECs have lost revenue and the public pays more for poorer service. The people who benefit are the COCOT marketers and operators, and perhaps the businesses that get a commission for having COCOTs on their premises. The premise behind deregulating things is that the customers of the service will have an opportunity to choose the best provider of the service, but this doesn't work with pay phones. When you are at a mall or an airport, your only choices are to use the single service provider available or not to make the call. I =thought= the FCC was supposed to operate in the public interest, but I notice that the public interest doesn't get much representation when the FCC holds hearings. Instead, you have the LECs and the IXCs and the COCOT operators battling it out, and they are not worried about the public interest. The ridiculous thing is that the FCC expresses concern in its opinions that some companies may be adverse- ly impacted by rule changes or by other changes ... so what? Nobody promised the cable companies they would have a permanent monopoly (though it looked like they would), and nobody has promised the COCOT operators that things will stay the same forever. Here's my hypothetical question ... when I go to the airport today, AT&T already has their own phones there. Now AT&T will have a reason to encourage their customers to use the AT&T phones, thereby avoiding the surcharges on 800 calls. Can we expect more carriers to begin offering their own phones, and at more places? Unless the FCC is requiring the IXCs to do separate accounting for payphone services, my guess is that they are going to begin more seriously competing with the existing COCOT operators for this business, and lots of COCOT operators will be out of business in five years as a result of these new rules. Good riddance! Eli Mantel ------------------------------ From: hillary@netaxs.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: Area Code Woes Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 17:27:36 -0500 Organization: Packet Shredders Anonymous In article , genie@panix.com wrote: > In Joel Upchurch bellsouth.net> writes: >> I suspect that there may be real world financial consequences, such >> as loan elgibility or insurance rates that could be effected by >> living in an 'undesirable' zip code. > Insurance companies and underwriters use the ZIP+4 and TIGER Census > data, along with their own claims experience, and the Equifax > insurance claims clearinghouse database, to segment their insurance to Recently near Philadelphia, one of the suburbs (I think Elkins Park, maybe Melrose Park, not sure) fought and won to have their zip code changed from one that was shared with part of the City of Philadelphia to a "suburban" zip code. When the zip code changed, my friend's car insurance payments were reduced. It truly boggles the mind. The car didn't move, the neighborhood didn't change -- yet the insurance company said "you are now eligible to recieve a "good neighborhood discount" -- what a bunch of malarkey. hillary gorman http://www.hillary.net info@hillary.net "to err is human; to moo, bovine." ------------------------------ From: bruce@eisner.decus.org (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: Connecting Non-PBX Line Powered Equipment to 24v Analog PBX Line Organization: CentNet, Inc. Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 01:14:21 GMT In article , Steven G. Bradley writes: > I have a model 706 AT&T line powered speakerphone that works poor to > not at all at times due to lack of a full 48v. The analog PBX line > supplies 24v I am told. Is there an interface I can buy that would > let the PBX think 24v was ok and in use and yet increase it to a full > 48v on the phone side of the equation? I'd love to use my > speakerphone for it's full purpose and replacing it with one that is > on AC or batteries really is not the solution I was thinking of. There are the traditional DLL (Dial Long Line) units that can take 96VDC or whatever for talk battery, but getting and installing one will cost more than a better speaker phone would. The reason 24 volts is ok on PBXes is taht the loops are generally short. The POTS 2500 set needs nominally 23MA for the tone dial to work. There is but a few volts across the set when off hook. most of the -48 is lost elsewhere. Just for the heck of it, take a small 12VDC GelCell (burglar alarm size is fine) and wire it in **SERIES** with the phone such that it boosts rather than bucks the available voltage. I am assuming your PBX isn't capable of reversing station battery for some signaling purpose. You don't need a capacitor across the battery -- it will pass voice and ringing just fine. If this helps, look at voltage across the phone and current through it off hook and compare to using no battery. I doubt you need a second 12 bat that would bring your onhook voltage to 48 but might even put the line circuit at risk (though I doubt it). You would need a very small trickle charge to keep the battery charged. Find a slightly higher voltage wall-wart and use a suitable resistor (and diode if it was an AC one) to give you a couple of MA trickle charge. Wire the charger right TO the battery rather than to other wiring common to the phone connection to it or you *will* suffer HUM problems. ------------------------------ From: bfm@pobox.com (Barry F Margolius) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 06:09:02 GMT Organization: INTERNET AMERICA nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) wrote: > In article , dstott@juno.com (Dave J > Stott) writes: >> That's real world. We're not poor, we're not COCOT dependent, we're >> not interested in market-based pricing vs government regulation. All >> we care about is that my teenager can call home from where ever she >> is, even if she forgets her quarter. > I will blow off this ONCE more about this issue, and then I will shut > up, I promise. > The previous poster makes a good argument that "free 800" is not just > an issue of money but of convenience/assessibility, as you do not > always carry the right coins. This is true, granted. I pretty much agree with your position, but I did want to amplify it by pointing out that it is conceivable that an 800 call from a payphone might not be free, but would still require no "quarter". The COCOT could charge the 800 provider the $0.35 (or whatever), and the 800 provider could pass it on to the customer. Barry F Margolius, NYC bfm@pobox.com For PGP Key, finger bfm@panix.com ------------------------------ From: edongp@aol.com Subject: Re: COCOTs and 800 Numbers Date: 7 Dec 1996 06:26:24 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com This time there is a way to call through a payphone without being charged an arm and a leg if you do some advance planning. For the first time, you could get your own call back switch, install it in your home, and call from payphones, hotel phones, dormitory phones and charge everything to your home phone (which is the lowest rate you could get anywhere). Visit http://www.woodtel.com/DIALMATE1.html for complete information. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 08:59:48 -0800 From: Marty Tennant Reply-To: marty@sccoast.net Organization: Low Tech Designs, Inc. Subject: N11 Codes Mark J. Cuccia recently said: > "IMO, The N11 codes should have NEVER been used in the way some areas > are now using them. Since the only real three-digit N11 code that has > any REAL universal assignment or reservation is 911(altho' some > locations don't yet offer 911 service), the codes 211 through 811 > should be used as 'POTS' central office codes." Esteemed readers, This issue has been discussed in a still open docket at the FCC for some time now. Many people feel that N11 codes are "national treasures" and should not be used for commercial purposes as BellSouth has regretably done. In Canada and in Hawaii (GTE), N11 codes have been used for Telephone Relay Service for TDD users. They argue for a uniform number to make access for hearing impaired telephone users consistent across state lines, rather than a mishmash of toll free numbers. Also, the General Services Administration would like one of the codes as a generic means of calling the U.S. Government! Not sure that would work. Many independent telcos use the codes for their business office number. In Texas, a proposal was floated awhile back to auction off one of the N11 codes on a county-wide basis to ISPs for the provisioning of local access to state and local Internet based information services. The government access part would be free, but the winning bidder would be able to charge for other information sources. Don't think this concept went anywhere. I think President Clinton recently supported the use of another N11 code as a non-emergency alternative to overloaded 911 centers. Evidently, we have trained the public to call 911 when it really isn't necessary. In this proposal, an N11 code would ring at the local police office that handles regular non-emergency calls. I don't think all the public assistance folks out there agree with this position, as there would be confusion and an incredible public education effort. I do not support the use of N11 codes as central office prefixes, just as I don't support their use in BellSouth territory as pay-per-use information service numbers. I agree that they should be considered "national treasures" and should be used for appropriate non-commercial purposes. These purposes may not be evident at this time. Marty Tennant Low Tech Designs, Inc. New Neighborhood Networks(tm) ------------------------------ From: arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens) Subject: Replacing a Cell Phone Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 14:48:42 -0800 Organization: USC/Information Sciences Institute In the US -- I don't know about the situation elsewhere -- it is customary for cellular service providers to subsidize the cost of a new phone in return for the customer signing an extended service contract. Typically, a 12 or 24 month contract is required for a subsidy on the order of US$300. Which makes me wonder, how do people typically go about getting a new cell phone to replace an old one? Do they wait until the expiration of the contract on the first phone, and then junk it and buy the new one, so as to receive the subsidy again? In this case, is there any way to convince the service provider to allow the subscriber to keep the old phone number? Or, in order to keep the same phone number, do people just bite the bullet and pay full price for the new phone? Or is there some other possibility? I'd be curious to hear from folks who have had personal experiences with such matters. Yigal Arens I believe in luck: how else can you explain USC/ISI the success of those you dislike? arens@isi.edu -- Jean Cocteau http://www.isi.edu/sims/arens [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Most carriers will allow you to extend your contract another period of time to commence when the current contract expires. For example, you have six months to go on your two year contract with the cellular carrier. You need to get a new phone. Ask the carrier to allow you to commit to another two year contract in addition to the six months remaining on the present one. The carrier will refer you to a dealer who will match the ESN in your new phone with your existing number and deactivate the ESN in the old phone. It won't take but a few minutes most of the time. When my former cell phone 'walked away' one day, I notified the dealer as well as Frontier. Actually I called Ameritech (which is resold by Frontier) since it was after hours -- about midnight -- when I discovered the phone was gone. I called Ameritech and asked them to kill the ESN but hold the two numbers pending a new ESN. I had the dealer send me a new phone which was delivered the next day with the same phone numbers as the old phone. Before the dealer sent me the new phone he called Frontier and had them fax Ameritech with the new ESN. The only kink in my case which held it up was that the phone has two numbers served off the same switch assigned to the same ESN -- a no no -- requiring supervisory override to get the switch to accept both numbers on the same ESN assignment. That took another day to clear up, but had it not been for that, I was back in business with the same number a couple days after the original phone decided to lose me somewhere. You should have no problems. The carrier will be glad to have you around for another two or three year term. PAT] ------------------------------ From: swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart) Subject: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 18:16:34 -0600 Organization: Chaos I was having a discussion with someone the other day about what's involved in forming one of the new, competing local telephone companies that the Telecom bill was supposed to have made legal. I'm not an expert on telecommunications, and I was kind of curious how it was actually supposed to work. I can understand some of the infrastructure needs, but what about the circuits that terminate in a residence or place of business? Will they be granted access to the existing phone company exchanges and only have to deal with trunking? Or will they have to run wire to each and every customer in addition to the necessary trunking lines? Shawn Barnhart swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If they were actually competing, they would run wire to each premise, install instruments, etc. But as a matter of fact the 'competitors' have whined so much about it and claimed Bell had such an unfair advantage that regulatory agencies have required Bell to allow the 'competitors' to co-locate in the same central office. In some instances, they do not even bother with that formality; they just force Bell to sell to them wholesale at a deep discount so they can resell to the public cheaper than what Bell does while telling the public what a ripoff Bell is for charging customers as much as they do. They cannot accept assignment of a group of phone numbers which in their opinion 'look funny' because this would also in their opinion be unfair, so Bell has to open up all sorts of new area codes so the 'competitors' can grab thousand upon thousands of phone numbers they will never manage to assign to anyone in the next twenty years. They even want to force Bell to include all their listings in the existing Bell directory because ... well, you guessed it, it would be unfair to force them to go to the expense and effort of compiling their own. The only thing they have not demanded and been granted thus far is that Bell be forced to revert to nineteenth century telephone technology while the 'competitors' spend the next hundred years or so trying to catch up. So no, you won't see new wires brought to your premises in most instances. If it does happen, they will be Bell wires leased by the competitor to serve you. You won't even see trunking and co-location all that often either. Most of the time it will amount to nothing more than accounting entries on the books of telco and the competitor. A lot of the 'competitors' will be little more than reincarnations of our good friends, the Alternate Operator Services. The AOS' are essentially bottom-feeders; they serve no useful function except to charge a lot more than the 'real operators' for their services. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joe Jensen Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 16:59:38 -0500 At a recent trade show, Novell was showing a new technology that they claimed to be able to provide as high as 1.5 Mbps over typical small business or residential power distribution lines (inside the house). This was proposed as a cheap way to provide LAN connectivity for various copiers, printers, faxes, and PCs in a residential or small business environment. The protocol was based on an emerging standard but the transport layer was proprietary. I believe they still have some information on their web site. At the show, they were handing out CDROMs with information on the product. Joe Jensen Buckeye Cablevision Toledo, Ohio ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 18:23:54 -0500 From: Henry J. Becker Reply-To: hbecker@ix.netcom.com Organization: The QB Group / MIS Training Institute Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Tim Dillman wrote: > I recently visited one of my customers to discuss future technologies > and he brought up the wildest idea I have heard yet. It seems that > the public utilities are using power lines as the transmission media > for internal ethernet transmissions (or so he said). I was very > skeptical about this notion but managed a smile and nod when my > customer told me of this, but sill I wonder ... > ... Can anyone confirm or dispel this idea? It is not a *wild idea* -- it is quite practical when you think about it; since the power company's own their right-of-way. From the little I know, power company control systems are called SCADA. This is the system that controls substations and grid switches from a central point. The signalling system is part of SCADA. Other systems that poll remote power readers, or control load-shed are not part of SCADA -- but work similarly. From all of the wireless communication information I have read, I think the protocol used is a variant of Token Ring. Because of the large amount of noise on the power lines, it is important to receive acknowledgement that a packet was successfully received. I agree that an Ethernet protocol could accomplish the same abjective. I was also surprised to read of references of signalling speeds of 100K and higher. I know that is presently available from one vendor - under extremely limited distances and high quality lines. I am aware of typical systems in the hertz-to-kilohertz range. Hope this helps. ------------------------------ From: Jeffrey Race Subject: Wanted: AudioVox/Spectrum Cellular Interface Date: Sun, 8 DEC 96 11:22:55 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) I desire to buy one or more analog interfaces for Audiovox 3200 bagphone, sold by Audiovox with p/n STI-85, and also by Spectrum (before they abandoned the product line) under a different p/n. Please reply to jrace@ibm.net. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Calling a Spammer Collect? Date: 8 Dec 1996 17:59:30 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net I'm getting more and more unwanted email in my box everyday. A few messages list regular phone numbers (not 800) to call for more information. Is there any law saying I can't call the person COLLECT to complain about their spamming. I realize someone has to actually answer and accept the call, it can't be to a machine. But, frankly, I want to give them an earful for their spam. Along those lines, is there still a "COLLECT PERSON" tariff? That is, I'll call COLLECT, PERSON TO PERSON, (asking to speak to a "manager"), so the call will be billed at person-to-person rates. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, there is still collect person-to- person, and it is quite expensive. By the time they get a few of those calls -- if they choose to accept the charges -- they'll wish they had given out their 800 number instead. There is no law against calling anyone collect if that person is willing to pay for it. The only exception is collection agencies; they may not call collect. Would you believe though that some have tried calling collect to discuss your past due bills, etc? One well-known collection agency here in Skokie which has been around for fifty years is known as Van Ru. The people at Van Ru tend to collect debts on the low end of the scale like Columbia Record Club (now I guess they call it Columbia House and they specialize in CDs) and for used car dealers and furniture/ carpet wholesale houses, etc. They tend to work with not terribly intelligent debtors. For about five years, Van Ru would call collect disguising the true purpose of their call until after the debtor accepted the charges for the call. Talk about adding a little insult to injury ... finally the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on Van Ru (and one of the other major agencies which had started doing the same thing called 'Gulf Coast' [now GC Services] in Houston, Texas), and told them no more collect calls to debtors. That was back in the early 1970's. But yeah, you can call collect if you can get them to accept the charges. If a couple hundred people in one day all tried to get through on a collect basis to the same spammer the response should be interesting, to say the least. Better ask for the order department however; make it sound at first like you want to buy whatever they are selling and need to know where to send your check. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 12:27:36 CST From: Christopher Wolf Subject: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Pat, Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? Wolf ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #654 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 9 10:08:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id KAA06601; Mon, 9 Dec 1996 10:08:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 10:08:34 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612091508.KAA06601@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #655 TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 Dec 96 10:08:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 655 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson In a Power Station During a Blackout (Darryl Smith) Re: Modems in Countries Other Than North America (Dennis Wong) Re: Tormenting Telemarketers! (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? (Art Kamlet) Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? (Wes Leatherock) Re: Dialing Software and Areacode Overlays (Linc Madison) Re: Replacing a Cell Phone (Linc Madison) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 18:30:52 +1000 From: Darryl Smith Subject: In a Power Station During a Blackout Pat, Below is a message I got and a reply on the ethernet, powerstations etc. darryl smith > Dan Foster wrote: > In article you write: > >problems. (You should be in a power station during a blackout :-) > :-) > Fascinating article you wrote. > But to ask about more mundane things - out of sheer curiosity, what *is* > it like to be in one during a blackout? :) What kind of activity goes on > to restore power, if you know? > -Dan Foster > Internet: dsf@frontiernet.net OK well ... In February this year I was up at Bayswater (In the Hunter Valley in NSW Australia) and I was in the electrical section - OK - I was the electrical section - almost - I was straight out of uni. I had an electrical engineering boss who came with the power station and will leave if it ever gets shut down; but not before; and a technical officer who was an expert in power systems protection. And we had a uni student on a semester's work (Known as a cadetship). Power Stations are a place which can be very expensive to repair if things go wrong. Think about 200 tonnes of metal spinning at 3000 RPM and then put a turbine on the end. That is the size of thing I am talking of. And the generator is filled with Hydrogen gas to improve its efficiency in cooling (650 MWatts capaity becomes 200 MWatts in air). To keep the hydrogen high pressure oil is pumped onto the spinning shaft at each end to keep the air out, and then the oil it put in a vaccuum to remove the water and oxygen from the oil. Oil is also used to cool the bearings; which get quite hot given the weight of the generator rotor - and the bearing at one end is insulated. IF the bearings get to hot, they melt, causing a short circuit between the rotor and the shaft; and you have a spinning metal in a magnetic field and get the case magnetised (The case is iron and weighs over 100,000 Kg). Demineralised water is used to cool the hydrogen in the generator, and insode the copper conductors in the stator (After all a generator is only 99 % efficient that means that 6.5 MWatts of heat is produced !!!!!!) In addition there is a boiler which is about 11 stories tall with various cameras inside at US$500,000 each which need constant cooling or else they will burn ... All the important stuff like oil pumps, cooling pumps etc are all DC motors. And we have two of any important motors, fed from different switchboards, and usually different batteries. By usually I mean that is the normal case. Sometimes we need to take a battery bank out - and have both switchboards supplied from the same battery. But each battery is constantly on charge from a battery charger/ DC supply. These chargers have an automatic changeover if they lose supply from their primary AC switchboard. So for the 11kV system there are: Unit A and B switchboards (with incoming supplies from one of two locations) and able to be connected in the center. Station A and B switchboards in a similar configuration. In terms of DC we have the same sort of thing running on 24, 50, 110 and 240 Volt DC batteries. Back to February this year - my supervisor was off for the day (we have a 9 day fortnight) and had just rung up to make sure nothing had gone wrong. Of course not. That would happen when he hung up. The Technical officer had just left the building too. And I was plant owner for switchboards - The expert. (I was also plant owneer for motors and DC Systems - My boss had Transformers (He has blown up more 400 MVa transformers than anyone else in the country and the generator circuit breaker.)) The lights in the admin building went dark. Once they didnt return after a few seconds I grabbed a torch and the cadet along with the hard hat and raced to the admin switchboard. When I got there one of the management was there looking what went wrong - He told me the incoming supply had died; and told me where the switchboard was that supplied it as I didnt know ... I was the second person to get to the room - And the room was dark except for two tiny 12 volt 6 watt fluro lights for a room over 10meters by 25 meters - The emergency lighting inverters were on the sections work list - but they were not a real high priority as some other work. One of the assistant power plant opperators (APPO's) tried to determine what had happened. Luckilly the protection technicican cam in soon and we were able to work it out. By this stage I told the CADET to get the logs for the power system (they show up any disturbansecs to the power system including timing diagrams and waveforms). We worked out that the new ash disposal system had caused the switchboard to trip. - But why? Everyone decided to go to the control room at this stage - which was packed. The manager was there as were a lot of extras hoping that their training on the power plant simulator was affected by the blackout they would play with the real thing. The auxillary computer was out of action due to the power failure - The main computer was running but not all information went to it. The computer was down cause the UPS had failed (40 kWatt UPS running off 240Volt DC). At this stage the station is still running at full load (650 MWatts). we then worked out what had happened. The ash disposal system was very new and placed onto above ground cable trays to get the wiring to it. And these are 3 * 2 inch 11KV cables for about a mile. It was supplied from the 1/2 and 3/4 end of the power station by seperate cables. The 1/2 end was supplying the current to the switchboard the people at the other end were wanting to work on. So they opened the circuit breaker to the switchboard - leaving the breaker from the 3/4 end able to be remotely closed at ANY time. Then they short circuited the incoming supply on the LIVE side. This caused the switchboard to trip itself to protect itself. Then they started work. They didn't hear the big bang which was produced when they closed the short. Back in the control room people mentioned hearding a bang, and us experts though the circuit board might have been damaged. To protect anyone doing work - all woork must be isolated including outgoing supplies with a visible break that much be impossible to electronically bypass - and all this work must be verified by someone before any work can be done, and each person going into the area needs to be signed in and out; with everyone out of the area before power can be applied. There were problems opening up this switchboard since we needed to isolate the circuit which had been short circuited as no one wanted to rely on them to correctly do anything.And then an alarm went off. One of the large motors (8 MWatt 47,000 KGram) tripped for an unknown reason. The reason would have appeared on the computer which was out of power. No this motor was very important (Known as an ID fan it sucked air out of the boiler so that power production went down to 400 MWatts meaning a large decrease in income (US$30 / MWatt hour means that about $10,000 is lost each hour that we are not operating). So there were now two problems we had to face. A) Could the motor be put back into service (it's cost was about $10 million and the spare was off site anyway) b) Could the switchboard be put back into service. The technician and I decided to get into the back of the 11 KV switchboard - against our safety rules - leaving the cadet in the control room incase any one decided to do anything stupid, and so our lack of presence would not be known so much. On opening the switchboard we found no problems which was very good - and we stayed away from the high voltage conductors all the same. Still we needed to officially test the switchboard - And it took 18 hours to get the board isolated so it could be tested and looked at (Finding nothing). The decision having seen inside the switchboard was to test it and put it back into service as soon as we could. With the motor we decided that the computer should be brought back on line first. When it came back we found that what had caused the problem with the motor was an oxygen sensor that had last power when it should not have. It told the computer that there was not enough oxygen in the boiler, so it told the fan to change the angle of the blades on it's fan so that it was not extracting the oxygen. This caused the motor to overheat and the protection took it out. We decided that since the motor was probably un-damaged, and that no more damage would be done re-starting it we may as well re-start it - which we did. That was ok. By this time it was 4:00 in the afternoon and time to go home. On the next day (Tuesday) after getting the switchboard back in service after testing (except for the circuit to the ash system) it was found that the cable to the ash system has shifted. The each of the 3 conductors were held together by clamps every 3 feet; and each cable was 2 inches in diameter. Between clamps the cables had pushed away from each other so that in the middle they were about 2 inches apart. This for the mile of the tranmission line. During the short, the cable moved, hitting the cable trays causing a big BANG. And you might think the story finished there - on the Thursday whilst I was in the weekly team leaders meeting telling the manager that things were back to normal there was another blackout - although this was less serious. In this casse a link on a current transformer was not closed correctly, causing the same switchboard on the 3/4 end of the station to trip. ------------------ Ok - To finish off - What goes into restoring power in a power station ... well power stations are an amasing place - and consume a lot of power. For instance the starting current required for the ID fan which failed in the above story is 80 MVa (80 MWatts) which is more than is used by many small cities. And it pulls this for 5 minutes. So if the entire eastern Australia looses power we start a Gas turbin from battery power; We then start an ID fan motor; then the smaller motors that are needed and then start up the boiler etc etc etc. Once the power station is operating there is a constant load of 40 MWatts for various equipment. The Gas turbine can only just supply one 650 MWatt unit. Once it is started other units can be started from it. But power stations take a long time to heat up. It might take 2-3 days if the water has got cold in the boiler. it is not uncommon to take hours to come on line. Once things are synchronised, you can only increase generation in 3-5 mwatts per minute; which takes a while to get to full power - and then when you get over 100 MWatts it is slower as you then turn off the oil and run on coal. And for a black start many switchboards need to be set up so that they are providing power to exactly the right place. This would take more than a day to design before you could even attempt to start any part of the station. These stations have 60,000 drawings and many more manuals; and are over 600 meters from one end to the other without cooling towers (In other words the building only). ----------------------- And finally the DC systems - 200,000 KGrams of lead-acid batteries are used. They are on the top floor of the electrcical services centre above the technichians area and computer room - and the floors leak ... Darryl Smith ------------------------------ From: Dennis Wong Subject: Re: Modems in Countries Other Than North America (US & Canada) Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 22:21:51 -0800 Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada Reply-To: a15283@mindlink.net Nils Andersson wrote: > In article , bkron@netcom.com (W > Halverson) writes: >> Fortunately, DTMF tones are universal. > At least they did something right. Just about everything else varies, for > example: > 1) Dial tones. Ever heard a british "humming" dial tone The dial tone in some PBXs (the Cheap ones) are even more bizarre, they sound like the Sprint calling card tone (call 1-800-877-8000 and you will see what I mean). Also, the dial tone in China (Mainland) also sounds like the sprint calling card tone. > 2) Ring tones. The ring every six seconds is the international standard, > but with many variations. The British "burr-burr" every 3.3 seconds or so > is the most bizarre example. (Singapore and maybe other ex-British > colonies [NOT US or Canada] use the the same burr-burr). Some Mitel PBXs also have the "burr-burr" tone. In Hong Kong the ringing tone has a frequency much like the North American ringing tone,EXCEPT it has a "burr-burr" pattern much like in the U.K. The ringing tones in Singapour, Australia, and India also ahve a "burr-burr" pattern, except it has a higher frequency than the tone in the U.K. In most European countries (except U.K.), Asia, South America, and Africa (except South Africa), the ringing tone sounds like a single 400Hz tone that goes 2 second on, and 4 second off. > 3) Busy tones. Fairly standard, I think. Comments anybody? The busy tones in Hong Kong are the same as in North America. In China, the busy tone sounds like the inturrupted Sprint Calling Card tone (0.5 seconds on, 0.5 seconds off etc.) ------------------------------ From: crs0794@inforamp.net (Geoffrey Welsh) Subject: Re: Tormenting Telemarketers! Date: 9 Dec 1996 07:13:03 GMT Organization: Izot's Swamp On 27 Oct 1996 11:14:01 -0500, in comp.dcom.telecom, glnfoote@freenet. columbus.oh.us (Glenn Foote) wrote: > The supply of replacement telemarketers will always exceed the demand. ... as will the supply of criminals and diseases. I refuse to condone any of the above, no matter how inevitable. > Telemarketers come from _all_ backgrounds ... including some which are > outright criminal in nature. Some (note: _some_ , not all, or even many!) > are capable of violence. Few, if any telemarketing companies do even a > routine background check. ... which is just one more reason why we should do everything we can to make telemarketing an unprofitable business. > The gathering (and selling) of lists containing your phone number will > increase. These lists include many things _in addition_ to your phone > number. Like your address(s)! ... which is just one more reason why we should do everything we can to make telemarketing an unprofitable business. > Telemarketing _is_ legal. If you don't like it you should work to change > that fact, but for the time being you will have to live with the issue. Drugs and many other things are illegal, yet they continue because they're profitable. Where in the crime-fighting priority list do you think telemarketing would fit, even if it were banned outright?!? There is only one way to make telemarketing go away: make it unprofitable. The 'nicest' way to do this is for everyone to stop buying anything pitched over the telephone, but there will always be some poor sucker. I think of myself as the balance to that person. Keep in mind that the caller always has the option of hanging up if/when they realize that I'm wasting their time; I'm not exactly keeping them prisoner and, more importantly, I intend to continue conducting myself as if calling the telephone in my house were like knocking on my door. > The people who are calling you _are_ within the law (usually). They may > not like the work they do (but it _is_ honest and legal work), no matter > what you think of it. They have an excuse, and a legitimate reason, for > their behavior. Unh-hunh. And my neighbour has an excuse and a legitimate reason for spreading strongly scented manure on his lawn weekly, but that doesn't mean I have to be nice to him in return. Geoffrey Welsh, MIS Co-ordinator, InSystems Technologies (gwelsh@insystems.com) At home: xenitec.on.ca!zswamp!geoff; Temporary: crs0794@inforamp.net ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? Date: 9 Dec 1996 02:33:25 -0500 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If they were actually competing, they > would run wire to each premise, install instruments, etc. But as a > matter of fact the 'competitors' have whined so much about it and > claimed Bell had such an unfair advantage that regulatory agencies > have required Bell to allow the 'competitors' to co-locate in the > same central office. In some instances, they do not even bother > with that formality; they just force Bell to sell to them wholesale > at a deep discount so they can resell to the public cheaper than > what Bell does ... In fairness, the Bell companies have pretty much written off large portions of their outside plant including local loops and much of their central office equipment. Pat, are you suggesting that new competitive access providers purchase lots of new equipoment while the RBOCs have written that off (which makes it a no-expense item to them)? Sure, in years past the RBOCs did buy all that, but they also collected tariffs based on that cost. Now they have pretty much agreed with their utility commissions in many jurisdictions that they become basically untied to equipment cost (recovered and unrecovered) and char ge "lower than historic" tariffs. But as depreciation costs and capital costs for that equipment don't show up for the RBOCs, they would for the CAPs. The solutions necessarily are political, and no one should be much surprised when politcal commissions make political decisions. > They cannot accept assignment > of a group of phone numbers which in their opinion 'look funny' > because this would also in their opinion be unfair, so Bell has to > open up all sorts of new area codes so the 'competitors' can grab > thousand upon thousands of phone numbers they will never manage > to assign to anyone in the next twenty years. That's a real issue and since the NANP doesn't seem like anyone will be expanding it anytime soon, (Hey, it did go from N0/1X-NNX to N0/1X-NXX to N0/1X-NXX, but what have they done lately?) maybe some method of charging CAPs and RBOCs for "their" reserved NXX-NXX bandwidth (who charges? who collects?) should be considered. Costs are a good way to control inventory. > They even want to force Bell to include all their listings in the > existing Bell directory because ... well, you guessed it.... Can't help wondering Donneley's wonder CEO, now AT&T's CEO-elect, might have some other ideas about that direction? > technology while the 'competitors' spend the next hundred years or so > trying to catch up. So no, you won't see new wires brought to your > premises in most instances. If it does happen, they will be Bell wires > leased by the competitor to serve you. Wire or coax or fiber would combine well with large data services, movies by phone, etc. But if just voice/data is wanted, wireless solutions would be more cost effficient and also avoid lots of easement costs. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 14:13:22 GMT Organization: Hotel California BBS Subject: Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? In his response to swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart)'s posting on how competing local telecom providers work, Pat wrote: > The only thing they have not demanded and been granted thus far is > that Bell be forced to revert to nineteenth century telephone > technology while the 'competitors' spend the next hundred years or so > trying to catch up. So no, you won't see new wires brought to your > premises in most instances. If it does happen, they will be Bell wires > leased by the competitor to serve you. You won't even see trunking and > co-location all that often either. Most of the time it will amount to > nothing more than accounting entries on the books of telco and the > competitor. A lot of the 'competitors' will be little more than > reincarnations of our good friends, the Alternate Operator Services. > The AOS' are essentially bottom-feeders; they serve no useful function > except to charge a lot more than the 'real operators' for their > services. PAT] I saw a story in {The Daily Oklahoman} (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) the other day that I didn't have time to read fully, but it appeared that AT&T (which is arguing with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the regulatory agency) on terms for being a reseller of Southwestern Bell Telephone services as a "competitor" is asking: That when SWBT sends out its employees to do work on their plant serving AT&T customers that they be required to eliminate all Southwestern Bell identification from vehicles, ID cars, uniforms (if worn) or anything else that has SWBT identification on it, because that might confuse customers (my understanding is that the "confusion" would consist of customers realizing their "AT&T" service was still provided by Southwestern Bell). Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com wes.leatherock@origins.bbs.uoknor.edu ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Dialing Software and Areacode Overlays Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 00:10:36 -0800 Organization: No unsolicited commercial e-mail! In article , Christopher Wolf wrote: > Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new > areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to > recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing > features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have > found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? Well, actually, first of all, 713/281 was re-done as a split instead of an overlay. The boundary roughly approximates the Loop 8 Beltway (Sam Houston Parkway/Tollway), if you're familiar with the Houston area. There are not yet any "general services" overlays in effect, although there are two in Maryland (301/240 and 410/443) next year, and one in Pennsylvania (412/724) in 1997. Area code 917 overlays 212 and 718 in New York City, but it is only for pagers and cellular, at least for the time being. As for how various software products handle the situation, that's a mixed bag. There are a number of complications to consider, based on various local dialing schemes. Take, as an example, a user located in Fort Worth, Texas (without considering yet the split planned for next spring). Some numbers in 817 are local and must be dialed as exactly the 7-digit local number. Other numbers in 817 are long distance (Waco, Wichita Falls, etc.) and must be dialed as 1-817-NXX-XXXX. Some numbers in 972 are local ("metro" numbers, and also other numbers if the Fort Worth user has "metro" service), but others are long distance. The local numbers must be dialed as 972-NXX-XXXX, but the long distance numbers must be dialed with the leading 1. If the Fort Worth user has metro service, then all numbers in 214 are local and must be dialed WITHOUT a leading 1; if she doesn't have metro service, all numbers in 214 are long distance and must be dialed WITH the leading 1. In each case, there is one and only one method of dialing a given number. The way that most software packages account for this is by requiring the user to adopt certain convenient fictions: (1) I have no "home" area code, but I dial "1" as a long distance prefix. (2) Local numbers in my area code are entered as only the 7-digit number. (3) Local numbers in other area codes are entered with the area code field blank, and the full ten-digit number as the local number; e.g., ( ) 972-NXX-XXXX (4) All long distance numbers are entered with area code and number; e.g., (972) NXX-XXXX. Another possibility, based on the example user above, is: (1) Define my "home" area code as 817, with a null "long distance prefix" (2) Define any long distance numbers in 817 as being in area code "1817" (3) Define any local numbers as being in 817, 972, 214, etc. (4) Define any long distance numbers in other area codes as being in area code 1972, 1214, 1202, 1770, 1619, etc. Of course, this all wreaks havoc if the user moves to a location with a different local calling area. The second scheme also causes problems if you are ever dialing 0+; however, it more easily accommodates 10-digit dialing in overlay situations -- just undefine the "home" area code. I do my best to remain completely ignorant of Windows 95 :-) but I'd guess that it takes the approaches above. The only alternative is to keep an up-to-date database of local prefixes in your dialing software, and I doubt anyone does that for a basic application such as you describe. (Of course, the REAL solution is for the telcos in backwards states like Texas to follow the standard, which requires that any call be *permitted* to be dialed as 1-NPA-NXX-XXXX, irrespective of area code or toll status. There is no cogent counterargument against this standard. It does not in any way dilute the protection of "1+ required on toll" in toll-alerting areas.) Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Replacing a Cell Phone Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 00:27:46 -0800 Organization: No unsolicited commercial e-mail! In article , arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens) wrote: > [question about upgrading or replacing a cellphone and trying to get the > ~ $300 subsidy again] I was for a while employed by British Rail's Railfreight Distribution** division (which I believe is by now fully privatised), in the office that dealt with mobile phones. In general, as a large corporate buyer rather than an individual, what we had to do was: - buy the phone at a modest discount from retail (reflecting our volume purchasing, but not any subsidy); - commit to a minimum one-year contract for service; - pay off the full value of the unused monthly service fees if the phone was disconnected for any reason, including theft, even if we immediately gave notice and replaced it with another cellphone from the same vendor; I found the third item particularly galling -- the vendor was not losing any revenue from our premature termination of the contract, so there was no justification for the penalty, which often exceeded 200 pounds. All the major vendors gave the same line, though. ** also known as Brutish Rail's Realfright Disturbition Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #655 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 10 23:50:15 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA18496; Tue, 10 Dec 1996 23:50:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 23:50:15 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612110450.XAA18496@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #656 TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 Dec 96 23:50:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 656 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues (Stanley Cline) Re: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues (Dave Harrison) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (Barry Margolius) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Gordon Hlavenka) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Jay R. Ashworth) Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Michael S. Craig) Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? (Rob Levandowski) Wanted: French Speaking Telecom Experts (Mark T. Smith) Blue Alarm on Fractional T1 (Yakov Simkin) Eastern Europe PSN Infrastructure, Equipment? (Douglas Merrill) Last Laugh! Virus Alert (Dr. R. Canaday) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: roamer1@RemoveThis.pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 02:00:31 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com On Sun, 08 Dec 1996 13:54:22 -0800, you wrote: > WebTV IS the ISP. To determine if it's a local call, you can go to > their home page and navigate until you find their local access > indicator input selection. In other words, it's a form where you put > in your phone number. WebTV then determines if you have a toll-free > local access number. However, I'd check your White Pages just to be > sure. In my case, both numbers they gave me were local. But I'm in It appears that WebTV is leasing POP space from other "wholesale" ISPs (such as UUNet, BBN Planet, PSINet, etc.) I visited the WebTV web page after reading the discussion here; for *Chattanooga* I was given two prefixes: (423) 756-xxxx (423) 624-xxxx Judging from the prefixes, I figure the 756 prefix is either UUNet or BBN Planet (AOLNet, actually), and the 624 prefix is Concentric. (I don't know of ANY ISPs other than Concentric that have POPs in the MCcallie CO.) This jibes with the mention of IDT (who uses other ISPs' POPs) and Concentric as "partners" with WebTV. > For monthly access, I believe they need to be in the $12 per month > range for unlimited access. However, I'm going to urge them to offer > an automatically tiered pricing. In other words, $3.95 per month for IMHO, $12 is horribly low for an ISP's price now; with that price the POPs would fill up and be PERPETUALLY busy! (AOL with its new unlimited pricing is already reporting logjams. If WebTV is in fact using the same POP as AOL, it would be a nightmare!) What I foresee coming with WebTV and similar technology: integration of *cable* internet access with the set-top box -- if WebTV grows in popularity, phone networks will *really* gum up and cable access will [or at least SHOULD] be the standard. Besides, hooking a box that connects to the TV to the phone line too is clunky. (Yeah, DSS does it for the PPV ordering, but...) (I can see it now -- Comcast [the cable company here] renting a cable-modem-equipped WebTV[-type device] just as they rent converter boxes for HBO, etc.) Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ From: Davew@cris.com (Dave Harrison) Subject: Re: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues Date: 10 Dec 1996 10:18:09 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services David Scott Lewis (thewebguy@acm.org) wrote: [snip] > local access numbers for WebTV. (The ISI think tank is about a > stone's throw away from my residence; they have the fastest pipes in > L.A., and through their MFS connection everyone seems to be hooked-in > locally.) [snip] Just a note about ISI, or "Los Nettos". They have a T3 to MCI, and a pipe to Mae-West, but, as of a month ago, weren't peering with anyone at the Mae. Los Nettos sells T3s, T1s, 56k, etc. and shared and dedicated ethernet connections to ISP's and anyone else who wants a connection. There are a LOT of ISP's in the same building as ISI ... they save on the leased line and they get cheap service from ISI ... while other access providers sell T3's for up to 27 grand a month, you can get one from ISI for $8,250/month. ISI's T1's are $920 a month, while elsewhere, they range from 1000 to almost 3 grand. We had a point-to-point esf T1 from a company that has a T3 to Los Nettos. Ciscos on each end. Basically, performance and throughput left a lot to be desired. In addition, there were frequent outages and routing problems that we were able to trace to the main router at Los Nettos. You get what ya pay for! ------------------------------ From: bfm@pobox.com (Barry Margolius) Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 16:02:03 GMT Organization: INTERNET AMERICA Because things seem to change so quickly in the Internet world, I would advise, even for a beginner, that they use an email redirection service like usa.net or pobox.com as their email address. Many beginners are getting help from more advanced friends. It's a shame that WebTV doesn't support this addressing option. Barry F Margolius, New York City bfm@pobox.com For PGP Key, finger bfm@panix.com ------------------------------ From: cgordon@worldnet.att.net Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 10 Dec 1996 06:31:09 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services On Sun, 08 Dec 1996 bfm@pobox.com said: > ... it is conceivable that an 800 call from a > payphone might not be free, but would still require no "quarter". > The COCOT could charge the 800 provider the $0.35 (or whatever), > and the 800 provider could pass it on to the customer. I don't have a problem with this. But I _do_ have a problem with payphones charging the _caller_ for 800 calls. The whole idea of 800 (and now 888) service is that the caller doesn't need to pay! There are several reasons for this: One, already mentioned, is convenience. If I want my daughter to be able to call home from the swimming pool, a personal 800 number means she doesn't need to carry a dime (excuse me -- a quarter (wait, it's 35 cents (no, it's 50 cents))) to call home. How about, let's say, a spousal abuse hotline? The old man just threw her out on the street (literally) and she has no money at all. Yeah, you could go with collect in this situation but 800 would be a lot easier for the clients, and in this case that's important. How about other hotlines; suicide prevention, for instance? Crimebusters? 800 has, since its inception, been sold to the general public as a "free call". Now the rules are being changed. As I said, I don't mind (much) having to pay extra for calls made to my 800 number from a payphone. But it's not right (whatever _that_ means) to make the caller pay for an 800 call. Ever. Gordon S. Hlavenka cgordon@worldnet.att.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are going to pass along the COCOT 'surcharge' to the owner of the 800 number, what do you do in cases where an 800 subscriber has a deal with his carrier to pay just X cents per minute? He says if the carrier is going to surcharge him for calls coming from COCOTS, *then do not pass those calls on to him*. I assume on my 800 number I am going to pay sixteen cents per minute. If you call me from a COCOT and I am not aware of this (origin of your call) should I then get a bill for an additional 35 cents or whatever the COCOT owner wants? What then prevents the COCOT owner from raising the 'surcharge' to a dollar or two dollars, as long as he no longer has to fight with his customer to get the money? Are 800 subscribers to now be at the mercy of COCOTS just as people who accept collect calls are at the mercy of the Alternate Operator Services and whatever outrageous charges per minute they demand? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 10 Dec 1996 20:20:37 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Nils Andersson (nilsphone@aol.com) wrote: > In article , >> dstott@juno.com (Dave J Stott) writes: >> That's real world. We're not poor, we're not COCOT dependent, we're >> not interested in market-based pricing vs government regulation. All >> we care about is that my teenager can call home from where ever she >> is, even if she forgets her quarter. > The previous poster makes a good argument that "free 800" is not just > an issue of money but of convenience/assessibility, as you do not > always carry the right coins. This is true, granted. > This does not, however, solve the underlying problems. I firmly > believe that payphone operators have a right to be reimbursed for any > service they provide (just like the rest of us). There are various > ways of doing this, having them being reimbusred by the owners of the > 800 numbers, collectively or selectively or any which way is fine with > me, on an owner-of-800 selects reimburesement or whatever. > What irks me is the entitlement philosophy of the various posters, > that they have a "right" to use somebody else's equipment without any > payment. The fact that the marginal cost is close to zero does not > matter. This is going to get messy; bear with me, folks. The problem, Nils, is that the COCOT operators voluntarily decided to get into the business, and now want to change the "rules" that that business has operated under for decades. Ok, admittedly, they may have a financially sound motivation for this desire, although I'd be _really_ surprised if there was a good justification for their not noticing for _13_ years ... The "rule" I'm discussing is the implied contract that Dave feels that he, and his daughter at swim practice, have with "the telephone company". For many, _many_ years, it has been possible to place a call to a "so-called" toll-free number, without needing to carry any money, and many, _many_ customers have taken advantage of this capability. COCOT operators got into that business knowing the "rules" -- and yes, I quote it because I strongly suspect that it's not written down anywhere, except possibly as a "standard" in some Bellcore document like "BOC Notes" -- and what we're all complaining about, though most of us hadn't examined it, is that those "rules" were for _our_ benefit. Also, this proposed change reduces the value of an 800 number to a fairly large class of potential INWATS customer, reducing potential revenue from those customers ... I'd be surprised if the big three don't come out against this for more than just the obvious reasons. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Junk Mail Will Be Billed For. The Suncoast Freenet *FLASH: Craig Shergold aw'better; call 800-215-1333* Tampa Bay, Florida http://members.aol.com/kyop/rhps.html +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Dec 96 09:57:47 -0400 From: Craig, Michael S. Organization: Maritime Tel & Tel Subject: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes FYI, in Canada, there has been a consistent, albeit far from universal, use of N11 codes for a variety of deemed-to-be *public* services: 211 Not used 311 Not used 411 Directory Assistance (mirrors 1-NXX-555-12-12 ... used to be local-only, now covers NPA) 511 Not used* *has been used for separation of TDD and TTY Relay Services 611 Telco Repair Service 711 Relay Service (primary number: see 511 above) 811 Telco Business Office (customer service) 911 Emergency This is far from universal in terms of everybody actually using the codes, but at least the various provincial telcos have not put contrary services in place at the end of these codes. In general, Cdn telcos have taken a cooperative / consensus approach to N11 usage and have not supported the commercialization of N11 services. This position does acknowledge the existing / reasonable use of 611 and 811 as *telco* access numbers. From the perspective of a smaller telco (1/2 million NAS), there has been a pretty consistent concern for the calling habits of CFAs (come from aways) who may have used a particular code in a previous service area: for example, ... 911 (and to a lesser extent the European 999 equivalent) was routed to the operator to ensure the customer got *an answer* in the absence of true 911-Emergency service. Michael Craig ------------------------------ From: macwhiz@phoebe.rochester.ican.net (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 22:46:54 -0500 Organization: MacWhiz Technologies In article , swb@mercury.campbell- mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart) wrote: > I was having a discussion with someone the other day about what's > involved in forming one of the new, competing local telephone companies > that the Telecom bill was supposed to have made legal. I'm not an > expert on telecommunications, and I was kind of curious how it was > actually supposed to work. > I can understand some of the infrastructure needs, but what about the > circuits that terminate in a residence or place of business? Will they > be granted access to the existing phone company exchanges and only have > to deal with trunking? Or will they have to run wire to each and every > customer in addition to the necessary trunking lines? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If they were actually competing, they > would run wire to each premise, install instruments, etc. But as a > matter of fact the 'competitors' have whined so much about it and > claimed Bell had such an unfair advantage that regulatory agencies > have required Bell to allow the 'competitors' to co-locate in the > same central office. ...] As I've mentioned in previous Digest postings :) I happen to live in Rochester, New York, which was (to my knowledge) the first city in the U.S. to have true local telephone competition. Rochester's infrastructure created a unique situation. The existing LEC, Rochester Telephone (the precursor to Frontier), is not a RBOC. RochTel successfully fought off Bell's advances into its territory over the years. Thus, RochTel was not subject to the same degree of restriction as the RBOCs. Seeing profit, RochTel approached the state about their idea for an "Open Market Plan": RochTel would create a new holding company, Frontier Corp., that would own Rochester Telephone (the existing regulated dialtone provider), another Rochester Telephone company (the owner of the physical plant), and various Frontier companies (competitive unregulated dialtone, cellular, etc.). Once divested in this manner, the phys-plant company could resell the use of the wires to other competitive telephone companies, as well as Frontier. The state approved the plan. AT&T quickly showed interest in this idea. Meanwhile, Greater Rochester Cablevision (a Time Warner company) was still recovering from a massive ice storm during the winter of 1991 (?). That storm had damaged over 60% of the company's coax cable plant. The company had already decided to turn tragedy into opportunity, and rewire the entire system as a hybrid coax-fiber system, making it one of the first such HFC cable systems in the nation. The system would offer a massive increase in the number of channels, and would enable two-way communications. GRC was able to interpret the Open Market Plan in a new way. The OMP required Rochester Telephone to provide transparent cross-connection to competitive cable companies' switches, and it required other important features such as number portability between providers. The expensive part of the OMP for any competitor was, of course, the use of RochTel's wiring -- and RochTel gave very little discount. As I recall, AT&T stopped marketing their competitive service because the "wholesale" rate they were given by RochTel amounted to about a 5% discount -- insufficient to be profitable. However, GRC now had its own cable plant that passed nearly every house in the Rochester metro area, and which would support two-way communications. They had already begun using the network to provide live remote newsfeeds -- they have a 24-hour local news channel, and they can plug into the fiber network at a remote site, and feed broadcast quality audio and video back to the headend studio. The idea was born: use the HFC cable network to provide telephone service. With the introduction of this service, GRC changed its local name to Time Warner Communications of Rochester. When one changes from RochTel to TWC telephone service, the Rochester Tel feed is disconnected at your demarc. TWC installs a box on the side of your house, next to the demarc. The standard RG-6 coax cable drop from their cable network attaches to this box. If you subscribe to TWC cable television, another RG-6 cable continues into the house. A standard RJ11 jack connects to the demarc. To all customer premises equipment, the change is transparent: standard POTS signalling is used. Because the OMP included number portability, your phone number does not change. Initially, this was achieved by RochTel programming their switches to forward changed lines to a new number on Time Warner's switch (which you would not actually use directly). Supposedly, a citywide database is now used to direct calls to the appropriate LEC. I would expect that other markets will begin to emulate the Rochester model. It's clear that HFC cable systems are the wave of the future, and they offer the best chance of making competitive telephony affordable to the corporations that will provide it. Time Warner announced today that they will be implementing digital cable television over HFC networks in 1997, using digital set-top boxes that receive upwards of 150 channels and provide Dolby AC-3 6-channel digital sound (as seen in Dolby Digital movie theaters), as well as something close to the WebTV units now available. Time Warner has also announced plans to provide Internet service over their HFC network, using cable-to-Ethernet routers with 10Mbps download speeds. I suspect that we may see the "traditional" phone companies investing in HFC networks as well. The HFC infrastructure is far more conducive to Internet service, because you can provide massive bandwidth that is shared, not switched, and is therefore used very efficiently. Only one television channel's bandwidth is needed for 10Mbps shared download/768Kbps upload. In Rochester, that bandwidth would be shared by no more than 400 households (per node). The limitations of the xDSL technologies make it clear that they are stopgap measures at best, as in a great many areas, they'll never work "well enough" due to old copper, long runs, etc. Robert Levandowski Internet Systems Analyst, ACC Long Distance Corp. macwhiz@phoebe.rochester.ican.net ------------------------------ From: Mark Smith Subject: Wanted: French Speaking Telecom Experts Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 13:43:39 -0800 Organization: The Walter Group Reply-To: msmith@waltergroup.com I would like to know if any TELECOM Digest readers have an interest in positions in an offshore network operation. Could you help me locate potentially interested parties? I have a "soon to be urgent" need for French speaking telecom professionals who might be interested in locating to Dakar, Senegal for a time. Pay and benefits are negotiable. Senegal's PSTN is a modern network with cellular, paging, and satellite communications infrastructure. Positions that will becoming open include: 1. Associate General Manager 2. Director of Marketing 3. Director of Sales 4. Director of Customer Service 5. A senior cellular person that would fit the role of product manager, someone with engineering and marketing experience in cellular. I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me in locating or suggesting where I may locate any interested parties. Mark T. Smith msmith@waltergroup.com Project Manager The Walter Group ------------------------------ From: simkin@eis.mot.com (Yakov Simkin) Subject: Blue Alarm on Fractional T1 Reply-To: simkin@eis.mot.com Organization: Motorola Inc. Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 01:08:11 GMT I am looking for standard that regulates Blue Alarm transfer on Fractional T1 connection. Some sources say that FT1 is served as a regular DS1 (DS1 rate) so Blue Alarm would appear as unframed all 1s. But I heard that some providers supply just selected DS0 with reduced rate. How do they signal Blue Alarm and what document describes it? What is the background of particular Tarif (15?) in this case? If two of my boxes are connected with FT1 over PSTN and provider's multiplexer lost signal from another client sharing T1 with me while my portion is OK will I get Blue alarm on another end? I would appreciate your advice. Regards, Yakov Simkin MOTOROLA, INC IL02 Rm. 4100A 1307 East Algonquin Rd. Schaumburg IL 60196 phone: 847-538-6959 FAX: 847-576-6150 pager:800-skypage, pin 5658605 simkin@ssd.comm.mot.com ------------------------------ From: Doug_Merrill@rand.org (Douglas Merrill) Subject: Eastern Europe PSN Infrastructure, Equipment? Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 00:57:47 GMT Organization: RAND Reply-To: Doug_Merrill@rand.org Hi to all, I've been asked to "get smart" about the telecommunications infrastructure in Eastern Europe. I'm assuming that means I should know the kinds of lines, etc., available; services; switch types; etc. Does anybody have a good source for data, descriptions, etc., of Eastern European telecommunications? Cheers, DCM ------------------------------ From: Dr. R. Canaday Subject: Last Laugh! Virus Alert Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 13:19:51 -0500 Pat, I received this from a friend. Ron From: Tony Tarinelli[SMTP:ttarinelli@reedref.com] Sent: Friday, December 06, 1996 10:30 To: (then follows a humongous list with hundreds of names; none of these fools have ever learned how to use the bcc when sending out their dire warnings. PAT) Cc: selsheri@reedref.com Subject: Virus Alert TO: All Internet Users 12/4/96 FROM: Network Services RE: INTERNET E-MAIL VIRUS SUBJECT "FREE MONEY" The National Computer Security Assoc. has issued the following warning to all Internet users: There is a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. If you receive an e-mail message with the subject line "Free Money", DO NOT read the message. DELETE it immediately. ----------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh wow! Hey virus or not, most people I know automatically delete 'Free Money' and 'Make Money Fast' messages unread anyway. Wouldn't it be a hoot if this 'virus warning' was just intended to cloud the issue a little with the continuing problem of email spam ... so the next bunch of Free/Easy/Fast Money spammers with their chain letters, etc find them all deleted by a millions of frightened netters thinking a virus has infested their computer. I must say attacking the junk emailers by claiming their mail has a virus embedded in it is a new twist; and sort of funny also! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #656 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 12 00:26:48 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA10815; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:26:48 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:26:48 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612120526.AAA10815@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #657 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Dec 96 00:26:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 657 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (H. Gorman) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (John Levine) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Randy Miller) Re: The Opposition Point of View: My Response (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hillary@netaxs.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 17:20:36 -0500 Organization: Packet Shredders Anonymous In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to article forwarded by monty@roscom.COM: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I in general support the CDA although > I see some problems with the way it is written and wish that instead [snip] > I hope this does not turn out to be a situation where 'a battle is > won but the war was lost'. I see some real problems with CDA as it > is written, but I can sympathize with the views expressed by its > proponents as well, and frankly, the intellectual dishonesty (and > I will suggest) fraud perpetrated on the Court by the opponents of > CDA in Philadelphia almost has me to the point I hope CDA is ruled > to be constitutional. Honestly, I wish Monty Solomon and others > would quit sending me this junk-email ... and that is what it is. > All it does is make me more angry each time I read it. PAT] Wow. I'm shocked. I echo your final comment -- but about what YOU have to say! It makes me more angry each time I read it! In all seriousness, no flames, I'm a civil type of person, I try to be friendly - could you please advise me as to how *exactly* you believe the ACLU demonstrated "intellectual dishonesty" or "fraud"? And exactly what technical solution you have to offer, with regard to how we [we=ISP admins] are supposed to monitor everything flowing through our network for content? I would absolutely *love* to hear of a software solution which would allow monitoring for content which would a) work, b) not require us to hire 10 new people c) not require us to dedicate several entire machines simply to do the work of checking through the MASSIVE amounts of traffic that flow through our several T3s on a daily basis. We're not a huge company - 3000 or so dialup users - but we have something like 20 or so downstream ISPs who buy T1s from us ... we'd have to check everything THEIR users came up with also ... insanity, in my mind. Please. Enlighten me. I'm dying to hear how this could work. So far, I haven't heard one solution that sounded feasible for a small company with only about ten employees, or that would actually WORK even 90% of the time without also blocking traffic related to medical or psychological/psychosocial issues. Thanks!!! hillary gorman http://www.hillary.net info@hillary.net "to err is human; to moo, bovine." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my response at the end of this thread in this current issue. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Dec 96 19:21:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > What was really insulting in the earlier litigation regards CDA was > how the ACLU instructed their witnesses to just get up in court and > lie about the technical aspects of the net, making all those outlandish > claims about the technical difficulties involved in affording some > modicum of policing. Uh, could you refresh our memory about those lies? I recall an ill-prepared government witness with an impractical proposal to tag each packet with a "decency bit". I have a small daughter, and I certainly have no interest subjecting her to pictures of people copulating with farm animals or whatever this week's scary example is, but the CDA is the wrong answer to the wrong question. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'll also respond to you shortly. PAT] ------------------------------ From: miller@compex.com (Randy Miller) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 17:31:12 GMT Organization: Erol's Internet Services On Sat, 7 Dec 1996 03:18:51 -0500, our esteemed Moderator wrote: > There *are* technical solutions to the problems FRC sees with the net, > and there are relatively easy ways to implement some changes which > ought to appease FRC while at the same time posing little or no addi- > tional burden on the net. We do have to co-exist with the rest of the > world you know. Other people have a right to use the net also, you > know. That may come as a complete surprise to the folks at the ACLU > and all the librarians, but other users of the net actually have the > right to enjoy the web and not have to worry about their kids getting > into territories they should stay out of. This is one time I, as a librarian, have to disagree with you, Pat. Granted, I'd rather not put something like Madonna's Sex or Lady Chatterly's Lover on the shelf (After working as a DoD contractor for almost 4 years, CYA and CYOFA are my motto.) However, from my experience (since I normally don't agree with the femiNazis (to borrow from Rush Limbaugh, who I also loathe)), I make two conclusions: 1. We in the library profession have always had the attitude of "we're doing this because it's for your own good!" Most of the furor that gets created is because the librarians do not take into consideration the clientele they are serving. For example, I lived in Marengo, IL for almost four years. After being around Marge Smith at the district library for that period of time, I've come to the conclusion that what they teach us in graduate school (which is another farce in itself), is mostly irrelevant when it comes to serving the needs of the community. The biggest mistake we make, as a profession, is NOT doing any kind of (perish the thought, a big business concept) market research. What passes for normal in New York City, doesn't necesssarily pass for normal in Paradise, PA. Too many of us library professionals (myself included) have gotten into the habit lumping obscene and controversial together. As my old clarinet teacher said, "what's music to one person, is noise to another." 2. I do agree with you that there are others that use the net. However, I do believe that the parents should control what their children see. The big problem is that most parents either 1) have massive technophobia (like my mother, who even refuses to have a touch tone phone in the house, even though GTE no longer has rotary service in her area. I still get the major bitchout job about having a PC in the house, for better or worse. I won't even bother trying to show her the web, since she has completely bought the mass media line of porno on the web. Besides, to her, anything she doesn't understand is stupidity, and is to be trashed on sight.), or 2) they don't give a damn what the kids are up to. Many are the times I told the stories here of the private music studio I used to run. Most of the students I considered of "not being worthy of learning an instrument" tended to come from homes where the prevailing attitude was "gimme my beer, my TV, and screw everything else." In short, the net should be free from this garbage they call the CDA. Unfortunately, very few parents want to take responsibility for their children, from my experience. Remember, as the old saying goes, with freedom, comes responsibility, which I find very few people taking on nowadays. Randy miller@compex.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for a great reply. What you say makes a great deal of sense. I'll comment more in the next message to follow. PAT] ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subjedt: The Opposition Point of View: My Response Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 00:15:00 EST Thanks to one and all who wrote rebuttals on this topic. The three above are typical of them all. To start my response, I think I should make a few of my beliefs clear: 1) Indeed, the first and primary responsibility falls on parents. The parents should take control. Many do, some do not. Therefore, in our society we pass certain laws pertaining to the protection of children, not leaving any option available to parents. We insist that children go to school. Some school, any school, but they have to attend until a certain age. We assume most parents would feel the same way, but nonetheless we have it as a law. The fact that some will be absent quite often ('play hookey') and the fact that some will be disruptive or learn little or nothing in the process does not deter us from formally stating the public policy of our society by codifying our requirements that children be in school. We hope that they become educated as a result. A good policy I think. We have laws against minors having the ability to purchase or be served alcoholic beverages. Again, we assume most parents would feel the same way, but nonetheless, we have it as a law. The fact that some minors will (1) acquire false identification to use in deceiving a merchant; (2) visit merchants willing to violate the law; (3) engage the services of an older adult willing to make the purchase for them; (4) have parents who do not care and allow their children to drink does not deter us from stating the public policy of our society by passing a law saying 'minors may not purchase or drink alcoholic beverages.' Now, do teenage boys like to drink beer they convinced their older buddies to buy for them? Do they get drunk, and as a result get into automobile accidents, etc? Of course. But we still have the law; we assume most parents help enforce the law by supervising their children as best they can, etc. I think it is a good policy that we as a society make the statement we do about minors and alcohol. Ditto with cigarettes ... we have parental disapproval (in many cases but certainly not all) ... we have laws against it which were passed as a reflection of our beliefs as a society. Do kids smoke? Do they buy cigarettes with the help and connivance of merchants who wink at the law about checking identification for age? Do they go home and hide their cigarettes from their mother? But we still put a law out there which we say is our goal and desire as a society. We do not allow minors to patronize 'adult' places of business such as 'adult' book stores. For the uninitiated, those are places where one seldom buys books (although you can) but rather one usually gives the cashier a few dollars in exchange for tokens to use for admission to little private stalls where one can sit and view sex movies at the rate of a minute or so per token. Whatever else occurs in the privacy of the little stall is, I suppose, the business of the occupant, although some communities like Chicago even have a few ordinances on the books governing one's behavior while seated therein, and the ordinances are plainly posted inside each stall: "You will not engage in X, Y or Z while in this booth. Offenders subject to fine." Do teenage guys get 'dirty books' to look at? Of course. Do they hide them from their mother? Of course. We assume parents are doing what they can (perhaps a broad assumption) but we still express our society's goals by codifying them, or making them into laws. No amount of laws or parental guidance has ever prevented a child from getting into trouble. No one has ever claimed that a law will do it all, or that parents are doing nothing to help. 2) Second belief of mine: in the current context, no single act by any ISP or network is going to cure the problems with the net as seen by groups like FRC. No group of actions or concerted effort by ISPs and networks is ever going to catch every single instance of malfeasance. All that will ever happen -- assuming a community effort by netters to work along with the rest of the world -- is that a large number of stumbling blocks will make it **much more difficult** for minors to be *routinely exposed* to those things on the net which FRC, some (perhaps most) parents, and society in general believes are not good for children to see/read. Will teenagers who want to flaunt the rules find ways to do so? Of course they will. I am assuming however just as there are a large number of kids who do not drink/smoke because it is against the law for them to do so, there will be a large number who obey a law about what they are and are not permitted to access on the net. Parents who do try to govern their children will be encouraged by the support given by society and parents who are marginal in this way may become somewhat more concerned and active also. 3) My third belief: Yes, CDA was not well written. They should have never touched on 'indecency' and instead used the term 'obscenity' since the latter is already defined and has no constitutional protection. As many have pointed out, 'indecent' leaves things pretty wide open. I'll grant you that the Supreme Court has no business writing the laws; their job is merely to interpret the laws already written and rule on them. ------------------- Now with that in mind, let us continue. Remember, none of these things *by themselves* will cure anything. All of them put together will not totally eliminate the problems the FRC wants to cure. All of them put together will however be of much help. Hillary wants to know what is a poor sysadmin to do? She suggests hiring ten additional people to 'read everything' in the news every day. No, not at all ... instead, try the appproach suggested by mcs.net here in Chicago, which they are publicizing widely in their advertising: they do not carry newsgroups which *on their face* are intended as ways to exploit children; ie the newsgroups which by their title suggest advocacy of pedophilia. The recent advertisement by mcs.net lists about a dozen newsgroups. I suppose it would take Hillary thirty seconds to call up an editor and cut a few lines out of the system-wide .newsrc file. What you are saying is your site does not receive those groups and does not pass them along. There is no censorship involved; the computer is private property, and if your downstream wants those groups they are always free to go get them somewhere else. And don't worry, they'll still be around; there will always be sites willing to carry them. As mcs.net pointed out in its advertisement, a survey of a few dozen ISPs found that about half said they never 'censor' newsgroups in any way, shape or form. But you say, not at this site. Go elsewhere. That is the stance mcs.net has adopted. Common rebuttal: if deprived of mass circulation of their newsgroup, 'those people' will start posting in other groups. Okay, so what? That's not your problem. Let them deal with the flame war sure to result when they post in some totally unrelated group. Kids don't have to go in taverns -- where they are forbidden by law to be -- in order to find some beer to drink. They don't have to go to an adult bookstore in order to find a 'friendly' adult willing to explain the facts of life to them. But that is not the problem of the tavern owner or the bookstore manager who work to keep those situations from occuring *on their own premises, in situations under their direct control*. Another rebuttal: new groups will start all the time. We will have to examine every new newsgroup that is started. As 'newgroup' control messages come along, either they would appear to be acceptable or they would appear to not be acceptable. Either you honor the 'newgroup' message or you do not honor it. Again, not a major undertaking. You do not literally read every single message in every single group any more than you need to go into a tavern to see if they sell ginger ale or potato chips as well as booze. We just say on its face, we do not want to distribute this to an unregulated, uncontrolled subscriber base which includes children. -------------------- Am I the only person who knows the purpose of, and how to use .http-access files in connection with a web page? The presence of such a file in a directory causes various things to happen: depending on what you put in the file, you can deny access to a given user and/or site; you can deny access to all but a select few users/sites, etc. So Hillary and other sysadmins, why not teach your web customers how to install and use .http-access files as a way to control who gets to see their page? For instance, suppose you denied access to '@u18.' wildcard ... meaning any site that had '.u18' as part of its name was denied viewing. Now suppose on the flip side of the coin, you (if you even have the possibility of underage subscribers) take one of your machines and give it -- in addition to its regular name -- an *alias* of 'u18', and anytime that machine makes any outbound connection anywhere on the net it introduces itself as 'u18.the.rest.of.its.name' ... actually I think you would name the machine 'u18' and its 'alias' would be the regular name it has had all along, so that your users need not know anything at all about the 'u18' part ... Now, starting with your next billing cycle, and continuing over a period of several months with *existing users* and from the start with *new users* you require your user to certify to the following: "I am of legal majority age in the state in which I reside". In other words, the person is 18 years of age or older. With new users, you might decide to have them submit a photocopy of a driver's license or birth certificate. With existing users, do something; do not inconvenience your admins and do not unduly annoy your users. Just phase them in over a period of time. Those who do not certify or offer proof, etc get placed on the 'u18' machine. Those who do get placed elsewhere. Now we no longer have to worry about 'decency bits' or whatever they called them. You decide which of the web pages on your site should be restricted in the same way you decide which newsgroups will not be carried: a cursory glance through the page at the time it is installed. If it appears *on its face* to have adult content and appeal to an adult audience you require that user to implement an .http-access file. Or maybe you default all web pages at your site in that way and only back them out into a general category on specific request of the web page owner. I hear the objections rolling in already: (1) the web page owners will cheat and not deny access to u18. Of course some will. There are merchants who sell cigarettes to minors knowing good and well the kid is not old enough. There are bartenders who do not bother to check identification. Sometimes they get caught, sometimes not. That's not your problem. You have set the rules for your site; you reserve the right to audit your users and drop those who by their activities jeopardize your site. Hey ... many a sysadmin has dropped a user for spamming and junk-emailing; many times the admin found out about it when a million netters wrote to tell him. It was not called 'censorship' by anyone except the offensive user. Why not try dropping those users who refuse to categorize themselves as 'adult' when such is the case? ***Note I did not say drop those who operate adult web pages; I said drop those who refuse to lock out minors from viewing adult material or who lie to you (the admin) and claim they are not when you find out they are, etc***. Is the goodwill of one user worth having the authorities come down on you and possibly hassle your entire site? I think not. (2) not only will the web page owners cheat, the kids will cheat. See, says Hillary, (and don't take it personally, I am using her as a generic example), I told you there was nothing we could do about it! ... Well gosh then let's drop all the liquor licensing laws and the laws about being of a certain age to smoke or drive a car or drop out of school ... after all, clever, mischevious children will always find work arounds ... a) they'll sign up with false identification ... sure, and kids never use false id to buy beer do they? b) they are too clever! They'll find ways to hack right into the stuff they want to see. Yep, that's right, and its not your problem as long as you took reasonable efforts to prevent it. Some assumptions are being made by me here. One is that *most kids* obey the law. Another is that *most parents* want to see their kids obey the law and will aprreciate having the law to 'back them up' in their own governance of their children. A few parents won't care, and a few kids will cheat. But parents who don't care has never stopped dedicated school teachers from trying to do their best to educate kids, and it should not stop a dedicated sysadmin who generally accepts the community's policy that children should not be exposed to certain things before a certain age, etc. You cannot help what parents do, and you cannot help what kids may do. All you can be responsible for is having your own technical safeguards in place in cooperation with other sites and doing what you can to police the conduct of your own users and visitors to your site. And you see, I've a feeling that *good faith* will go a long way toward creating some good will between the net and groups like FRC. -------------------- Speaking of good faith and good will among people I believe very strongly that none whatsoever has been shown by netters in this matter. At least not by those who have self-appointed themselves as our leaders. Remember Senator Exxon? Way back then ... more than two years ago or so, when all this hullabaloo was first coming up ... the net's response was to protest, to demonstrate, to throw tantrums, to mail bomb everyone involved. We were told to turn our web pages black, all sorts of responses and schemes were devised to 'get even' ... not once did anyone say let's go over and talk to the man and see what it is exactly he wants and try to find some way to appease those people. Why did no one go to Exxon (again, I am using him as a generic example) and say something like this ... "Look, technically what you are asking is very difficult; almost impossible to do while still keeping some semblance of the net as it has always operated. But senator, a lot of us do agree with your basic premise that young kids are getting exposed to a lot of stuff on the net which isn't that wholesome or good for them. None of us who have been around for years on the net ever really concieved of the way it would grow and the kinds of things that would get transmitted over it. None of the protections you are talking about now were ever built into the Internet, and to try and retrofit it now would be very difficult. As you may have heard senator, originally we on the net all operated with trust and a lot of good will; sadly that's been gone from the net for a long time now. "What we can do senator is this: we can pretty easily phase in some of the protections you are looking for. Over a period of two to three years, we should be able to identify parts of the net which are adult in nature and pretty well segregate it from view by young children. There are ways to restrict sites on the net from contacting other sites on the net and instead of trying to identify the adult sites -- because we get into a lot of First Amendment hassles -- we will probably begin moving the kids onto machines which are restricted in the contacts they can establish. We'll ask the adult sites to deny access to machines used by kids, and there will be a lot of peer pressure from within the net commmunity to obtain cooperation. Senator, suppose we use the term 'obscenity' instead of 'indecency' as the cut-off point. It has already been defined, it has no First Amendment protection and it will make this job easier for all of us. You are really trying to mostly target child pornography, aren't you senator? A lot of the people on the net would strongly agree with you on that point. If we could take aim at specific areas that you feel need review instead of just using the broad and poorly-defined term 'indecency' it will wind up saving us a lot of litigation and debate and red-herrings being tossed into the pot as we go along. Now senator, the Unix gurus on the net and the software experts with Netscape and things like that would probably take this seriously and start putting together something that would have the effect of eliminating about 85-90 percent of the problems you perceive *as long as everyone played by the rules*, but there are some things the net can never control. We need the parents to take an active part in this. Computers need to be located in family rooms where the entire family can participate rather than in a child's bedroom where he can sneak into places on the net where he should not be after everyone else in the family is asleep. Parents need to know about the friends their children are making on the net the same as they need to know about adults who have allowed their children to visit their homes. You see senator, the net is getting pretty realistic these days. Some call it a virtual reality. Some say the net is getting to be as dangerous as the rest of the world is in realtime, but a lot of us think the net is just as good and honest and decent as the majority of the population. Some long time, very well respected netters would probably begin promoting a system of 'virtual licensing' for web pages and news groups similar to the sale of alcohol and cigarettes and dirty books in the real world -- where kids are not allowed to be part of it -- as long as they had your word that you would work on the parents. There has to be voluntary cooperation by the kids you know; the best software in the world can put up obstacle courses the same way the police in real life can deter crime to a point; but the citizens have to agree to voluntarily obey. And one other thing senator. A lot of the 'cogs in the wheel' of the net, people like the ISPs, the sysadmins at various sites, the people who assist users at the local level; it will be a lot easier to get their cooperation in this reform of the net -- which many of them agree is needed -- provided they know for sure that enforcement of any laws passed is directed to the end users on both sides; that is the kids at their computer who violate a law pertaining to what they can and cannot access as well as the users who wilfully allow the kids to access the sort of information so many of your constituents have found objectionable. You don't go after the phone company because two users on either end of the wire talk dirty to each other. Well senator, it is a lot the same with ISPs. No, they are not legally common carriers, but for all intents and purposes they are. It really is hard for them to police everything passing through in a day's time. A lot of them will be glad to work along with the rest of the net community on what we are proposing here as long as they are assured they personally are immune to prosecution on stuff passing through their site. They are very defensive right now senator, because they think you are going to 'get personal' with them. So senator, if we put up some obstacle courses making it harder for kids to see stuff that's obscene, can we depend on you to help us publicize it? Can we depend on you to write the law so the ISPs and system admins don't get stuck in the middle everytime some kid figures out a loophole or some crafty pedophile manages to hurt some child? And senator, we will even let you take the the credit for it all. ... everyone will realize that it was through your expert leadership that America's children are a lot safer than they were before. Allow two to three years for the project to be finished senator. There is some software to be written and installed, and a re-alignment of users from one machine to another. In the meantime, maybe your staff could get started on the parents and the kids; get them primed and prepped and understanding how important it is that they follow the new law, etc. " ============================= So instead of the net taking control of this situation from the very beginning when the handwriting was seen on the wall, instead we blew it. Some would say that we catch more flies with honey than we do with vinegar. Others would say that you do not 'fight fire with fire', you fight fire with a fire extinquisher ... And *we* (yes I mean we, the net) could have participated in drafting a law which would have been very favorable to us, or indeed maybe no law would have been written at all. Now instead we have to hope for the best with the developments at hand. If they win, we lose; if we win, we still lose. Because if we win, then they start on the next issue, which I believe will be copyright. This is what I mean by the intellectual dishonesty of the people who led this from the beginning. They knew all they were doing was just screwing up the net ... with their bogus arguments and theories. Very few of you have any business talking about censorship for the same reason I have little business talking about it; I do not own the computer upon which this is published and very few of you have any property rights where the network or your local site is concerned. You are there with the blessings of your corporate employer who will let you talk smart and sassy until he finally gets tired of it and then fires you. Same here ... let's not kid around with censorship. It is true the government witness was just terrible. Very poorly informed, etc. But then instead of presenting an *honest* picture of the net, *our side* (well they did not represent me!) presents this total fabrication of how things work with the end result being that a semi-retired prissy old-maid librarian who helps some child log on to the net only to have the child do a search on Alta Vista and turn up some string with a four letter combination in the middle somewhere considered 'indecent' gets sentenced to life in prison. All the librarians are now frantic. So the soloists of the American Civil Liberties Union assisted by the choir of the American Library Association and others perform this tragic opera for the court. What the judges know about computers could be written on the head of a pin. Being respectful of the First Amendment, they go out of their way to avoid violating it. To John Levine, I agree the way it is written is not very good. So damned if the court approves it and damned if they don't. You are so good at teaching things to Dummies (your book was great by the way), how come you did not get Exxon and his buddies straightened out a couple years ago? Why didn't you counter him; shall we say match his bid and raise it? To Hillary, all I can say is we went through this before, you and I. Get in your system .newsrc file today and go snip-snip here and snip-snip there. Then forget about it. Just do that little bit to help, okay? Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #657 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 12 01:45:12 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA16110; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 01:45:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 01:45:12 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612120645.BAA16110@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #658 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Dec 96 01:45:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 658 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays (trumanjs@primenet.com) Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays (Nils Andersson) Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays (Toby Nixon) Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays (Christopher W. Boone) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (was Re: Further Notes on 555) (Clive Feather) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jeff Becklehimer) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jack Decker) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Craig Macbride) WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (Lauren Weinstein) 900 Psychic lines (Frederick Woodruff) Job Opportunity - HP OpenView Specialist (Virginia) (Zon Hsieh) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Greg Stahl) Telecom-Related Chuckles (Stan Schwartz) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: trumanjs@primenet.com Subject: Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Date: 10 Dec 1996 08:36:03 -0700 Organization: Primenet Services for the Internet When programming the Win 95 dialer leave the area code field blank and under telephone number enter 281-XXX-XXXX. As far as I know Atlanta, Dallas and Houston have to use this scheme if they are in one area code and the ISP dialup is in another. ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Date: 9 Dec 1996 20:26:16 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Christopher Wolf writes: > Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new > areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to > recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing > features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have > found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? I do not know how the dialler in Win95 works, but there are several generic solutions. 1) Program all numbers with area codes, including local. Tell your dialler to always add the one. (You will have problems with international) 2) Program all numbers with 1+ac+number. Tell your dialler never to include a one. (It probably won't anyway, the number will not look as if it started with an area code). NOTE: Since Jan 95, all areas are "supposed to" accept 1+own area code + number, but this is not universally implemented. Example: Carson City to Reno, same ac will not accept 1-702-xxx-xxxx. By the way, with the advent of comm equipment being carried around the world, there is an immediate need for allowing "same country country code" also. GSM already allows this, you can program your phone with e.g. +1-818-555 1212 and it will dial that number from any country. (The GSM switch edits this string as necessary before pumping it out to the landline network.) Obviously, some of the smarts can be put in the dialler software, but wouldn't it be nice to merely edit in the international access code for the country you are in (should be standardized to 00 BTW, but until that is done, it is relatively painless to reprogram your dialler to "current international prefix"). Then you enter all your numbers as cc+ac+number in your database. Thus, in the NANP, 011-1-ac-number should be made to work!). I obviosly realize that the software can be jimmied, e.g. by entering a null international prefix, the cc =1 will be taken as initial 1, and the call will actually work! HInts to programmers of diallers etc. To summarize: To Bellcore and telcos: Make 011-1-ac-number work. To dialler software programmers: Consider the international case, and that the caller may move from one country to the next! Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: Toby Nixon Subject: Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 12:45:44 -0800 In TELECOM Digest V16 #654, Christopher Wolf asked: > Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new > areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to > recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing > features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have > found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? Microsoft is working on a fix for this that will ship in future upgrades to Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. In the meantime, the best workaround is to enter your area code in the Area Code field, and the entire 10-digit local number into the "Phone Number" field of your application, such as Dial-up Networking, like this (assuming you're in 713 and dialing 281-555-1234 as a local call): Country Code: United States of America Area Code: 713 Phone Number: 2815551234 The Telephony part of Windows 95 (and Windows NT 4.0) will match the area code to the area code you entered in Dialing Properties, and treat the call as a local call, omitting the "1" prefix for long distance calls. the length of the local number is not checked, so the result will be that all ten digits get dialed. The main disadvantage of this workaround is that it defeats the "location independence" that Dialing Properties is intended to provide. If this was a notebook PC, you took it to New York, and set you dialing properties so the area code was 212, it would dial "1-713-2815551234", which obviously wouldn't work. You would need to have TWO connection settings, one for use in 713, and one for use everywhere else (including 281!). Like I said, it's a workaround, not a solution. It doesn't hurt you on desktop systems, though. The solution we're working on will allow you to specify, on a location-by-location basis, how to dial calls to particular NPA-NXX pairs (as 7 digits [the default if the NPA is the same as the current location], 10 digits, or 11 digits [the default if the NPA is different]). It won't be easy to configure, but, unfortunately, that's the penalty we pay for the LECs and PUCs being unable to agree on a permissive 11-digit dialing plan (which 11 states already have). Toby Nixon, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation ------------------------------ From: Christopher W. Boone Subject: Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 07:17:13 -0800 Organization: ABC Radio Network Engineering - Dallas Christopher Wolf wrote: > Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new > areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to > recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing > features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have > found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? Houston is NOT an overlay ... it became a split as of November 2, 1996. The 713 NPA is completely inside the Beltway and the 281 NPA is outside and covers the subburbs of Metro Houston But in an overlay, you must dial ten digits ... and have ALL the local prefixes to your exchange entered if you dont wish to dial a 1+. Chris ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 1996 22:08:59 +0000 From: Clive D.W. Feather Reply-To: clive@demon.net Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (was Re: Further Notes on Use of 555) Organization: Clive's laptop (part of Demon Internet Ltd.) In article , "Mark J. Cuccia" writes: ... an awful lot, most of which I agree with. However, he also writes: > Over the past few years, we've seen International PAY-per-call scams, some > in the NANP Caribbean, and some to numbers (but not necessarily locations) > outside of the NANP. I don't see how you can class these as scams. With the +1 809 and non- NANP numbers, you pay *exactly* the same as a call to a "genuine" number in that area. Provided it's clearly presented as an international call the way a genuine call would be presented, what's the problem? Clive D.W. Feather | Associate Director | Director Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd. Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | | Written on my laptop - please reply to the Reply-To address ------------------------------ From: beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 9 Dec 1996 05:26:22 GMT Organization: slidell.com inc, Slidell Louisiana Alan Bishop (a@corp.webtv.net) wrote: > - we transcode images and other media types. For example, image > creators often make their images too detailed or store them in > a format that doesn't compress as well as it should. We fix that > in the proxy before transmitting them over the slow link to the user. > It also means that if we want to support a media type, we don't > need a new client release: we just add it in the server and convert > it to an existing one. Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? Jeff Becklehimer slidell.com, inc. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 12:21:59 -0500 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Dave Sieg wrote: > I had an interesting phone call from a guy who had bought one of the > "WebTV" boxes. It sits on the top of the TV and hooks to a phone > line, allowing "unlimited Internet Access" for only $19.95/month". > This guy had MS and was bedridden, so this seemed perfect for him. He > paid $450 for the box and wireless keyboard, hooked it up, and started > surfing the web. Now he has discovered that the box is making long > distance calls at 10-15 cents/minute! He had already run up a > sizeable phone bill! After reading Dave's article, I went to WebTV's "WebTV Service Phone Book" page at http://www.webtv.net/HTML/home.retail.html At this site you supposedly can find out if a local access number is available for a given exchange. But they are pretty ambiguous about whether you will actually be making a local or toll call. For example, I typed in 616-842-0000 as a number to check, and it came back with this: "Calling from 616-842-0000, WebTV has one local and one toll number. "Because you live in an area with both local and toll numbers, WebTV may sometimes be a toll call. However, the WebTV box will make an effort to always call the local number, minimizing your phone bill!" BUT - this page seems to tell you what you want to hear. If you type in 616-842-xxxx, it tells you it has a local number in the 842 exchange. If you use 616-846 instead, it says the local number is in 616-846! Substitute the 847 prefix, and it says the access number's in 847, and using 844 says the local number's in 844. Unless they have local access lines in all four of the Grand Haven, Michigan exchanges (which I would think is rather unlikely), something is seriously wrong here. What's even more fun is that if I put in an exchange in the Muskegon, Michigan local calling area, it tells me that there is a local number (in 616-727, which probably really is a local access number) but there is also a toll number in the 414-449 exchange -- so Web TV users in Muskegon might unwittingly be making calls across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin (I do have to give WebTV credit for figuring out that a call to Wisconsin would be less expensive than a call to Grand Rapids, which appears to be the next closest in-state access point, but they aren't always that smart -- callers from the Holland, Michigan area are sent to the Grand Rapids number as the toll access point, even though Wisconsin would in most cases be a less expensive call for folks in that area)! What appears to be happening (judging from some very limited testing) is that in some areas you are always told that there is a local access number and a toll access number. This is not universally true (for example, upon entering 218-448-xxxx it admits that there is no local access number and offers no alternatives), but in some cases where it does claim that local access is available the claim seems suspicious because the "local access number" always has the same exchange prefix as the caller's number (and they don't give you the last four digits so you can call and see if there's really a modem there). Further, even where a local access number is claimed, in many areas the second number (which is used if the first is unreachable) is a toll call, and the Web page does not indicate that there is any way to forbid toll calls (toll restrictors for your WebTV box, anyone?). Bottom line is, it's possible that a lot of WebTV users are going to be VERY surprised when they get their phone bills. Unless the folks at WebTV really are putting access numbers in all the exchanges where their Web page claims that access is available, I would not be at all surprised to hear that they are the target of a class action lawsuit filed by disgruntled purchasers (wanting to recover toll charges plus the purchase price of their units) somewhere down the line. I also suspect that many of the WebTV buyers of this year will be lining up to get a REAL computer and Internet connection next year -- if they aren't totally turned off to the Internet by the whole WebTV experience, that is! Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried it with the exchanges here in Skokie (847-673/674/675 and 847-329) and it consistently came back saying I had two local numbers, one in 312-509 which is correct and one in 847-480 which is also correct. PAT] ------------------------------ From: craig@rmit.EDU.AU (Craig Macbride) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 9 Dec 1996 21:39:28 GMT Organization: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Dave Sieg writes: > I had an interesting phone call from a guy who had bought one of the > "WebTV" boxes. It sits on the top of the TV and hooks to a phone > line, allowing "unlimited Internet Access" for only $19.95/month". > This guy had MS and was bedridden, so this seemed perfect for him. He > paid $450 for the box and wireless keyboard, hooked it up, and started > surfing the web. Now he has discovered that the box is making long > distance calls at 10-15 cents/minute! He had already run up a > sizeable phone bill! It already connects to a TV set and many people already have cable TV, so it would make sense to make the $450 box include a cable modem and just run over the cable TV lines to a net connection. No phone line costs; no long-distance charges; no having the phone line in use when trying to make or receive phone calls; _much_ faster connection. Of course, it wouldn't help if someone is outside the areas serviced by cable TV, but that may still mean a lot more people would be covered than they are by the WebTV ISP's local phone call areas at present. Craig Macbride URL: http://www.bf.rmit.edu.au/~craigm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Dec 96 12:16 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Greetings. WebTV appears to have a great deal of potential as a means for introducing segments of the population without PCs (a rapidly declining but still very significant number) to basic web services. They have developed an interface and methodology that appear to make the best posssible use of a limited display platform (that is, conventional televisions). For all of this they are to be congratulated. However, there are some fundamental limitations to that very platform that would seem to position WebTV as primarily a "transitional" technology -- that is, something from which many users will wish to quickly advance to conventional PC-based net access. One issue is the inability that users will have to make use of most of the wide variety of downloadable client applications upon which most advanced web applications are based. No doubt WebTV will work to make some versions available within their system, but it seems likely that many users will find themselves frustrated over and over again by not being able to hit that download button staring at them on the screen to get a new update for Adobe Acrobat, or a particular graphics or audio system, or whatever. Without a doubt, some users will be satisfied by the mix that WebTV provides within their architecture -- but others would seem likely to want to move on. Given the size of many standard client applications, it seems unlikely that more than a small percentage could be supported within the WebTV platform given the current relatively limited amount of non-volatile memory onboard the units. It's certainly true that later versions of the product could include more memory, disk drives, maybe even a VGA video output and so on -- but at some point we're just looking at basically a single or limited purpose PC -- and the economics of that kind of purchase become unclear against the discount pricing of conventional multipurpose PCs. I mentioned VGA output above, and that brings up another important limitation of the current WebTV unit. No matter how many tricks you play with direct video out and S-video interfaces, the bandwidth of conventional North American NTSC (or PAL/SECAM for that matter) televisions makes them generally unsuitable for displaying significant amounts of text. Those of us who built our own terminals 20 years ago remember all too well the "fun" of staring at flickering TV screens trying to read 80 columns of text. Sets have improved considerably since then, but the fundamental limitations are much the same. When is the last time you saw someone buy a computer with a 60Hz, interlaced display? -- that's what standard NTSC televisions provide. There's a good reason why 72Hz and faster non-interlaced displays have become standard (and why this very issue is such a battleground in the digital TV standards arena). The flicker and resolution limitations of conventional televisions just aren't well suited as computer displays. Sure, you can look at the graphics, and by resizing HTML text to larger fonts (i.e. shorter lines) you can definitely help the situation. But there are significant limits. Again, none of this is to diminish WebTV's accomplishment in creating a mass-market web product. But I think it is important to keep the technical realities in perspective. There may well ultimately be a melding of consumer products and conventional PCs, especially if reasonable digital TV systems become available at affordable prices. But existing televisions represent a very limited technical platform for such applications. --Lauren-- www.vortex.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I used to do that sort of thing in the late 1970's -- make terminals out of old black and white television sets -- I found I could improve the display by changing the horizonal synch quite a bit. This essentially made it unusable as a television in the future (without restoring the horizonal to where it had been) but it worked for its new purpose. A couple other tricks which helped with the display was to adjust the yoke somewhat, and -- but you had to be most careful! -- wrapping some tin foil (for example, Reynolds Wrap) around the picture tube near the base where it connected to the yoke. This tin foil seemed to trap the ions or something. A word now to those of you who read this and decide to get in the back of your television set and experiment: *** discharge that bugger before you go sticking your hands in there *** ! Old television sets tend to retain a charge for a long time; a very long time in fact. I've seen sets that were turned off and unplugged for a week or more still be loaded with juice. Those capacitors take forever to leak it out. It makes quite a frightful but fun display for all the neighborhood kids. Invite them in to watch, then take a *very big* screwdriver with a plastic handle you can hold -- do not touch the metal part! Probe in there with the metal part of the screwdriver, touching it to those big caps you see in there one at a time and simultaneously to ground. Each time you do that, there will be a loud bang! and sparks will fly out of the back of the television at you. Don't worry; it won't hurt you, it just looks scary and mean. Do that three or four times or until the television set quits backfiring at you. Now it is okay to stick your hands in there wherever you want with no concern. Now should you forget that first and foremost safety precaution as I did one day when I was trying to work on a linear amplifier for a CB radio for someone, it'll knock you on your keister and you will spend the rest of the day with a sort of crazed look on your face, and some confusion in your thinking, just like old fashioned electro-shock therapy the state-run mental hospitals used to administer. That will teach you to keep your hands to yourself and not go sticking them places they do not belong. ... remember: unplug it completely; totally discharge those capacitors (you will know you are finished when the television/radio quits 'arguing' and backfiring at you) and then -- and only then -- put your hands in there to work on it. There are some who would claim that I still have not recovered to this day from taking that load twenty years ago. Maybe not. Maybe I still am crazed and confused. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Frederick Woodruff Subject: 900 Psychic lines Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 16:50:20 +0000 Organization: Seanet Online Services, Seattle WA Hi: I'm a journalist in Seattle trying to research the history of the 900 line, pay per call industry; particularly the 900 psychic lines that have proliferated over the past decade. If anyone can help me or point me in the right direction for my research I would really appreciate it. You can reach me directly at my e mail address: pal@seanet.com Thank you in advance, FW ------------------------------ From: zhsieh@telenet.com (Zon Hsieh) Subject: Job Opportunity - HP OpenView Specialist (Virginia) Date: 10 Dec 96 17:54:48 GMT Organization: Alcatel Data Networks JUST SOME OF THEM. Alcatel Data Networks Inc., one of the world's largest producers of advanced telecommunications equipment, is seeking a senior level Netork Management HP OpenView expert to join our Software Development team in Ashburn, Virginia. (near Washington D.C.) HP OPENVIEW SPECIALIST The incumbent will design, implement, and debug software in different network fault management functions and provide technical guidance to the team members. The incumbent must have extensive background in the following areas: o HP OpenView DM4.21 and/or NNM4.1, XMP API, and GDMO o C, C++, programming in a UNIX environment o CMIS, SNMP, MIB, and TCP/IP A BS, MS in Computer Science or Computer Engineer, or an equivalent amount of work experience in NMS is required. Successful candidates will also have seven plus years of experience in telecommunications with minimum of four years development experience with HP OpenView DM/NNM. Alcatel Data Networks Inc. offers an excellent compensation and benefits package. For confidential consideration, mail your resume to Mailstop 1F01 (indicating HP OpenView) at the address listed below or fax to HR (703)724-2348. One may send resume through e-mail to Zon.Hsieh@adn.alcatel.com. Alcatel Data Networks An Alcatel-Sprint Join Venture 44983 Knoll Square, Ashburn, Va 20147 EEO/AA Employer M/F/D/V, Smoke-free/Drug-free workplace ------------------------------ From: Greg Stahl Organization: Saint Lawrence University Park St. Canton, NY 13617 Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Date: 12 Dec 96 05:21:09 GMT DataComm over power lines is used in alot of different places. One that I am aware is the mass transit subway system in Washington, D.C. called Metro. Although I cannot describe the details, the trains are powered by a "third rail" that carries 380 volts (I could be wrong about the voltage). The trains are computer controlled (speed, accelaration, decelaration, stopping) from the Metro network control center using sensors on the tracks and the operators. Basically, the computer slows the train down as it enters a station, then stops the train, the operator opens the doors, then closes the doors and starts the train on its way. All the datacomm to run the train is sent through the third rail. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a number of years a long time ago the Chicago Transit Authority operated its telephone system in the subway via the third rail. The connections sounded awful, but it did work. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: Telecom-Related Chuckles Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:14:25 -0500 (These are all from the Dilbert newsletter) Don't Ever Change I needed to make a phone call while at the library. When I asked for change at the counter, I was told that they didn't give change for the phone, only for the copy machine. So I asked for change for the copy machine and she gave it to me. Wrong Number: An Induhvidual went to the hospital emergency room. After seeing the doctor and taking medication, he went to the nurse's station to call home for a ride. He asked a nurse how to get an outside line to which she responded, "Pound nine." Thinking the nine button must be sticking, the Induhvidual pushed nine hard and dialed the number. He then got a recording that the call couldn't be completed. He asked again, received the same answer, dialed the same number and got the same recording. Frustrated, he asked the nurse a third time how to get an outside line. Clearly irritated, she answered through her teeth, "I told you, POUND NINE!" to which he replied, "OKAY!", balled up his fist and smashed the phone. [Editor's Note: Some readers might think this story is an urban legend and that's probably true. But it doesn't mean that Induhviduals aren't having this exact confusion everyday. This is why I never serve pound cake at my house.] Just the Fax, Ma'am: This conversation actually happened. Induhvidual: "Do you know anything about this fax-machine"? DNRC member: "A little. What's wrong?" Induhvidual: "Well, I sent a fax, and the recipient called back to say all she received was a cover-sheet and a blank page. I tried it again, and the same thing happened." DNRC member: How did you load the sheet?" Induhvidual: "It's a pretty sensitive memo, and I didn't want anyone else to read it by accident, so I folded it so only the recipient would open it and read it." Group Fax: A paralegal was given her duties the Monday she was hired. Among other things, she was responsible for sending out frequent faxes. She was fired on Wednesday when they discovered that because she didn't like using the fax machine, she was saving the faxes to send out all at the same time -- once a week, on Friday. She was indignant because she couldn't see what they were so upset about. ___________________ copyright notice: Reprinting This Newsletter -------------------------- Feel free to copy, post and distribute this newsletter within the bounds of good netiquette. Scott Adams ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #658 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 12 02:23:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA17885; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 02:23:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 02:23:21 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612120723.CAA17885@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #659 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Dec 96 02:23:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 659 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Operator Toll Dialing and a 1945 Area Code Proposal (Mark J. Cuccia) UCLA Short Course: "HBT IC Technology for Comm Applications" (W. Goodin) Book Review: "The Web Server Handbook" by Palmer/Schneider (Rob Slade) GTE Long Distance in Oklahoma (Tad Cook) New Utah Area Code (Tad Cook) Interconnection in the Internet (Jesus Redondo) MFS to Offer Digital Subscriber Line Service (oldbear@arctos.com) Southwestern Bell Gets Out of Visa Card Business (B.J. Guillot) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 19:16:33 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Operator Toll Dialing and a 1945 Area Code Proposal Early this year, I posted to the Digest an article regarding a proposed but never adopted area code plan from 1946/47. The proposed plan was similar to the actual 'finalized' plan of eighty-six original area codes from October 1947, in that states with *one* area code were given codes of the N0X format, while states with *multiple* area codes were given N1X area codes. In the 1946/47 proposal, the entire country of Canada was 'treated' as a 'single state' with multiple area codes. The never adopted proposal would have used codes of the 91X form for Canada's provinces: 912 and 913 for Ontario; 914 and 915 for Quebec; 916 for the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island; and maybe Newfoundland and Labrador which wasn't actually a part of Canada, politically at that time); 917 for Manitoba; 918 for Saskatchewan; 919 for Alberta; 910 for British Columbia. Also, the 1946/47 proposal (but never actually adopted) had 'consecutive blocks' of area codes for each state with multiple codes: New York State would have had 212, 213, 214, 215, 216 Michigan would have had 217, 218, 219 Illinois would have had 312, 313, 314, 315 Ohio would have had 316, 317, 318, 319 Pennsylvania would have had 412, 413, 414, 415 Wisconsin would have had 416, 417 Minnesota would have had 418, 419 California would have had 512, 513, 514 Massachusetts would have had 515, 516 Iowa would have had 517, 518, 519 Missouri would have had 612, 613 Indiana would have had 615, 616 Kansas would have had 617, 618 Texas would have had 712, 713, 714, 715 I do wonder about Kansas having been assigned (on paper, only) the codes 617 and 618. I would have thought that it would have been assigned 618 and 619. Notice that 614 has no assignment, and comes after Missouri's two codes. If 617 were to be 'skipped' over, it would be after Indiana's two codes. In the *ACTUAL* assignments of October 1947, MO and IN had two area codes each; 1948/49 saw Indiana get a third NPA (219) and 1950/51 saw Missouri get a third NPA (417). Within most (but not all) of these multi-NPA states, the block of consecutive codes were to be adjacent to one another, or 'linear' as a code set 'increased' from east to west, or from north to south, across that state. Every *other* state (as well as DC) would have had an N0X style area code, as each of these states would have had one area code. However, except for the larger cities in multi-NPA states, or more populated states using a single (N0X) NPA, the numerical assignments were *not* kept when the finalized version took effect in October 1947. (The complete chart of 'proposed' assignments with some brief description of specific intra-state geographies is included in my original submission, earlier this year). However, close to the end of World War II, in 1945 the Bell System was seriously looking into a nationwide numbering plan and developing an *automated* (operator) toll dialing/switching network. In August 1943, Philadelphia was the *very first place* to ever have a crossbar *toll* switching machine, the #4XB Toll switcher. And only a few years earlier, the first XBTandem switches were installed in the US: Detroit's "Trinity" (DTRTMIMD01T) in 10/1941; Manhattan's "Interzone" (CLLI code not known) in 10/1941; San Francisco's "Bush-0" (SNFCCA0300T) in 12/1941; Oakland #1-Cal. (OKLDCA0100T) in 1/1942. (all of these XBTandems have been replaced by now -- some began to be replaced with more modern/recent technology beginning in the late 1970's.) I also have reference to a XBTandem installed in El Monte CA (ELMNCA0116T) in 3/1940, however the reference source, the Distance Dialing Co-Ordinating Handbook, AT&T's annual 'toll/tandem switching inventory', has this in error for the annual editions through 1975. The 1976 through 1981 editions indicate this XBTandem having been installed in 2/1960. Anyhow, El Monte is in *southern* California, and in the 1940's and 50's, the Los Angeles and southern California metropolitan area was a *step-by-step* switching area, and the other areas having XBTandem in the early 1940's were *panel and #1XB* local switching areas. Multifrequency Keypulsing (MFKP) address signalling was being developed in 1940, to replace revertive pulsing in #1XB local switches, and was also applied to XBTandem and #4XBToll. Baltimore was one of the first areas to have an experiment with MFKP between its #1XB local switches in 1940. While several operator toll dialing networks had existed on a regional basis since as far back as the 'teens', they were *regional*, and were based on Step-by-Step (SxS) switching technology. Dialpulses lose their effect over longer and longer lines, and have to be 'retransmitted'. It was decided to have the main backbone of a nationwide automated network to be based on XB and MFKP technology, which could store and forward digits, as well as translate digits received. The ultimate result was to be a standardized numbering plan for operators (and later customers) to dial/key toll calls. The digits dialed would be registered, forwarded, and if needed, translated to localized 0XX/1XX routing prefixes used in any regional SxS toll dialing networks. 0XX/1XX routing codes have continued to be used for network routing/control, trunk/equipment testing, and also for operator-to-operator purposes, even in a "common control" switching (XB and later ESS/Digital) and MFKP (later CCIS#6 or SS7) signalling network environment. Some of the regional SxS (opearator) toll dialing networks which had been in existance for several decades before WW-II originated from the *non* connecting competitive independent telephone companies in many cities and metro areas in the earliest decades of this century. At that time, Bell was still providing only manual operator handled connections for local service, while many independents (particularly the competitive non-connecting ones) had been introducing local dial services based on Strowger Automatic Electric SxS technology. Around the time of WW-I, Bell began to study local Panel switching for the largest metropolitan areas, but it was to have been a *semi-automatic* service, where the calling party would still have given (quoted to) the operator the called number, and if the call was in a different local exchange, the originating operator would dial (or more pecisely, key-in) the requested number. By the early 1920's, Panel switching was being adopted by Bell for local *customer* (and operator) dialing, mostly in the larger metro areas in the USA only; Bell Canada never did have Panel switching in Quebec or Ontario). Bell did adopt SxS switching for local dialing (by both customers and operators), mostly for medium cities, smaller towns and more rural areas, throughout the USA *and* Canada. When the non-connecting competitive independents were still quite much in existance, many began to interconnect their local (Strowger) SxS dialing networks togather, over a larger region, creating regional SxS operator toll dialing networks. When the various Bells and competitive independents began to 'buy-out' each other to create a single non-competitive connected network in the 'late-teens' and early 1920's, these regional SxS operator toll networks continued, and Bell began to introduce such networks on its own, or it expanded on what had already existed from the (previously competitive and non-connecting) independents. Some of the larger regions served by SxS (operator) toll dialing networks prior to the introduction of XBTandem, #4-type XBToll, MFKP technology: Southern California (a rather large area of independent telcos); Connecticut (the "semi" BOC of Southern New England Telephone); Ohio (another "semi" BOC of Cincinnati Bell Telephone; also several independents now held by United/Sprint). Michigan; The Pacific Northwest - WA/OR/ID/BC/AB (another region where GTE has been quite dominant, including in Canada; and while Alberta's telco had been owned by the provincial government and Edmonton's telco had been owned by the city government, both AGT and Edmonton Telephones had been purchasing AE Strowger SxS equipment beginning in 'the teens'.) {Bell Telephone Magazine} and {Bell Laboratories Record} both had articles on Operator Toll Dialing in 1945: "Operator Toll Dialing -- a New Long Distance Method", {Bell Telephone Magazine} v.22 (1945) #2, pages 101-115 of v.22 (1945) authors: James J. Pilliod and Harold L. Ryan "Nationwide Dialing", {Bell Laboratories Record} v.23 (1945) October issue, pages 368-372 of v.23 (1945) authored by: F. F. Shipley (of the Switching Engineering Department) In the {Bell Telephone Magazine} arrticle, there is discussion about a uniform nationwide numbering plan, with the (continental) US being divided into sixty to seventy-five areas. Each area would be assigned a three-digit code, of the N0X and N1X format, as since there are no letters on the '0' or '1' on the dial, there are no central office names/letters corresponding to such N0X/N1X codes, but rather NNX. Thus N0X/N1X area codes would not be in conflict. In the {Bell Laboratories Record} article, the discussion mentions the (continental) US being divided into sixty numbering areas, and that N1X codes would be *tentatively* used, although there are no central office names/letters corresponding to N0X as well. Incidently, a sample of a dial is shown in the article, *with* the letter 'Z' on the '0' (zero), although the article mentions that only eight digits '2' through '9' are lettered out of the possible ten digits. The {Bell Labs Record} article did mention that two-digit area codes 'could' be possible if there would be only sixty codes - i.e. less than one-hundered (or actually eighty) possible numbering areas, but 'NX' codes would make translations between central office codes and area codes rather difficult until all digits had been received and a 'time-out' in the switching equipment. So, N1X codes would be used. Both articles include an identical map of the (continental) USA, divided into numbering areas. Canada is *NOT* indicated on this map, nor is it even mentioned in the articles. Also, there are *NO* area code *numericals* shown in each numbering region -- only boundaries. What *IS* interesting is that there were some area code regions which would have contained *more* than one state. The caption beneath the map in the {Bell Telephone Magazine} article states, "How the country might look when divided into approximately 60 areas for the nation-wide numbering plan". The following is a list of each region, as proposed in 1945, using the two-letter abbreviation for each state. The numbers preceeding the state(s) is used *ONLY* as a count, and *NOT* any 'proposal' of digits for each area or region. 01) ME 02) NH *and* VT 03) MA (all) *and* RI 04) CT 05) NY (New York City *as well as* Westchester area *and* Long Island 06) NY State (eastern) 07) NY State (central) 08) NY State (western) 09) NJ 10) PA (eastern) *and* DE 11) PA (central) 12) PA (western) 13) MD *including* DC 14) VA 15) WV 16) OH (eastern) 17) OH (southern) 18) OH (northwestern) 19) MI (southern) 20) MI (northern; panhandle) 21) IN (northern) 22) IN (southern) 23) IL (Chicago area) 24) IL (northern) 25) IL (central) 26) IL (southern) 27) WI (southeastern) 28) WI (remainder) 29) NC *and* SC 30) GA 31) FL 32) KY 33) TN 34) AL 35) MS *and* LA 36) MO (eastern) 37) MO (western) 38) KS (eastern) 39) KS (western) 40) OK 41) AR 42) TX (northeastern) 43) TX (southern) 44) TX (western) 45) MN (southeastern) 46) MN (remainder) 47) IA (eastern) 48) IA (central) 49) IA (western) 50) NE 51) SD 52) ND 53) NM *and* CO 54) AZ, UT, *and* NV 55) WY, MT, *and* ID 56) WA 57) OR 58) CA (northern) 59) CA (central) 60) CA (southern) One final note -- in the text of the {Bell Telephone Magazine} article, mention is made that some numbering areas would contain more than one state, 'such as North and South Dakota'. However, the map indicates separate area codes for North Dakota and South Dakota, while according to the map example, North Carolina and South Carolina would have 'shared' a single area code. There are also various other articles in {Bell Telephone Magazine} as well as {Bell System Technical Journal} and {Bell Laboratories Record} from the late 1940's through the early 1960's regarding Operator Toll Dialing and how it was evolving into DDD, area codes, local numbering (i.e. EXchange names and initially how 'standardized' names would be better for customer quoting and remembering in a nationwide/continentwide DDD situation, but later how ANC - All Numbering Calling was better), Crossbar switching, multifrequency keypulsing signalling, etc. Of course, much of the actual 1945 and 1946/47 area code proposal was just planning, although eventually was reformatted into the original 'finalized' 1947 assignment scheme of eighty-six area codes, which has been added on to over the decades, although these current three years (1995 through 1997), I have identified *at least fifty-eight* "POTS" (geographic - non-SAC) area codes being assigned and active! Not counting the SAC's for TWX (N10), the N00's (800 for Toll-Free and 900 for 'mass-calling'), nor the 'patch' codes for access to Mexico, only thirty-five area codes were assigned (after the original eighty-six were finalized in 1947) between 1948 and 1965. This remained relatively stable until the early 1980's. And while a handful of codes were assigned between 1982 and 1989, even the 1980's was still a relatively stable period! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: BGOODIN@UNEX.UCLA.EDU (William R. Goodin) Subject: UCLA Short Course: "HBT IC Technology For Comm Applications" Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 13:57:40 Organization: UCLA Extension On February 12-14, 1997, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "HBT IC Technology for Communications Applications", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructors are Bahram Jalali, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA, and Madjid Hafizi, PhD, Senior Research Staff, Hughes Research Laboratories. This course presents an in-depth treatment of GaAs, InP, and GeSi-based Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) technologies and their application in today's growing communication markets. HBT has emerged as a key enabling technology for wireless communications, data conversion, mixed-signal/mixed-mode applications, and high data rate fiber-optic communications. The course begins with a concise review of the physics of HBT devices and a comparison with MESFET and HEMT technologies. This comparison provides a foundation for selecting the right technology for a particular application. Technology performance characteristics such as DC, RF, noise, power amplification, linearity, intermodulation distortion, manufacturability, reliability, yield and cost issues are compared. Modeling of HBT devices for circuit simulation is presented including linear and nonlinear models and thermal modeling. Material issues are covered including epitaxial crystal growth, MBE and MOCVD materials, followed by a look at commercial vendors of epitaxial material and material qualification. Fundamentals of HBT processing including device and IC fabrication, passive components, planarization, heat sink approaches (particularly for power devices), lithography, dry etching, and yield limitations are explored, as are state-of-the-art HBT device performance and reliability issues. The important role of HBT in meeting the requirements of current wireless systems is discussed. Power amplifiers are covered in-depth including such relevant issues as efficiency, linearity, intermodulation distortion, and thermal stability. The course reviews commercially available HBT IC's for wireless markets, and covers Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) ranging from ultra-fast flash-type converters to high-resolution delta-sigma modulators and the architectures in between. This involves a review of ADC characteristics such as SNR, SFDR, NPR, differential and integral nonlinearity, effective number of bit, and aperture jitter, in relation to HBT device characteristics. Mixed-mode/mixed-signal applications of the technology such as multiple device integration including HBT/HEMT, HBT/RTD, HBT/PIN-PD, and HBT/MESFET mixed-device techniques are examined. The course shows how these new technologies are applied to mixed/mode systems such as digital receivers (including HEMT orMESFET low-noise amplifier, HBT downconverter and HBT ADC) or tointegrated optical receivers (including PIN photodetector, transimpedanceand AGC amplifiers). Finally, the course presents ultra-high speed applications of the technology in the emerging market of 40 Gbit/s optical communications, including high-speed digital circuits such as dividers, MUX/DEMUX, and clock/data recovery circuits. The course fee is $1195, which includes extensive course materials. These materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. For a more information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses This course may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 16:54:04 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Web Server Handbook" by Palmer/Schneider/Chenette BKWBSRHB.RVW 960910 "The Web Server Handbook", Pete Palmer/Adam Schneider/Anne Chenette, 1996, 0-13-239930-X, U$39.95/C$51.00 %A Pete Palmer %A Adam Schneider %A Anne Chenette %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1996 %G 0-13-239930-X %I Prentice Hall %O U$39.95/C$51.00 +1-201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %P 460 %T "The Web Server Handbook" There *are* three chapters in the book which give you details on how to set up a Web server for UNIX, Windows, and the Mac. These chapters are reasonably detailed and helpful. However, they only occupy about a quarter of the book, by weight. The rest of the book talks about browsing, HTML, publicity, Perl and other such topics. There are other resources which handle these areas better. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKWBSRHB.RVW 960910 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver roberts@decus.ca | "Metabolically Institute for rslade@vcn.bc.ca | challenged" Research into slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca | User rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | politically correct Security Canada V7K 2G6 | term for "dead" ------------------------------ Subject: GTE Long Distance in Oklahoma Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 11:14:08 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) GTE Begins Long-Distance Telephone Service in Oklahoma By Ray Tuttle, Tulsa World, Okla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 11--GTE on Tuesday began offering long-distance service to Oklahomans, marketing it under the name GTE Easy Savings Plan. The Federal Telecommunications Act makes it easier for companies like GTE to deliver expanded services to customers, said Barb Bellinghausen, director of GTE long distance. "AT GTE, we promised we would be quick to market once the telecommunications bill became law. Today, we are making good on that promise." GTE, which services Broken Arrow and 26 other communities in Oklahoma, offers local telephone service to about 95,000 customers in the state. GTE is partnering with WorldCom to provide the long-distance service. "We are offering the service but it is WorldCom's pipes," Bellinghausen said. Jackson, Miss.-based WorldCom, which also operates offices in Tulsa, also offers long-distance service in Oklahoma, said spokesman Gil Broyles. "We have agreements with Ameritech, GTE and Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems. But our market emphasis is on business long distance. GTE long-distance service is available to any consumer in the state, regardless of which company provides their local telephone service. Price discounts are available once a customer has spent as little as $10, Bellinghausen said. For example, a residential customer spending a total of $10 a month on all GTE long distance services will save ten percent. GTE, which is also was offering Internet access through UUNet, is marketing its services in 26 other states where GTE offers local telephone service, with plans to offer service by the end of the month in all 50 states. Prior to the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, GTE offered local service calls within the 918 area code. Once the telephone company gained approval from the federal government, it started seeking regulatory approval from the 27 states where it has operations. ------------------------------ Subject: New Utah Area Code Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 11:39:16 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) The Salt Lake Tribune Business Briefs Column The Salt Lake Tribune Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 10--HEARINGS TONIGHT ON AREA CODE: The Utah Public Service Commission (PSC) holds a statewide video tele-hearing tonight on plans to add a telephone area code. The PSC estimates the available three-digit local prefixes within the 801 area code will be used up by early 1998 -- largely the result of increased use of cellular phones and pagers, and phone lines for fax machines and computer modems. Under a recommended proposal, exchanges in Davis, Weber, Salt Lake and Utah counties -- the most populated region of the state -- would retain the 801 area code, while all other areas of Utah would be assigned a new area code. Once approved, the area code could take effect next summer, and several months would be allowed to phase in use of the new area code for long distance callers. Utah residents wishing to discuss the issue with the three-member PSC can show up at one of about 20 educational sites across the state that are linked to the Utah Educational Network. Those include the College of Eastern Utah in Price, Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah State University in Logan and Instructional Media Services on the University of Utah campus. Several high schools and technical schools, from Brigham City to Kanab, also will have facilities for the public to respond live to the PSC. For details on the sites, call the PSC at (801) 530-6716. ------------------------------ From: Jesus Redondo Organization: DIT-UPM Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 21:11:13 +0000 Subject: Interconnection in the Internet I am wondering about how the interconnection among ISPs is provided. Telecom operators set interconnection rates that reflect the cost of the local loop (i.e. a Bell Network) used by a long distance provider to complete a call, this interconnection rates usually are expressed in terms of cents/minute of usage. The international traffic is regulated by the accounting rate regime, which many times is not related to the real cost The Internet is composed by many ISPs that interconnect their networks, each one must allow the use of his network to the others to let them reach a third party. Is there any kind of 'interconnection rates' for this service or is it only a negotiation between the parts? I would appreciate any information around this or references about forums, papers or any place where I could find it. Jesus Redondo e-mail: jr@dit.upm.es DIT-UPM ETSI Telecomunicacion Ciudad Universitaria s/n 28040 Madrid, Spain e-mail: jrv@dit.upm.es DIT-UPM phone: +341 5495700 x.366 ETSI Telecomunicaciones fax: +341 5432077 Ciudad Universitaria s/n 28040 Madrid Spain ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 10:03:39 -0500 From: The Old Bear Subject: MFS to Offer Digital Subscriber Line Service MFS TO OFFER SPEEDY INTERNET SERVICE OVER PHONE LINES MFS Communications plans to offer Digital Subscriber Line service to customers early next year, providing high-speed Internet connections over existing telephone lines. Initially, MFS's connect speeds will be equivalent to ISDN links -- about four times faster than a typical 28.8 modem -- but ultimately it plans to offer data transmission at rates 20 times faster than conventional modems. source: Wall Street Journal December 10, 1996 -----------end included text----------- Even if the RBOCs have not figured out that those subscriber loops are a treasured resource, the new entrant LECs (like MFS) seem to have a clue -- and a big one at that. By offering these enhanced services over existing local loop facilities (probably leased at cost from the RBOCs), the new entrants are going to be able to offer all kinds of attractive and creative service bundles while the RBOCs continue to dither about ISDN and nailed-up switched circuits. This is good for the consumer, but really unfortunate for the RBOCs which, knowing that local competition was on its way, have focused on how they are going to enter the "lucrative" long distance market (now being challenged by services like internet phone), rather than focus on how to exploit their existing postion in their local market. For years, Intel has prospered by offering new and innovative products and -- as soon as competitors could produce a 'me too' copy -- coming out with something new and dropping the price the existing product, thus squeezing those "me too" competitors who then have to recoup their R&D cost in a lower-margin market. Here was an example of where the RBOCs could have gotten out ahead of the curve and built a market position which would be hard to follow. Instead, ignoring the fact that the game has changed, most of the RBOCs have attempted to keep rates high for existing services and to price new services still higher. This, of course, has produced a delightful "price umbrella" which invites new competitors into a market where margins are so high as to allow lots of room for error while learning the business. I sympathize with some of the comments made by Pat concerning how some of the new entrant LECs will just buy services from the RBOC at mandated wholesale prices and resell to the consumer at a low enough mark-up to undercut existing tariffs. But the new entrants can only play that game because the RBOCs made it possible by not exploiting the potential of their own existing plant to build value-driven barriers in anticipation of the impending competition. Having spoken informally to a few people down in the ranks of my local RBOC about this, the story I have heard is that the technical people, and the lower-level marketing folks who are close to the customers, have recoginized this for years but have been unable to get any interest from senior management -- which has preferred pricing local exchange services to maximize current margins, treating traditional local loop wireline as an eventual lost cause, and seeking opportunities in all manner of information and entertainment products beyond the ken of their traditional lines of business. Cheers, The Old Bear ------------------------------ From: bjg90783@rosie.uh.edu (B.J. Guillot) Subject: Southwestern Bell Gets Out of Visa Card Business Date: 10 Dec 1996 23:21:00 CST Organization: University of Houston Got this letter in the mail from Southwestern Bell Visa Card ... Starting January 2, 1997, your account will be handled solely by Mercantile Bank of Illinois National Assocation. Because of recent events in the credit card industry, Southwestern Bell will no longer be assoicated with your current Southwestern Bell Visa card. ... you will receive a new MercRewards Visa card by March, 1997. Your account number, interest rate and most other terms of your account will remain the same and you will continue to receive up to 2% cash back on purchases. ... you will no longer be able to bill your residential and/or cellular phone bills to your Southwestern Bell account, nor will you earn the 5% phone reward on these bills. ... Please pay [your phone bill] directly. In February 1997, you will receive a check for your phone rewards accumulated on your account through the end of December, 1996. ... Southwestern Bell will give you a one-time SPECIAL PAYMENT of $20. This SPECIAL PAYMENT is in appreciation for your participation in the Southwestern Bell Visa phone rewards program. ... You may continue to use your current Southwestern Bell Visa card until your MercRewards Visa card arrives. When you receive your new card, please destroy your old Southwestern Bell Visa card. ---------------------------------------- Other comments. About two or three months ago, I got an insert in my phone bill saying I was "pre-approved" for a SWB Visa card. I called, and they took my information, gave me a $15 credit, and told me I had a $1500 credit limit. A few weeks later, I received my card, and noticed the paperwork it came with claimed the credit limit was $200 (yes, a $200 limit on a credit card!) They would not raise that limit. Anyway, it was interesting to see this letter saying that SWB is no longer in the credit card business after just two months that I've had my card. Does anyone know what "recent events in the credit card industry" refer to? Could this have anything to do with the merger of SWBT (aka SBC) and that other Bell company? Oh, and there was an additional insert in the letter that included instructions on how to set your savings or checking account for deductions. Other thing ... If the credit card account number is staying the same, what need is there to send a new card and destroy the old card? Oh, three out of four of my credit cards are from telephone companies (Southwestern Bell, AT&T, and GTE). I'm planning to get rid of the GTE card soon since they charge over 20% interest! Regards, Command line driven fax software http://www.blkbox.com/~bgfax/ B.J. Guillot ... Houston, Texas USA I don't believe in coffee ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #659 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 12 03:05:20 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id DAA20824; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 03:05:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 03:05:20 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612120805.DAA20824@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #660 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Dec 96 03:05:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 660 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Nils Andersson) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Brett Frankenberger) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: N11 Codes (Brian Purcell) Re: N11 Codes (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Nils Andersson) Re: Area Code Splits - Why? (hirschd1@ix.netcom.com) Telecom History in Sweden (Sam Spens Clason) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 11 Dec 1996 21:36:08 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to cgordon@worldnet.att.net: > [...he no longer has to fight with his customer to get the money? Are > 800 subscribers to now be at the mercy of COCOTS just as people who > accept collect calls are at the mercy of the Alternate Operator Services > and whatever outrageous charges per minute they demand? PAT] I will stick to my self-imposed gag rule on arguing _whether_ cocots should have the right to collect money for 800. I will note that this development, regardless of what I or anybody else in this ngewsgroup thinks, is fairly likely, due to two underlying shifts: 1) Regulatory: The local telcos will be spinning off their own payphones to be accounted for separately, even if owned by the telco, so cross-subsidization will end. ALL PAYPHONES WILL BE COCOTS! This will increase the pressure for payment, as well increase the impact on society of "getting charged for 800". There is no longer a concept of "THE PHONE COMPANY", and this is precisely the point; you cannot rely on cross-subsidies. 2) Industry trends: More and more calls are becoming 800 calls, even if to CALL ATT. ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT 800 _WILL_BE_REIMBURSED, how should this be done? There are several NOT mutually exclusive possibilitie, here are three of them: 1) Caller pays with coin. This is easy and clean technically, and I hear that we are already seeing it in spots . (BTW, lots of countries with toll-free numbers have this system, you pay as for a local call but it is usually untimed.) The main problem is that this is often inconvenient if you do not have the right coins, and there are many semi-emergencies (e.g. car breakdown) that do not warrant calling 911, but you REALLY NEED A PHONE, you do not typically mind paying for it, but you may not have the coin. 2) Bill to 800 owner. Clearly, we have had enough scams, and having a COCOT owner being able to bill any amount is not reasonable, and would kill most 800, hardly an improvement, any more than killing most payphones. The best but technically trickiest fix would be to have each 800 owner allow or disallow charges (it could even be "charges up to x cents/min or x cents/call", but the likely solution is a fixed amount per call, say 35 cents). I do not know how hard this would be without segregating numbers per prefix or per area code (800 or 888 or whatever). Technology to the rescue! 3) Bill third party, credit card, home phone, whatever. The COCOT owner could post a special number (could be "0") where you negotiate this stuff with an operator or a computer. The owner could also allow you to use a telco credit card (or a bank/Amex credit card) to charge the 35 cents (or any other charges for that matter). To cover handling charges, the actual charge may have to be a little higher, even a dollar, but would you really mind if you need AAA and your car has broken down? Remeber, without reimbursement the alternative might well be that there was no payphone! Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 03:13:36 GMT > I don't have a problem with this. But I _do_ have a problem with > payphones charging the _caller_ for 800 calls. The whole idea of 800 > (and now 888) service is that the caller doesn't need to pay! There > are several reasons for this: You have to pay for calls to 800 numbers made with your cellphone. Do you object to this also? > One, already mentioned, is convenience. If I want my daughter to be > able to call home from the swimming pool, a personal 800 number means > she doesn't need to carry a dime (excuse me -- a quarter (wait, it's > 35 cents (no, it's 50 cents))) to call home. Suppose your daughter is somewhere where there is no nearby pay phone? Certainly it would increase convenience for her, if, say, there were payphones within, say, 500 feet of every location. Should we pass a law requring pay phones be located every 500 feet, simply to increase convenience? > How about, let's say, a spousal abuse hotline? The old man just threw > her out on the street (literally) and she has no money at all. Yeah, > you could go with collect in this situation but 800 would be a lot > easier for the clients, and in this case that's important. How about > other hotlines; suicide prevention, for instance? Crimebusters? I agree that banning fees for 800 calls would be beneficial to victims of spousal abuse. But requiring pay phones every 500 feet would also be beneficial to victims of spousal abuse. Where do you draw the line? Is the convienience of the public always paramount to the ability of a business to make a profit? And even if you feel that it is: What if several COCOTS owners go out of business because of lack of revenue because they cannot charge for 800 service. That would certainly decrease convienience for people who can no longer make calls because the phone is going. Is it possible that result of banning fees for 800 numbers would cause a net decrease in convenience. (Or, if you prefer, the argument can be reversed -- isn't it possible that the increased proliferation of payphones as a result of allowing fees for calls to 800 numbers would provide a net increase in convienience?) > 800 has, since its inception, been sold to the general public as a > "free call". Now the rules are being changed. The rules changed when cellular came out. That was a long time ago. > As I said, I don't mind (much) having to pay extra for calls made to > my 800 number from a payphone. But it's not right (whatever _that_ > means) to make the caller pay for an 800 call. Ever. Including cell phones? Including overseas calls? Brett (brettf@netcom.com) Brett Frankenberger ------------------------------ From: joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 11 Dec 1996 15:19:39 GMT Organization: Excelsior Computer Services >> This does not, however, solve the underlying problems. I firmly >> believe that payphone operators have a right to be reimbursed for any >> service they provide (just like the rest of us). There are various > [...] > of us hadn't examined it, is that those "rules" were for _our_ benefit. This is the crux of the issue: is the US telephone network in place to help businesses make money or to help citizens communicate? If the former, then COCOT's have the right to charge what the market will bear. If the latter, then people have the right to 800 numbers. It's really as simple as that. My position (stated before in this forum) is that we are making a tremendous mistake in categorizing telephone service with, say, stereos. The country and its citizens have a right to, and a need for, communication. Joel (joel@exc.com) ------------------------------ From: bpurcell@centuryinter.net (Brian Purcell) Subject: Re: N11 Codes Date: Wed, 11 Dec 96 15:18:09 GMT Organization: Wide-Lite Mark J. Cuccia recently said: > Since the only real three-digit N11 code that has any REAL universal > assignment or reservation is 911(altho' some locations don't yet offer > 911 service), the codes 211 through 811 should be used as 'POTS' > central office codes." What about 411? On 12/8/96, Marty Tennant wrote: > Many people feel that N11 codes are "national treasures" and should > not be used for commercial purposes as BellSouth has regretably done. Couldn't agree more. The whole concept behind N11 codes was to provide a short, easy to remember number for special services (emergency, DA, repair, etc.). The idea of selling these off like BellSouth has done completely defeats the whole purpose of having the codes in the first place and should be banned. > Also, the General Services Administration would like one of the codes > as a generic means of calling the U.S. Government! Not sure that > would work. Many independent telcos use the codes for their business > office number. I thought that was what the toll-free number for the Federal Information Center was for. > In Texas, a proposal was floated awhile back to auction off one of the > N11 codes on a county-wide basis to ISPs for the provisioning of local > access to state and local Internet based information services. The > government access part would be free, but the winning bidder would be > able to charge for other information sources. Don't think this > concept went anywhere. You know, I live in Texas and I heard about the debate, but I never heard the outcome. I'll check with the PUC and see what happened. > I think President Clinton recently supported the use of another N11 > code as a non-emergency alternative to overloaded 911 centers. > Evidently, we have trained the public to call 911 when it really isn't > necessary. In this proposal, an N11 code would ring at the local > police office that handles regular non-emergency calls. I don't think > all the public assistance folks out there agree with this position, as > there would be confusion and an incredible public education effort. Yep, 311 was recently implemented in Baltimore as the non-emergency 911. > I do not support the use of N11 codes as central office prefixes, just > as I don't support their use in BellSouth territory as pay-per-use > information service numbers. I'm pretty sure that N11 codes *can't* be used as CO codes since it would difficult to program equipment to recognize only a few of the N11s as special service numbers and the others as CO codes. > I agree that they should be considered "national treasures" and should > be used for appropriate non-commercial purposes. These purposes may > not be evident at this time. Yes, as we've learned in recent years with NPAs, you never know what the future will bring. Brian Purcell bpurcell@centuryinter.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 10:56:45 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: N11 Codes Marty Tennant wrote: > Mark J. Cuccia recently said: >> "IMO, The N11 codes should have NEVER been used in the way some areas >> are now using them. Since the only real three-digit N11 code that has >> any REAL universal assignment or reservation is 911(altho' some >> locations don't yet offer 911 service), the codes 211 through 811 >> should be used as 'POTS' central office codes." > Esteemed readers, > This issue has been discussed in a still open docket at the FCC for > some time now. > Many people feel that N11 codes are "national treasures" and should > not be used for commercial purposes as BellSouth has regretably done. > In Canada and in Hawaii (GTE), N11 codes have been used for Telephone > Relay Service for TDD users. They argue for a uniform number to make > access for hearing impaired telephone users consistent across state > lines, rather than a mishmash of toll free numbers. > Also, the General Services Administration would like one of the codes > as a generic means of calling the U.S. Government! Not sure that > would work. Many independent telcos use the codes for their business > office number. If the US Federal Government wants a 'simple' or more 'generic' way of reaching its departments, offices, bureaus, etc. (hopefully toll-free) by the public -- the *citizenry* who *PAY* the salaries and bills of the government, *WHY* should a handful of the few 'national treasure' N11 codes be used? Doesn't the US Federal Government have its *OWN* Special Area Code, 710? AFAIK, there is only one 'working' number on 710, which is 710-NCS-GETS (710-627-4387). While there may also be a few more 'secret' seven-digit line-numbers not yet publicized, the 710 SAC could be used for up to almost eight-hundered possible central office NXX codes, each with a theoretical possible ten-thousand possible -xxxx line-numbers! That would allow a *FAR* bigger numbering space for reaching the departments of the Washington DC (District of Criminals?) central government, than would taking up any few other N11 codes! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 09:24:10 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Michael S. Craig wrote: > FYI, in Canada, there has been a consistent, albeit far from universal, > use of N11 codes for a variety of deemed-to-be *public* services: > 211 Not used > 311 Not used > 411 Directory Assistance (mirrors 1-NXX-555-12-12 ... used to be > local-only, now covers NPA) > 511 Not used (has been used for separation of TDD and TTY Relay Services) > 611 Telco Repair Service > 711 Relay Service (primary number: see 511 above) > 811 Telco Business Office (customer service) > 911 Emergency > This is far from universal in terms of everybody actually using the > codes, but at least the various provincial telcos have not put > contrary services in place at the end of these codes. In general, Cdn > telcos have taken a cooperative / consensus approach to N11 usage and > have not supported the commercialization of N11 services. This > position does acknowledge the existing / reasonable use of 611 and 811 > as *telco* access numbers. In mailings I receive from the CSCN (Canadian Steering Committee on Numbering), a 'Canada-specific' forum similar to the 'NANP-wide' INC (Industry Numbering Committee), 511 and 711 have been proposed or reserved or assigned to TDD/TTY 'relay' services, similar to the 800-855-1155 (or 800-855-xxxx) numbers. I don't remember which maps to which, but there are *two* N11 codes (511 and 711) for TDD/TTY 'relay' services for the Hearing-Impaired, as one N11 code answers at the relay center with a *modem* for hearing-impaired customers with a TDD/TTY calling out, and the other N11 code answers at the relay center with a voice operator (live human? automated?) for voice customers placing calls to TDD/TTY-abled hearing imparied customers. There is also discussion in the CSCN regarding Canadian use of 211 for 'interactive voice/information services' for the blind and print-handic ... er -- visually/print challenged. There are two different Canadian assistance or advocacy groups for the blind which have been in existance in Canada for many decades, which have proposed the use of 211 to the CSCN for this type of service. I would hope that if 'interactive voice/info services' using 211 in Canada were to be implemented, that the CRTC makes *absolutely sure* that it wouldn't become a 'commercialized PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call' service. At least the CRTC, Industry-Canada, etc. have prevented COCOTS and AOSlime from becoming active in Canada over the past twelve years, although the US based COCOT/AOSlime 'industry' has been trying. I still feel that N11 codes (except for 911) should be 'reclaimed' from their 'reserved' three-digit status in the NANP. Local Directory could become (NPA)-555-1212 instead of 411; in many areas local Repair and Business Office have been becoming toll-free seven-digit or 800/888 ten-digit numbers; any PAY-per-call numbers should be available *ONLY* on the 900 Special Area Code; and since most local switches in the NANP are ESS/Digital (i.e. they can handle 'custom calling' and CLASS features with *XX/11XX codes), localized test numbers (Ring-back, ANAC, etc) could become *standardized* NANP-wide with such *XX/11XX codes. Even local directory, repair, business office could become something like *411/11411, *611/11611, *811/11811 in the future. This is similar to the cellular's uses of *XXX-send codes. All N11 codes (except for 911) could then be available for POTS seven-digit assignments in POTS NPA's (N11-xxxx). 911 would remain 'sacred' as a three-digit code, although it too could also be permissively dialable as *911/11911. Maybe Bellcore-NANPA and the INC should look into revising the "Vertical Service Code (*XX) Assignments". MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Date: 11 Dec 1996 21:36:12 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Craig, Michael S. writes: > for example, ... 911 (and to a lesser extent the European 999 equivalent) > was routed to the operator to ensure the customer got *an answer* in the > absence of true 911-Emergency service. 999 is the older British code, NOT Europe-wide. (Example: Sweden uses 90 000.) Various countries have had each their own emergency number. European Union and possbly some non-EU countries in Europe are standardizing to 112, currently some countries are in the "permissive dialling" mode, eihter will work. Also, 112 will always work from a GSM phone in Europe (the cellswitch translates as necessary, and the GSM net and phone have been expediting the 112 since 1991, even with no subscription, no SIM card etc). Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: hirschd1@ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: Area Code Splits - Why? Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 18:49:05 -0500 Organization: Netcom Eric Bohlman wrote: > Robert McMillin (rlm@netcom.com) wrote: >> Do you mean to force people to buy $100-200 worth of hardware if they >> want additional phone lines? How would the lines be delivered? >> Doesn't analog DID require a trunk bundle to be hauled to the >> customer? Who and in what manner is this to be paid for? > Assuming that the customer just needs several separate *numbers* > (rather than the ability to handle several *calls* at the same time), > $100-$200 would be less than the yearly cost of 5 or more lines. > I'm pretty sure that the protocol that's used to deliver Caller ID > information from the CO to the subscriber can be extended to handle > delivery of the number actually dialed (IIRC, there's a "type" field for > which CID is just one option). > I actually have a mini-version of this on my office line. I have > three numbers with distinctive ring patterns all coming into the same > line. One of them is my regular business number, one is my fax number > (my fax traffic is too low to justify having a separate line) and one > is pointed to by my 800 number (so when I get a voice call I can tell > if I'm paying for it). I use a $60 "Ring Decipher" box to split the > fax number from the voice numbers. > Another thing that could relieve number congestion: a lot of > residential customers get a line solely for modem use, and it's almost > always used purely for outgoing calls. Why should such a line need a > number at all? Why can't the LECs offer an "anonymous" outgoing-only > line? One reason is that the DOD line needs a number because the RBOC needs to update the Local Exchange Routing Guide (LERG) so that they or another carrier to whom the RBOC delivers the traffic can determine the jurisdictional nature of the call. Each NXX (first three digits of a seven digit phone number) is associated with a specific CO and is assigned a V&H coordinate. Keep in mind that even when you buy DID for a PBX at least one number is assigned to the end user. Another reason is E911. If the E911 database cannot determine where the call originates it poses a liability nightmare to the RBOC. Imagine soomeone calls 911 from the phone without a number and the E911 database cannot match it to a location and something happens to that end user, the RBOC is deep in liability hell. ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom History in Sweden Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 16:44:32 +0100 From: Sam Spens Clason Hello Pat, I'm writing a term paper on the evolution of telephones in Sweden. The perspective I'm putting on it is: What if there had been truly free competition. In the beginning Sweden had a very free policy with lots of private operators all over the country and after only a few years the number of telephones in Sweden was very high. In, by international comparison, small-town Stockholm the absolute number of telephones was greater than in Paris, London and Berlin by 1885. This evolution was then to some extent hampered by the government since the inter-urban phone calls were a threat to the (state owned) telegraph. The phases were: 1) The government was not interested; 2) The government saw it as a way to extend and promote the telegraph. A distributed telegraph office, in modern terminology; 3) Private LD, seen as a threat to the telegraph which "served all the country to the better of society" (have we heard that one before, I mean after that ); 4) Prohibiting private LD and building a state LD network (two years later) Buying the competition by refusing interterconnection and/or demanding outrageous fees for it. 5) *de facto* monopoly. It appears that the first networks used single-wire phones. The government telegraphy board required that all networks interconnecting to their local networks and long distance network must be *all* two-wire phones. The official version is that only then could the customers make long-distance calls with good quality. That and other levys (e.g. LD between cities with telegraph stations was much more expensive) forced the many community or private networks to sell their networks to the telegraphy board. It also appears that the telephone, switchboards etc for the two-line system laid the foundation for LM Ericsson. There can be three reasons for this: 1) Ericsson made better and cheaper phones (than Bell); 2) The telegraphy board were protectionistic; 3) There were very few brands of two-wire systems on the market since it wasn't a hit else were; I *guess* it is the later one, but I'm far from sure. What were the time perspectives in other countries for converting to two-line systems and can anyone please tell me if the difference for a long distance call over, say 600 km, really was that big. The time-perspective in my paper is 1881-1902, i.e. the introduction of public telephony by Stockholm Bell on September 1 1881 and the government (forced) acquisition of "Stockholm Public Telephone" (which successfully had out-manoeuvered and subsequently bought the Bell company). Sam PS I will make the paper available on the web. PPS Please respond by email (as well). http://www.nada.kth.se/~sam home +46 70 1234567 cell +46 70 7821022 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #660 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Dec 13 09:01:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA24728; Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:01:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:01:04 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612131401.JAA24728@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #661 TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Dec 96 09:01:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 661 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (Linc Madison) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (Edward Shuck) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (Garrett Wollman) Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (Lauren Weinstein) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jeff Colbert) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Andy McFadden) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Thomas P. Brisco) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Hudson Leighton) Book Review: "Asynchronous Transfer Mode: Technical Overview" (Rob Slade) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 03:20:51 -0800 Organization: No unsolicited commercial e-mail! In article , clive@demon.net wrote: > In article , "Mark J. Cuccia" > writes: > ... an awful lot, most of which I agree with. However, he also writes: >> Over the past few years, we've seen International PAY-per-call scams, some >> in the NANP Caribbean, and some to numbers (but not necessarily locations) >> outside of the NANP. > I don't see how you can class these as scams. With the +1 809 and non- > NANP numbers, you pay *exactly* the same as a call to a "genuine" > number in that area. Provided it's clearly presented as an > international call the way a genuine call would be presented, what's > the problem? That's precisely the point -- it's often NOT clearly presented as an international call. I've seen numerous spams on the net with such weak disclaimers as "Long distance charges apply if calling from outside the 664 area code." The 664 area code is the island of Montserrat, which I don't think even has a single ISP, so the wording of the disclaimer is deliberately disingenuous at the least, particularly since a grand total of three people on earth who don't read TELECOM Digest know that 664 is the new area code for Montserrat. There have also been numerous cases of e-mails or pager calls to get people to dial numbers in the Caribbean with fraudulent intent. There is also the question of whether these calls actually physically terminate in the country indicated by the number, or whether they are siphoned off domestically, but still charged the international rate. I haven't seen any documentation for the allegation that this practice occurs, but if it does, I would consider that a scam. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: edshuck@best.com (Edward Shuck) Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 03:42:01 GMT Organization: Visual Traffic Reply-To: edshuck@visual-traffic.com Hi Clive, The US and the UK have two forms of the same problem it you happen to manage the telecom for a company, and that is keeping down costs and keeping the service to the users high. This takes money. Calls from the UK to ac 809 are fully recognized as long distance calls by everyone in the UK that can dial a phone. Praise your quality education for that one. But in the US, where the former vice president cannot spell potato, geography is not a core subject. So now how is it a pay per call scam. Lets consider the Dominican Republic for a moment. The sex lines in the Dominican Republic do not tell you when they will be billing for 2.99 or 4.99 per minute. There is no, repeat NO, statute that says they will or must or even hints at it. The Telecommunications act of 1995 addresses only the United States of America. What I would like,and I think Mark as well, is that the US would have the regular (regular for us) NPA NNX abcd numbering and for us to call the rest of the world would require a 011. Nice neat clean. That way our companies and corps that do not make international calls can block the 976s and look alikes, the 900s and the 011 and the telcom managers can avoid at least one staff meeting a week. Edward Shuck edshuck@visual-traffic.com Visual Traffic http://www.visual-traffic.com Telephone Traffic Analysis/Phreaker & Telabuse Abatement ------------------------------ From: wollman@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Date: 12 Dec 1996 10:49:59 -0500 Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Clive D.W. Feather wrote: > I don't see how you can class these as scams. With the +1 809 and non- > NANP numbers, you pay *exactly* the same as a call to a "genuine" > number in that area. Provided it's clearly presented as an > international call the way a genuine call would be presented, what's > the problem? These numbers are rarely presented as being international. They are presented as being ``FREE(*)'' with a footnote in tiny illegible print saying ``normal toll charges will apply''. Usually the number is also presented with a carrier access code and reformatted in such a way as to hide its international nature; for example: > Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet ... might be presented as: 101-051-801-144-181-371-1138 (10518/101-0518 is one of the AOSlime these lot get, or have in the past gotten, kickbacks from). It's even `worse' for NANP international calls, since most telephone users have no notion that there are such things. (I don't consider that an excuse, myself.) There are also outfits that use Canadian numbers, particularly in Vancouver: 105-181-604-xxx-xxxx Garrett A. Wollman wollman@lcs.mit.edu ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Date: 12 Dec 1996 18:57:01 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Fearless Leader wrote: > A word now to those of you who read this and decide to get in the back > of your television set and experiment: *** discharge that bugger before > you go sticking your hands in there *** ! Old television sets tend to > retain a charge for a long time; a very long time in fact. I've seen > sets that were turned off and unplugged for a week or more still be > loaded with juice. Those capacitors take forever to leak it out. It > makes quite a frightful but fun display for all the neighborhood kids. > Invite them in to watch, then take a *very big* screwdriver with a > plastic handle you can hold -- do not touch the metal part! Probe in > there with the metal part of the screwdriver, touching it to those > big caps you see in there one at a time and simultaneously to ground. Actually the major storage of high-voltage is in the CRT itself, which acts as a large capacitor. > Each time you do that, there will be a loud bang! and sparks will > fly out of the back of the television at you. Don't worry; it won't > hurt you, it just looks scary and mean. Do that three or four times > or until the television set quits backfiring at you. Now it is okay to > stick your hands in there wherever you want with no concern. It won't hurt you, but it may well ruin the TV. Output transistors in high voltage multipliers tend not to appreciate this sort of behavior. > Now should you forget that first and foremost safety precaution as I > did one day when I was trying to work on a linear amplifier for a CB > radio for someone, it'll knock you on your keister and you will spend > the rest of the day with a sort of crazed look on your face, and some > confusion in your thinking, just like old fashioned electro-shock > therapy the state-run mental hospitals used to administer. If in fact it doesn't kill you. If you're unlucky enough to grab the wrong thing the wrong way, you may well stop your heartbeat. This can be disconcerting. > That will > teach you to keep your hands to yourself and not go sticking them > places they do not belong. ... remember: unplug it completely; > totally discharge those capacitors (you will know you are finished > when the television/radio quits 'arguing' and backfiring at you) and > then -- and only then -- put your hands in there to work on it. _Hand_ please, Pat. The first rule of working on electronic equipment is to keep one hand in your pocket. (Please, no Alanis jokes here.) > There are some who would claim that I still have not recovered to > this day from taking that load twenty years ago. Maybe not. Maybe > I still am crazed and confused. PAT] They're right. :-) Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Junk Mail Will Be Billed For. The Suncoast Freenet *FLASH: Craig Shergold aw'better; call 800-215-1333* Tampa Bay, Florida http://members.aol.com/kyop/rhps.html +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Date: Thu, 12 Dec 96 10:03:42 PST From: Lauren Weinstein > That's what I thought, too. They do some tricky patented thing, and > the text looks about three times better than I would have thought NTSC > could do. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it in person. I > visited some of my own text-heavy pages, and they were quite legible. I went and looked at it on several hookups (video and s-video) and wasn't impressed at all. I saw typical NTSC crawl around edges, and the flicker was very annoying to stare at, especially on typical pages with heavy white background content. S-video naturally looks better than video, but only relatively, and only high-end TVs typically even have an s-video hookup. > In the longer run, WebTV encourages page authors to produce customized > versions of pages to serve up when a webTV request comes in, with > smaller pages and more TV-friendly colors and layout. If they get > their critical mass, I suspect this will happen, since a surprising > number of sites already have different Netscape versions for frames > and non-frames clients and the like. Which is exactly what SHOULD NOT be happening. There's enough effort going into glitzy layouts and such that really should be going into producing useful content as it is. When people have to start creating multiple versions for different platforms even more time is being wasted. It's hard enough now guessing how a simple, flat page will look on various straightforward 800x600, 640x480, or other screen sizes--and sometimes it's pretty horrifying when you go somewhere else and see what some people are looking at. More bizarre screen layouts will only make it worse. I don't touch frames with a 10-foot pole--I think they're nothing but trouble. > It ain't a Pentium with a super-VGA, but for $300, it's pretty impressive. Only because (in my opinion) there hasn't been anything like it before and the "gee-whiz" quotient is very high. I still suspect it will quickly become another box sitting in the closet unused as users who get tired of the net just turn it off and the ones who care move on to conventional systems with more power, flexibiility, ISP choices, etc. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ From: jcolb90@aol.com (Jeff Colbert) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 12 Dec 1996 17:56:48 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Ran a test here in Iowa. I live in a small town outside a city of 100k. When I gave my home number it said both were toll calls, when, infact, only one of them was. I ran a couple of other numbers for average sized Iowa towns, one of the results gave interlata numbers, the other one intralata numbers. All long distance. I do hope that there is an option to pick your access number. In my case, I would want to restrict access to the local number only. If it is not available, I DO NOT want to be connected long distance automatically. The other issue, is that if someone wants to connect long distance, they should be able to choose the number that gets them the best rates. Oftentimes Interlata is cheaper than Intralata. System should be able to connect initally to 800 number, list access numbers/locations, let you choose, and then download in to flash memory/NVram. Jeff Colbert ------------------------------ From: fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 22:05:37 GMT In article , Jack Decker wrote: > BUT - this page seems to tell you what you want to hear. If you type > in 616-842-xxxx, it tells you it has a local number in the 842 > exchange. If you use 616-846 instead, it says the local number is in > 616-846! Substitute the 847 prefix, and it says the access number's > in 847, and using 844 says the local number's in 844. It's a feature. :-) Some areas are served by an 800 number. Rather than broadcast the number, WebTV shows the area code and exchange you asked for. It's slightly silly, but eventually those people will be served by a local ISP, and WebTV doesn't want to appear like they're guaranteeing toll-free access. > (I do have to give WebTV credit for figuring out that a call > to Wisconsin would be less expensive than a call to Grand Rapids, > which appears to be the next closest in-state access point, but they > aren't always that smart -- callers from the Holland, Michigan area are > sent to the Grand Rapids number as the toll access point, even though > Wisconsin would in most cases be a less expensive call for folks in > that area)! The toll rates you see now were computed with the November CCMI database, using TOD Class 2 (evening) on a weekday for a 30-minute AT&T call. If you can give me the area codes and exchanges in question I will check out your statement. Often you will be given two POPs, one close by and one farther away, that have the same cost rating but are from different providers. I occasionally get complaints about how someone is using a really distant POP when there's a closer one available, but it turns out the closer one is more expensive. A mix of AT&T, MCI, and Sprint rates may be used in the future. > Bottom line is, it's possible that a lot of WebTV users are going to > be VERY surprised when they get their phone bills. Unless the folks > at WebTV really are putting access numbers in all the exchanges where > their Web page claims that access is available, I would not be at all > surprised to hear that they are the target of a class action lawsuit > filed by disgruntled purchasers (wanting to recover toll charges plus > the purchase price of their units) somewhere down the line. Oddly enough, they really are. The WebTV box warns you every time you're about to make a toll call, showing you the exact number you are about to dial. There is no advantage to hiding toll charges from customers; they're going to find out about them sooner or later. Sony & Philips have liberal return policies, so it's not like people are getting stuck with a box that they can't use. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried it with the exchanges here in > Skokie (847-673/674/675 and 847-329) and it consistently came back > saying I had two local numbers, one in 312-509 which is correct and > one in 847-480 which is also correct. PAT] You're drowning in POPs, actually. :-) The two you have are from different IAPs, so if one is down you'll get the other. I don't think anybody else does this, and certainly not at $19.95/month. And yes, I do work at WebTV Networks. I speak about "them" and post from my netcom account to prevent anybody's lawyers from taking what I say as being official statements. Nothing I've said is WebTV policy or opinion, it's all mine. fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Friends don't let friends patent software -- http://www.lpf.org/ ------------------------------ From: Thomas P. Brisco Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 12:27:48 -0500 Organization: ICon CMT I'm not sure that JP and Dave are talking about the same thing. A "niche" (presumably for people with reduced physical dexterity) doesn't necessarily imply "a very good thing". The media hype about "the web" has made me nauseous enough so that I've not even really looked seriously at the WebTV. Is it bidirectional? How are responses keyed in? Is advertising splashed/attached to information sent to the screen? I've always presumed that it did not allow for full response capability (i.e. using the "mailto:" URL/buttons to compose replies) and that it is Madison Avenue's way of ensuring that you have no way to voice your objections to anything (pretty much the way TV, Radio and Newspapers are run -- if the dictators approve, your rebuttal will be aired). The interesting thing about the Internet is that it is the worlds' *second* media that permits the mass population to have an equal voice to respond to the opinions of the "opinion makers" (newspaper, tv, etc). [I consider the "soapbox" or town square to be the first]. Thomas P. ``Tp'' Brisco brisco@core.iconnet.net Engineering Group 201.319.5260 (Voice) ICon CMT Corp 201.601.2018 (Fax) ------------------------------ From: hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 10:56:54 -0600 Organization: SkyPoint Communications, Inc. In article , beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) wrote: > Alan Bishop (a@corp.webtv.net) wrote: >> - we transcode images and other media types. For example, image >> creators often make their images too detailed or store them in >> a format that doesn't compress as well as it should. We fix that >> in the proxy before transmitting them over the slow link to the user. > Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an > image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the > number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? Think about it, they are using a TV as a display moniter, by "derezing" all the graphics down to that level they save a ton of bandwith. I assume that there is no way to get hardcopy out of a WebTV so who cares about the resolution of the images. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 12:51:38 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Asynchronous Transfer Mode: Technical Overview" BKATMTCO.RVW 960909 "Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM): Technical Overview", Harry J. R. Dutton/Peter Lenhard, 1995, 0-13-520446-1 %A Harry J. R. Dutton %A Peter Lenhard %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1995 %G 0-13-520446-1 %I Prentice Hall %O +1-201-236-7139 fax: +1-201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %T "Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM): Technical Overview" Of the books on ATM that I have reviewed so far, this is the most useful. Very few people will actually have to deal with ATM on a technical level, but if you do, you'll likely find this overview helpful. The principles, layers, components, characteristics, and management are all clearly spelled out. Managers will likely not appreciate the lack of "words of one syllable" analysis, but ATM is a complex system in any case. (My appreciation for the book was heightened today by a colleague who wanted to choose an ISP because "they were the only ones with ATM". He had no reason that we might need to use ATM for email.) copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKATMTCO.RVW 960909 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca Materialists are Object Oriented Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #661 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 16 08:38:16 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA01490; Mon, 16 Dec 1996 08:38:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 08:38:16 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612161338.IAA01490@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #662 TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Dec 96 08:37:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 662 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: WebTV Sad Story (J.P. White) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Andy McFadden) Re: WebTV Sad Story (lr@access4.digex.net) Re: WebTV Sad Story (John Nagle) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jered J Floyd) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Phil Leonard) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Stanley Cline) Re: WebTV Sad Story (toolbox@ibm.net) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Alan Bishop) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Mark Ashley) Re: WebTV (Not So) Sad Story (Henry Baker) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (Leonid A. Broukhis) WebTV Upgrade Released (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (John R. Levine) Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (David Richards) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 08:03:04 -0800 From: JP White Reply-To: ffv.aerotech@ffvaerotech.com Organization: FFV Aerotech Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story > Craig Macbride Wrote: > It already connects to a TV set and many people already have cable TV, > so it would make sense to make the $450 box include a cable modem and > just run over the cable TV lines to a net connection. No phone line > costs; no long-distance charges; no having the phone line in use when > trying to make or receive phone calls; _much_ faster connection. > Of course, it wouldn't help if someone is outside the areas serviced by > cable TV, but that may still mean a lot more people would be covered > than they are by the WebTV ISP's local phone call areas at present. As I understand the specifications for the Sony Box, it already includes hookups for cable. The Sony Literature says, and I quote, "There's a WebTV Port connector for use with printers, cable modems and other products." I expect the reason WebTV isn't pushing the cable modem concept too hard, is the fact that many metropolitan areas (IE Nashville TN) are still without cable internet service providers, but virtually everyone has a phone line. It's early days, give them a chance! Expect to see a higher monthly rate when the cable modem does appear as an option. I doubt they'll give away the extra bandwidth, though it would be real nice if they did! The printer option I believe is not currently available either. WebTV/Sony/Magnavox will most likely clean up next Christmas with a bunch of new accessories for the WebTV. JP White Manager Information Systems FFV Aerotech Inc., Mail to : ffv.aerotech@ffvaerotech.com Web : http://www.ffvaerotech.com ------------------------------ From: fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 20:25:43 GMT In article , Jeff Colbert wrote: > Ran a test here in Iowa. I live in a small town outside a city of 100k. > When I gave my home number it said both were toll calls, when, infact, > only one of them was. I ran a couple of other numbers for average sized > Iowa towns, one of the results gave interlata numbers, the other one > intralata numbers. All long distance. If you send me the area code and prefix I will look into the issue. We occasionally find minor errors in the CCMI database or in the way we use it, and like to get them resolved as quickly as possible. We list expensive local calls (e.g. $0.25 flat rate per call) as being non-local, which may be what you're seeing. Again, the goal is to avoid causing any surprises for the customer. Most of them don't care whether the bill comes from AT&T or the BOC, they're just concerned about what the calls cost. > I do hope that there is an option to pick your access number. In my case, > I would want to restrict access to the local number only. If it is not > available, I DO NOT want to be connected long distance automatically. The A dialog comes up before a non-local call is made. If you don't want to make the call, don't hit the button. We err on the side of caution whenever possible. > other issue, is that if someone wants to connect long distance, they > should be able to choose the number that gets them the best rates. > Oftentimes Interlata is cheaper than Intralata. We're using the actual tariff data from CCMI. I did some tests on a few phone bills and they were dead on. > System should be able to > connect initally to 800 number, list access numbers/locations, let you > choose, and then download in to flash memory/NVram. Score three out of four. There are two problems with putting a bunch of POP numbers on the screen. First and foremost, it's fine for technical folks but fairly lame for the bulk of the population who want to plug it in and then just not worry about it. The whole "it just works" concept requires hiding as much of the internal workings from the mass-market consumer as possible, without subjecting them to any nasty surprises. I think the WebTV unit has struck an excellent balance between hiding the ugly details and letting the user know what it's doing with the phone lines. Secondly, the "pick an access number" thing gets really old when POPs come and go. As another reader discovered, the WebTV access numbers are provided by other companies (there's a Concentric Network press release on the web site at http://webtv.net/, and probably something there from UUNET as well). If CNC updated their service and switched to a new access number in a particular area, the WebTV box would automatically get the update and shift, which is much nicer than sending "this number is going away, you must pick a new number now" to your 12-year-old. Similarly, if a new access point gets added that's local to users who previously had to pay toll charges, the change is transparent and immediate. (If it went the other way, they'd start getting a dialog every time the box dials.) The WebTV way of doing things is different and unfamiliar, and not without its pitfalls, but by and large it works and works well. Please understand that the purpose behind hiding information from the user is to make them comfortable around unfamiliar technology, not subject them to hidden costs. (And there I go referring to WebTV as "we". Remember, these are my opinions, not those of WebTV Networks, Inc.) fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) ------------------------------ From: lr@access4.digex.net (Sir Topham Hatt) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 15 Dec 1996 21:23:52 GMT Craig Macbride (craig@rmit.EDU.AU) wrote: > It already connects to a TV set and many people already have cable TV, > so it would make sense to make the $450 box include a cable modem and > just run over the cable TV lines to a net connection. Of course, this would require that the cable company support this. Frankly, I'm really skeptical of this because most of the cable operators have a hard enough time delivering TV signals in a forward direction, let alone a reverse channel. Everybody has or can get a phone line. ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 21:35:45 GMT Thomas P. Brisco writes: > The media hype about "the web" has made me nauseous enough so > that I've not even really looked seriously at the WebTV. Is it > bidirectional? How are responses keyed in? Is advertising > splashed/attached to information sent to the screen? > I've always presumed that it did not allow for full response > capability (i.e. using the "mailto:" URL/buttons to compose replies) > and that it is Madison Avenue's way of ensuring that you have no way > to voice your objections to anything (pretty much the way TV, Radio > and Newspapers are run -- if the dictators approve, your rebuttal will > be aired). There are two remotes, a small one with arrow keys and a full keyboard. E-mail works reasonably well. It's video that works badly; it doesn't do QuickTime or AVI. We may see well see something like this built into higher-end TV sets, like a closed-caption decoder. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: jered@mit.edu (Jered J Floyd) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 15 Dec 1996 22:40:30 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology > Alan Bishop (a@corp.webtv.net) wrote: >> - we transcode images and other media types. For example, image >> creators often make their images too detailed or store them in >> a format that doesn't compress as well as it should. We fix that >> in the proxy before transmitting them over the slow link to the user. > Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an > image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the > number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? This is actually a very interesting question, which is currently being debated at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) conference in Geneva. Currently under debate are three copyright treaties intended to be the first major update of international copyright law since the Berne Convention in 1971. (WIPO can be found at http://www.wipo.int/) Relevant to this topic, one of the treaties, the Treaty on Certain Questions Concerning the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, addresses the question of whether or not cached data can be a copyright infrigement. Article 10, item 10.14, paragraph 2, currently reads: Communication of a work can involve a series of acts of transmission and temporary storage, such incidental storage being a necessary feature of the communication process. If, at any point, the stored work is made available to the public, such making available constitutes a further act of communication which requires authorization. It should be noted that storage falls within the scope of the right of reproduction (see Notes on Article 7). Article 7(2) says: (2) Subject to the provisions of Article 9(2) of the Berne Convention, it shall be a matter for legislation in Contracting Parties to limit the right of reproduction in cases where a temporary reproduction has the sole purpose of making the work perceptible or where the reproduction is of a transient or incidental nature, provided that such reproduction takes place in the course of use of the work that is authorized by the author or permitted by law. WebTV's transcoding is (imho) a case in which a temporary reproduction is made for the 'sole purpose of making the work perceptible', and since the documents are available publicly on the web, they are being used in the manner the author intended. This is just my interpretation, though, and I Am Not A Lawyer. I could be wrong; the wording of these treaties makes my head hurt. Additionally, another part of this treaty (I'm not sure which article offhand), can be interpreted to make carriers liable for copyright violations. For instance, if you put copyrighted information on your web page, your ISP, and possibly the telecom carriers you used, would be liable for copyright infringement. The third treaty, the Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Databases would allow owners of databases to copyright non-creative works, such as facts. For instance, the NBA wants to copyright basketball game scores so that they can charge people licensing fees to distribute them. Due to many domestic objections, the U.S. recently decided to withdraw support for this treaty. (A good article be found at http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6188,00.html) Jered Floyd '98 jered@mit.edu ------------------------------ From: pleonard@cybercom.net (Phil Leonard) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 00:37:14 GMT In article ID , beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) writes: > Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an > image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the > number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? If they ARE violating any copyright laws then everyone of us who cache images we view on the Internet, are, as well. I know you can't easily see this with Netscape, but Internet Explorer shows you every image you ever looked at, until the cache is full and pushes the last image out to make room for the fresh ones. http://cybercom.net/~pleonard Public PGP Key @ http://cybercom.net/~pleonard/pgp.txt E12F9F8D ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 02:02:46 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com > BUT - this page seems to tell you what you want to hear. If you type > in 616-842-xxxx, it tells you it has a local number in the 842 > exchange. If you use 616-846 instead, it says the local number is in > 616-846! Substitute the 847 prefix, and it says the access number's > in 847, and using 844 says the local number's in 844. Unless they > have local access lines in all four of the Grand Haven, Michigan > exchanges (which I would think is rather unlikely), something is Four numbers *apparently in the same CO* is odd to say the least. Try going back to the page and entering 706-861-0000 (my prefix); the page returns 423-756-xxxx and 423-624-xxxx which, even though in a different state and area code, are local. One number is UUNet [756-3630], the other is Concentric [624-1340]. HOWEVER, if I enter 706-965-0000 (which is ALSO local to Chattanooga, but in a different telco) it says there are *no* local numbers and gives the same Chattanooga numbers above. Using other prefixes served by other non-BellSouth telcos, but still local, did the same thing. Apparently WebTV believes that different telco = long distance, which IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE! (For the 706-965 case, *even if* the numbers were LD, they'd be cheap intraLATA, interstate calls [19c/min at worst] and are often cheaper than calls to Atlanta, Knoxville, etc.) You can try going to Concentric's and web pages and look for local numbers as well. > aren't always that smart -- callers from the Holland, Michigan area are > sent to the Grand Rapids number as the toll access point, even though > Wisconsin would in most cases be a less expensive call for folks in Are you *sure*? It could be an intRALATA call which is often cheaper than intERLATA calls. > be VERY surprised when they get their phone bills. Unless the folks > at WebTV really are putting access numbers in all the exchanges where > their Web page claims that access is available, I would not be at all I'm really surprised they aren't offering 800/888 access at some cost. An 800/888 number with a large amount of inbound traffic can result in very low rates -- often lower than the caller can get! (I know of companies -- most of them inbound call centers -- that pay 7-8c/min for their 800/888 traffic; they do generate a large number of inbound calls, of course. CompuServe has charged 8c/min for 800 access -- now handled by LCI -- for some time.) Assuming a charge of 10-12c/min (average for ISPs) this is lower than most customer-side LD charges, and would *still* allow additional revenue for WebTV. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ From: toolbox@ibm.net Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 01:41:40 GMT Organization: Nut Screws and Bolts - Film at 11 Reply-To: toolbox@ibm.net Around Thu, 12 Dec 1996 12:27:48 -0500, Thomas P. Brisco wrote: > Is it bidirectional? How are responses keyed in? Is advertising > splashed/attached to information sent to the screen? WebTV is essentially a very bare-bones web browser and email client. You can send email from WebTV, but it's easier if you have $60 wireless keyboard. People who email from WebTV have "@webtv.net" on their email addresses. > I've always presumed that it did not allow for full response > capability (i.e. using the "mailto:" URL/buttons to compose replies) > and that it is Madison Avenue's way of ensuring that you have no way > to voice your objections to anything (pretty much the way TV, Radio > and Newspapers are run -- if the dictators approve, your rebuttal will > be aired). Absolutely NOT TRUE! You can send email with WebTV. They even advertise this on their advertisements! I just visited my local electronics store and sent email to their customer service dept from the demo WebTV box (but the demo units are restricted to email only to WebTV customer service for obvious reasons). Alas, USENET newsgroups are not supported by WebTV. toolbox@ibm.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 19:00:10 PST From: Alan Bishop Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Hi. Although I'm a software engineer for WebTV networks, these are my own opinions, and I don't speak for the company in any way. beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) writes: > Also, when you say an image is "too detailed" does this mean you also > resize or reduce the number of colors of the images to make them fit > on the screen? We resize large images so that they fit on a television screen. We translate from one image format to another. I believe that some image formats store information in a "most detailed" to "least detailed" order, which means we can algorithmically throw away detail that wouldn't show up anyway. hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) writes: > I assume that there is no way to get hardcopy out of a WebTV so who > cares about the resolution of the images. There is no printing capability today. However, we are working on it. In order to record information found on the web, some users are taping sessions on their VCRs. Thomas P. Brisco writes: > The media hype about "the web" has made me nauseous enough so that > I've not even really looked seriously at the WebTV. Is it > bidirectional? How are responses keyed in? > I've always presumed that it did not allow for full response > capability (i.e. using the "mailto:" URL/buttons to compose replies) > and that it is Madison Avenue's way of ensuring that you have no way > to voice your objections to anything (pretty much the way TV, Radio > and Newspapers are run -- if the dictators approve, your rebuttal will > be aired). There's a good chance that your local home electronics dealer has either a Sony or Philips unit set up that you can play with. It is bidirectional. The user selects the content to be displayed, using a selection box that highlights URLs, buttons, and other active areas. You can also enter URLs directly. You have three options for keying in responses. (1) You can pull up an on-screen keyboard and select keys. This is time consuming, but is suitable for some input. (2) You can get the optional wireless keyboard. (3) You can plug a standard PC keyboard into the back. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "full response capability". We provide incoming and outgoing email. You can read and post Usenet news via dejanews or other web based news services. You can fill in text areas in HTML forms and press buttons. Since you appear to be concerned about censorship, I'll describe the content screening options. You have a choice of (a) no screening, (b) SurfWatch screening, which operates off of a list of pages to reject, or (c) young child screening, which operates off of a list of pages to allow. You can select a different screening option for each of the users who share a box. Some stores have enabled screening for their demo units, but you're in control of a box that you own. alan ------------------------------ From: mark@compu.co.jp (Mark Ashley) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 23:21:07 GMT Organization: - CompuCo Japan Alan Bishop wrote: >> In defense of WebTV they do provide a service where you give them your >> area code and first three digits of your local number and they will >> inform you if the call is local or not. However there is catch 22, >> this service is available on their Web page, so if you havn't got Web >> access your stuck. > That's at: > http://webtv.net/HTML/home.retail.html (.net, not .com) I think that the choice of the .NET address will confuse many of the users that WebTV is trying to cater to. Many new users think every address ends with a .com, and get very confused when they see .net, mil, and other things. This happened with MSN when they first started out. They had aquired MSN.NET, but later bought MSN.COM from some company that had it. I wonder if WebTV will buy out webtv.com? ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Re: WebTV (Not So) Sad Story Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 19:15:20 GMT In article , Jack Decker wrote: > I also suspect that many of the WebTV buyers of this year will be > lining up to get a REAL computer and Internet connection next year -- > if they aren't totally turned off to the Internet by the whole WebTV > experience, that is! I disagree. I spent two hours playing with WebTV, and I think that it is ideal for a non-computer person. I know many of my computer friends who are buying them for their mothers to keep in touch with their netizen children. I do think that the keyboard is essential (the on-screen keyboard works, but is too slow for anything but typing in a few URL's). Even the manual that comes with WebTV is written in the same familiar, but incomprehensible style that all Sony consumer product manuals are written in. Luckily, you don't need to look at it very much to get going. An existing PC user will not find WebTV acceptable for any real work, but this product isn't aimed at them. I do hope that WebTV plans to offer in the near future: 1. A local disk upgrade to cache web pages. Even a few extra megabytes of local caching RAM could help a lot. 2. The new USRobotics/Rockwell 56Kbits/sec modem technology. This should help for next Xmas's sales. 3. Ethernet option for office/kiosk use. 4. Regular PC monitor option for higher-quality video -- i.e., for heavy duty users who don't care about displaying it on their TV's. Or incorporate a TV tuner and display the TV picture on the higher-quality TV monitor. 5. Some mechanism for local printing -- i.e., to a local fax machine cleverly integrated in some way with the same phone line that is used for the modem and/or a cheap external printer that doubles as a fax machine when the WebTV isn't in use. The ability to locally print email is very important, even for non-PC types. A 'fax' print of some web pages would also be useful. 6. Some ability to integrate a Connectix-style cheap camera, even if only for still shots. Grandma could send pix to her kids & vice versa. 7. WebTV email is _very_ basic -- no audio, pix or video. Some additional software work on the email system could make this really cool. Incorporate local pix/sound into the email. 8. Put in higher quality audio system for the upcoming 56Kbit/cable modems. If put under the cabinets in the kitchen, one could finally listen to RealAudio radio stations all day long, instead of the drivel that comes out of the AM/FM dial. 9. Incorporate a cordless phone into the unit, so that you don't have to run a phone wire over to the TV. In some houses, this could be a real pain. You also get a cordless phone out of the bargain. Alternatively, utilize some sort of household wiring to carry the bits. [WebTV: email me, and I'll tell you where to send the consulting check. ;-)] ------------------------------ From: leob@best.com (Leonid A. Broukhis) Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: 15 Dec 1996 23:37:21 -0800 Organization: BEST Internet Communications From my point of view, WebTV is little more than a toy without a printer interface. What worth is receiving e-mail if you cannot print it; what worth is browsing the Net if you cannot print a single line of information you need to save for later perusal? Judging by www.webtv.net, they don't address the issue now and do not provide any info on supporting printer interface in future. Leo ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV Upgrade Released Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 15:47:52 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. First, RealAudio has been added. That's one step in the right direction. I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, and frames aren't too far behind. BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff can be resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for JavaScript or ActiveX. Second, they've added background music. The music seems to repeat after an hour or so, but it's pretty good. What they need to do is to support viewer selection of a musical genre. Personally, I like The Music of Cyberspace series. Third, they've made it possible to switch users without logging off and logging on again. There were a few other additions, such as checking for e-mail even when the unit is off, but the above are the main upgrade features. BTW, it was totally painless to add the upgrades. It took about 10 minutes, but it was a simple click on the remote control. That's it! WebTV, albeit a consumer product, is the best example of why NCs are needed: Ease of maintenance! No more goofy Microsoft Windows functions, like logging off by hitting the "Start" icon (boy, wasn't that intuitive!). For your enjoyment, here are four useful URLs (each is an article): http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6043,00.html http://www.packet.com/schrage/today.html (this one, because it ends with "today.html" may not last for long!) http://techweb.cmp.com:80/ng/nov96/fcompare.htm http://www.nytimes.com/web/docsroot/library/cyber/techcol/1202techcol.html For a pointer, go to: http://users.visi.net/~cwt/tv-inet.html David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 96 11:14 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > limitation of the current WebTV unit. No matter how many tricks you > play with direct video out and S-video interfaces, the bandwidth of > conventional North American NTSC (or PAL/SECAM for that matter) > televisions makes them generally unsuitable for displaying significant > amounts of text. That's what I thought, too. They do some tricky patented thing, and the text looks about three times better than I would have thought NTSC could do. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it in person. I visited some of my own text-heavy pages, and they were quite legible. In the longer run, WebTV encourages page authors to produce customized versions of pages to serve up when a webTV request comes in, with smaller pages and more TV-friendly colors and layout. If they get their critical mass, I suspect this will happen, since a surprising number of sites already have different Netscape versions for frames and non-frames clients and the like. It ain't a Pentium with a super-VGA, but for $300, it's pretty impressive. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof ------------------------------ From: dr@ripco.com (David Richards) Subject: Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Date: 15 Dec 1996 21:42:44 GMT Organization: Ripco Communications Inc. In article , Lauren Weinstein wrote: >> That's what I thought, too. They do some tricky patented thing, and >> the text looks about three times better than I would have thought NTSC >> could do. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it in person. I >> visited some of my own text-heavy pages, and they were quite legible. > I went and looked at it on several hookups (video and s-video) and > wasn't impressed at all. I saw typical NTSC crawl around edges, and > the flicker was very annoying to stare at, especially on typical pages > with heavy white background content. S-video naturally looks better > than video, but only relatively, and only high-end TVs typically > even have an s-video hookup. I stopped to play with one today in Circuit City, and it looked good _for_a_television_set_. S-Video makes a big difference on text, but I doubt I'd want it as my primary web browser. >> In the longer run, WebTV encourages page authors to produce customized >> versions of pages to serve up when a webTV request comes in, with >> smaller pages and more TV-friendly colors and layout. If they get >> their critical mass, I suspect this will happen, since a surprising >> number of sites already have different Netscape versions for frames >> and non-frames clients and the like. Actually, I found it rather annoying that my pages came up with a white background -- I didn't check if it lets you set a background color, I'd hope so -- basic black is much easier on the eyes. FYI, WebTV identifies itself as: Mozilla/1.22 WebTV/1.0 (compatible; MSIE 2.0) >> It ain't a Pentium with a super-VGA, but for $300, it's pretty impressive. > Only because (in my opinion) there hasn't been anything like it before and > the "gee-whiz" quotient is very high. I still suspect it will quickly > become another box sitting in the closet unused as users who get tired of > the net just turn it off and the ones who care move on to conventional > systems with more power, flexibiility, ISP choices, etc. Or even the unconventional Sega Saturn based browser, which supposedly looks as good, lets you choose any PPP provider, and when you're sick of the web, you can pop in a game or even a music CD. David Richards Ripco, since Nineteen-Eighty-Three My opinions are my own, Public Access in Chicago But they are available for rental Shell/SLIP/PPP/UUCP/ISDN/Leased dr@ripco.com (312) 665-0065 !Free Usenet/E-Mail! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #662 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 16 09:13:12 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA03541; Mon, 16 Dec 1996 09:13:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 09:13:12 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612161413.JAA03541@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #663 TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Dec 96 09:13:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 663 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telephone Switchboard Electronics Web Site (Ricardo Cedar Springs) Indian Satellite Data Now in Europe (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Sprint Ordered to Pay $60 Million to One of Their Marketers (D. Burstein) GTE Suit Against Sate PUC (Monty Solomon) Pacific Bell Responds To MCI Allegations (Mike King) Re: N11 Codes (Linc Madison) Re: N11 Codes (Nils Andersson) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (D. Banks) Information Wanted on Destiny Telecom (Josef J. Finsel) Los Nettos as ISP (was: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues) (Robert McMillin) Baby Bell Complaints about Internet Usage (Scott Bushey) AT&T True Connections 500 Observations (Stanley Cline) Unethical Sprint Marketing to College Students (Paul A. Houle) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ricardo@netcom.com (Ricardo Cedar Springs) Subject: Telephone Switchboard Electronics Web Site Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 11:50:13 GMT A PHONE SYSTEM FOR HOME OR OFFICE. SCHEMATICS AND SOURCE CODE INCLUDED. DELIVERED TO YOU *- WORKING -* RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. New Features! Controlable from PC serial port with AT command set and Calls can now go from Trunk to Trunk (this would allow you to call into the system and then call out another connected telephone line or have another call conferenced onto the line your calling in on). Refer to Firmware 1.3. http://www.PhoneSwitch.com sales@PhoneSwitch.com If you have been given the responsibility to design a hardware product which interfaces to a telephone set or a telephone line or you are just interested in the intricacies of telephone call processing based on a state machine then the Small Telephone Switch Evaluation Kit is for you. The EVKIT includes a working PCB, schematics and source code written in C. You can make calls between extentions or to the outside lines. Incomming calls can also be transfered between extentions. Its a complete PBX that you can change the software on! Even add new hardware features... Begin of EVKIT overview: ------------------------------------------------------------- The sx38 product is a complete small modularly expandable open architecture private branch exchange on a 12" by 12" circuit board and is delivered partially assembled with a PC compatible 65W power supply. The sx38 switch can provide complete standalone service in remote applications. Complete schematics and source code (8051 written in C, compatible with popular compilers) are provided to facilitate development of industry standard peripherals, interfaces, software and companion switching modules. The basic printed circuit board has 8 subscriber line interfaces and 3 central office line interfaces. 2 of the slics and 1 of the co interfaces are delivered pre-assembled, working and tested. 12 speech paths are provided to support non-blocked operation and support multiple conference calls in progress at the same time. All of the ports have the same terminating impedance when measured from the switch matrix allowing any port to be connected to any other port. One board provides a complete system, all the necessary common control and signaling components to set up multiple conversations at one time are included. Basic and flexible, the software is modular by nature allowing complete software control to create sophisticated communications products. The evaluation kit is $375 and is provided with a power supply which is UL registered. Two of the eight slics and one of the three co interfaces are already assembled. When you receive the board you will be able to lift either extension phone and receive dial tone, be able to make intercom calls which ring standard phones, make calls external to the system by dialing 9, receive calls from the outside and transfer the calls to another extension and answer any ringing phone by dialing 9. The evaluation kit works when you receive it. You can also expand the evaluation kit by adding easy to purchase components and simply soldering them to the board following the pattern of the already assembled circuits. Feature Overview: 8 station 3 trunk, expandable to 16 station 6 trunk. (expansion board is $160 partially assembled). 2 DTMF Senders (one is provided in the EVKIT) 2 DTMF Receivers (one is provided in the EVKIT) 2 imprecise call progress receivers (one is provided in the EVKIT) 2 dial tone generators 90vac 20hz Bell Ringing Invertor SLIC Supervision Generator (forces answering machines to hang up) SLIC Ring trip detect (detects offhook during application of ringing signal) All ports can add gain to the call. SLIC can transmit audio during on-hook. (Slic can send audio, like caller id, to extensions) CO can receive audio on-hook (caller id can be decoded by a central, shared, CID decoder) 2 expansion connectors with CPU bus and audio channels. Full Duplex Serial Port (300,1200,9600 bps 8-N-1) Conference Matrix for conference calls. (Any time three ports need to be on the same call.) 8051 CPU, 64KROM, 8KRAM Suggested Applications with provided software: +Small Telephone System for Home or Small Business. +Personalized Ringing Pattern Decoder for fax machine or modem. +Modem Pool controller. You cant barge in on a conversation in progress. +Anyplace one phone needs to call another. +Anyplace one, two or three telephone lines need to be shared in a convenient non intrusive manner. Applications you might develop by modifying the software and interfacing to the hardware: +SEAMLESS integration of internet phone software/sound blaster card to home or office phone system. Imagine picking up a standard phone and dialing a intercom call around the world over the internet phone and reaching another standard phone at the other end. Might even be able to receive calls from the switched network and go back to the switched network. +Automated and transparent (to the user) intercept and rerouting of voice calls to private networks or common carriers. (1+ to 10XXX+ as an example). Remember the schematics and source code are included which makes modification, expansion and integration easier. Important note: This system is based on technology I presented in a article in Circuit Cellar-The Computer Applications Journal. The EVKIT is MUCH IMPROVED over the circuits presented in the article. If you are looking for something which is COST EFFECTIVE and CHEAP then the EVKIT is probably not for you. The EVKIT is comparable to what other companies are offering except the SCHEMATICS and SOURCE CODE are provided with each unit. No other telephone switch manufacturer does this. ------------------------------ Subject: Indian Satellite Data Now in Europe Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 10:52:09 PST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Reply-To: rishab@dxm.org The Indian Techonomist: bulletin, December 13, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved Indian remote-sensing data now in Europe December 13, 1996: GAF-Euromap of Germany has tied up with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for European rights to maket remote-sensing data from the Indian IRS-1C satellite. IRS-1C data is already distributed in the US and elsewhere by EOSAT - bought from Lockheed- Martin last month by Space Imaging Inc (SII). IRS-1C acquires the highest spatial resolution remote sensing data commercially available in the world today. Indeed, Space Imaging president Jeff Harris said last month that "with the Indian satellites [IRS and P- series], we are entering a new era of earth information products." Since its launch on December 28 last year, IRS-1C has been, says ISRO, the most sophisticated civilian remote sensing satellite in orbit. Space industry sources point out that although data is commercially available from Russian satellites originally built for military use, at somewhat higher resolutions than IRS-1C's 5-metre panchromatic (photographic) range, only IRS-1C provides full access to raw digital scanning data, rather than basic analogue photographs. In addition, IRS-1C provides many services other than photography: 25-metre multispectral data, which is essential for vegetation and natural resource planning; and 180- metre wide-field data with a repeated coverage as the satellite completes its orbit every five days - this, says SII/EOSAT, is excellent for large-area resource monitoring. IRS-1C data is currently acquired at three ground stations. At Shadnagar, India, an ISRO facility receives data for South Asia and portions of South- East and West Asia. SII/EOSAT's Norman, Oklahoma ground station receives data for almost all of North America including southern Canada and Mexico, as well as most of Central America. At Neustrelitz, Germany, GAF in cooporation with the German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR) gathers remote sensing data covering Europe, northern Africa and parts of West Asia. The GAF facility has been operational since February this year, and its data will now, with the latest agreement, be marketed throughout Europe by GAF-Euromap. SII/EOSAT is also working on ground stations in cooperation with the National Space Development Agency, Japan; the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of South Africa, the Australian Center for Remote Sensing, and the National Research Council of Thailand. It has an arrangement with Antrix Corp Ltd, the marketing arm of India's Department of Space, to make Indian satellite data available worldwide for at least the next decade. India is among the few countries to build and launch its own satellites. The IRS-1C is third in a line of advanced civilian remote-sensing satellites, and ISRO has also developed several geostationary satellites in the INSAT series, which are used for telecommunications and broadcasting. The agency has successfully tested its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and expects a geostationary launcher (GSLV) to be ready by the end of the decade. ISRO is negotiating with several global ventures, such as Iridium - in which the Indian government has an equity stake - for the development and launch of low- earth orbit satellites. The Indian Techonomist: http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/ Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@techonomist.dxm.org) A4/204 Ekta Vihar 9 Indraprastha Extension New Delhi 110092 INDIA May be distributed electronically provided that this notice is attached ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 20:52:29 EST From: danny burstein Subject: Sprint Ordered to Pay $60 Million to One of Their Marketers Arbitrators order Sprint to pay $60 million The Associated Press 12/14/96 2:48 PM Eastern KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Arbitrators have ordered Sprint Communications Corp. to pay $60.9 million in commissions to a marketing company and its sales agents. The article continues with an explanation that the "Network 200 marketing repersentatives", felt they had been shortchanged on commisions, and had filed suit back in 1992. The reps, per the story, filed against both Sprint and Network 2000. Friday's ruling by a three-member panel requires Sprint to pay half the money to Network 2000 Communications Corp. of Independence and half to the firm's sales representatives. Network 2000 still has a contract with Sprint to sell its long-distance service, said Network 2000 Chairman Larry Stewart. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 01:03:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: GTE suit Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpt from Full Closing Bell for Friday, Dec 13, 1996 * GTE filed suit to overturn a decision by Pennsylvania regulators governing the terms by which AT&T can hook up to GTE's local phone network under the new communications law. The suit is the first of its kind by a local phone company against state regulators. The suit also represents a further escalation in the legal battel GTE is waging over the terms it must use to open its local network to new competitors under the communications law. (Reuters 07:07 PM ET 12/12/96) For the full text story, see http://www.merc.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=747171-624 ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: NEWS: Pacific Bell Responds To MCI Allegations (fwd) Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 22:39:51 PST ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:50:29 -0800 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: Pacific Bell Responds To MCI Allegations FOR MORE INFORMATION: Craig Watts (415) 394-3739 Pacific Bell Responds To MCI Allegations SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell today said a complaint filed by MCI with the California Public Utilities Commission is a transparent, self-serving attempt to manipulate regulators and unfairly influence the outcome of telephone competition. At the heart of the matter is MCI's determination to hasten its entry into the local phone market while creating regulatory stall tactics to delay Pacific Bell's entry into California's high profitable long distance market. "This complaint from MCI is just one more brazen attempt to stampede California regulators," said Lee Bauman, Pacific Bell's vice president for local competition. "MCI's action is carefully timed. Next week, the CPUC will act on the arbitrated interconnection agreement between MCI and Pacific Bell. That agreement is vital to MCI's interests in providing local service, and equally important to Pacific Bell as one more prerequisite to its entry into the long distance business. "Although we haven't seen their complaint yet, MCI is hardly in a position to accuse another company of inefficiency in its approach to local competition," Bauman continued. "For example, MCI refuses to use the electronic order system that Pacific Bell designed to the specifications of local competitors. AT&T and others are using it today to speed along their customer service. Instead, MCI insists on using "snail-mail" to ship Pacific Bell thousands of orders in cartons. We have to dedicate hundreds of people to process MCI's orders by hand, fix a myriad of MCI errors, and input those orders into our electronic system." Bauman reiterated that Pacific Bell is highly motivated to make sure local competition proceeds quickly and effectively, and will work with MCI and any other competitive local carrier to address problems as they arise. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications company based in San Francisco. ------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: N11 Codes Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 13:49:50 -0800 In article , bpurcell@centuryinter.net (Brian Purcell) wrote: > I'm pretty sure that N11 codes *can't* be used as CO codes since it > would difficult to program equipment to recognize only a few of the > N11s as special service numbers and the others as CO codes. Actually, that's not the case. There are a couple of N11 POTS prefixes in New York City, to be specific. (212-211 and 212-311, IIRC) Basically, the switches determine from the prefix how many additional digits to anticipate, the options being zero or four. In some Pacific Bell areas, the ANI readback number is just 760. In other areas, they tack on a four-digit extension after the prefix. (In fact, they may now do that in all areas, since they seem to be rotating the -XXXX periodically to keep the kids out.) Also, I don't know if the upcoming introduction of 760 as an area code in southern California will affect the use of 760 as a test code. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: N11 Codes Date: 13 Dec 1996 00:31:35 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Mark J. Cuccia writes: > That would allow a *FAR* bigger numbering space for reaching the > departments of the Washington DC (District of Criminals?) central > government, than would taking up any few other N11 codes! I respectully disagree. I subscibe to the theory that N11 are national treasures, to be doled out very carefully. The 311 for "non-emergency" 911 may be a good start (clogged 911 is a major problem, at least in the LA area). OTOH, I have no problem with re-using the N11 (except probably 911) as AREA CODES. There should be no ambiguities, as area codes are always preceded by a one (except from some cellphones, but the cellswich gets all the digits and can obviously determine by the presence or absence of more digits whether an area code N11 or a special access N11 is dialled). Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: D Banks Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 11:53:45 -0800 Organization: Online at Wimsey Craig, Michael S. wrote: > FYI, in Canada, there has been a consistent, albeit far from universal, > use of N11 codes for a variety of deemed-to-be *public* services: > 211 Not used > 311 Not used > 411 Directory Assistance (mirrors 1-NXX-555-12-12 ... used to be > local-only, now covers NPA) > 511 Not used* *has been used for separation of TDD and TTY Relay Services > 611 Telco Repair Service > 711 Relay Service (primary number: see 511 above) > 811 Telco Business Office (customer service) > 911 Emergency FWIW, in British Columbia, dialing 211 will tell you your own phone number (ANI?) We used to be quite strange until 1985. Feature Pre 85 Post 85 LD 112 1 Direct Ass. 113 411 Repair 114 611 ANI? 116 211 Dialling 115 (IIRC), used to 'cut' your line for two minutes. Was BC the only place in North America to use 112+Number for LD instead of 1+Number? ------------------------------ From: Josef J. Finsel Subject: Information Needed on Destiny Telecom Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 17:52:06 -0500 Pat: I have an urgent need to know if there is any info in the archives about Destiny Telecom. I just found out that our company ceo needs to explain this to the head of CBI and I am looking for help. Thanks Josef Finsel IS Mgr, CBLD 513.369.2155 ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Los Nettos as ISP (was: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues) Reply-To: rlm@helen.surfcty.com Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 06:19:06 GMT On 10 Dec 1996 03:18:09 PDT, Davew@cris.com (Dave Harrison) said: > David Scott Lewis (thewebguy@acm.org) wrote: > Just a note about ISI, or "Los Nettos". They have a T3 to MCI, and > a pipe to Mae-West, but, as of a month ago, weren't peering with > anyone at the Mae. > Los Nettos sells T3s, T1s, 56k, etc. and shared and dedicated ethernet > connections to ISP's and anyone else who wants a connection. There are > a LOT of ISP's in the same building as ISI ... they save on the leased > line and they get cheap service from ISI ... while other access > providers sell T3's for up to 27 grand a month, you can get one from > ISI for $8,250/month. ISI's T1's are $920 a month, while elsewhere, > they range from 1000 to almost 3 grand. One thing the above does NOT mention is that Los Nettos requires leased lines -- they do not support frame relay, ATM, ISDN, or anything else. All the above were contributing technical reasons we decided not to use Los Nettos (or any of the companies sharing space at their Admiralty Way facility) at my company. Service was offered with 'take-it-or-leave-it' indifference. It's all quite surprising, since ISI/Los Nettos is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, ISP in the Los Angeles area. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: ozzyfudd@mindspring.com (Scott Bushey) Subject: Baby Bell Complaints About Internet Usage Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 01:26:47 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Reply-To: ozzyfudd@mindspring.com I am a writer for the online periodical "American Computing Magazine" (www.mindspring.com/~ozzyfudd/amercomp.htm). I am currently working on an article to appear in our February Issue regarding the Baby Bells claims that Internet usage is crippling the nations telephone network, and that raising rates, eliminating flat-rate calling, and forcing ISPs to bill on a time basis is the only solution. To date I have seen a lot of information contrary to this opinion in several newsgroups and also from MCI. We want to make sure that our information is as technically accurate as possible, and so I hope that any of you who are knowledgeable on this subject could e-mail information on this subject to ozzyfudd@mindspring.com. I have heard several ideas which center around the way in which the bells configure their switches, and am especially interested in this. All contributors will be credited in the article, J. Scott Bushey ozzyfudd@mindspring.com ------------------------------ From: roamer1@.pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: AT&T True Connections 500 Observations Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 02:03:00 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com I just acquired a 500 number from AT&T (the "True Connections" service.) Here's what I've found in the past few days: Caller ID If a caller uses 1-800-Call-ATT/1-800-321-0288 to reach AT&T (from COCOTs, etc.) and use one of my PINs, I get caller ID. If they dial either *1*+500 or *0*+500 (without using one of the 800 access numbers), I do NOT get Caller ID. (Never mind that if I dial 10288 + 1 or 0 + any other number [non-500], I DO get caller ID!) Phones Not PICed to AT&T If someone dials 0+500 from a phone *not* PICed to AT&T, they *always* get the message "Please hold for operator assistance", followed by an operator, instead of the prompt to enter a PIN. I checked with AT&T on this, and said this should *not* be happening. Does anyone know what's up with this? If someone not subscribed to AT&T calls 1+500 (billing it to their phone), the 80c/call "casual calling" Nonsubscriber Service Charge does NOT apply. (Verified with my bills back when I had LCI, as well as AT&T rep.) Cellular 1+500 does not work (expected, and *fully disclosed* in the 500 service manual.) Here, BellSouth allows 0+500 and CellOne does *not* (they appear to like MCI.) The American Roaming Network credit card roaming service *does* allow calls to 0+500 numbers (although not free by any means, even with a PIN. In this case, the caller would have to pay for the airtime/roaming with a credit or LEC calling card, and I would pay for long distance from [Dallas?] to here.) COCOTs Most do not allow 0+500 to be dialed; if they are *not* presubscribed to AT&T they try to send the call through *their AOS* which does NOT work! (How can USLD, Oncor, etc. bill for calls going through AT&T's network? They CAN'T!) I've found that dialing 10288+0+500 works at least on #5E switches in the Chattanooga area, but presents the problem of the operator if the phone's 1+ provider is not AT&T (see Phones Not PICed to AT&T, above.) Since most COCOTs I'm aware of use either AMNEX or LCI as their 1+ carrier, I land up getting the operator. LEC phones (even BellSouth's COCOT-ized phones) do work correctly, of course, as AT&T handles all 1+ (but not necessarily 0+) from them. I have contacted the FCC about the AOS dilemma; IMHO since only the carrier who ISSUED a 500 number can process or bill calls to that number, COCOTs should be REQUIRED to send 0+500 calls out DIRECT, withOUT AOSlime interference. (If COCOTs are allowed to charge for 800/888, they probably will for 500 too.) Fake Ringing The ringing given on all numbers until the last one (aka Final Stop) is reached is fake. (How do I know this? I have my home number, then my other home number, then my cellular number set as sequence numbers; if I call to my 500 number from my home line, or if the line is busy, it is set to forward to my cellular line. I can tell the ringing AT&T gives me is *NOT* the same as from the cellular switch. Ringing from Hughes GMH2000 switches -- the switch BellSouth Mobility here uses -- is LOUD compared to #5E/DMS ringing.) Using Master PIN and Calling "Home" The Master PIN can't be used by the 500 number holder to bill calls to the 500 number. If I enter my Master PIN, I am given the choice to "place a call"; then I can press one button to "call home" or enter another number of my choice. If I use this feature, I am billed the "Place-A-Call" rates (including 80c/call "calling card" charge) rather than only the toll.) I would prefer that I could use the Master PIN to bill calls to "myself", rather than having to keep a normal PIN for that purpose. Further, the rates for calls placed through a 500 number do *not* match the rates for calling card calls for One Rate customers. This may be a tariff issue, but I'd rather be able to use the Place-A-Call feature and get billed my One Rate card rate rather than the 500 "basic" rate. (But then again, I have other calling cards -- that charge less, such as VoiceNet, CompuServe, etc. -- which I use for most calls!) All in all, I have found the 500 service to be worthwhile (instead of having call forwarding all over the place, I can give out one number, and let either the caller or myself pay for the calls) but it's still a bit quirky. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ From: Paul A. Houle Subject: Unethical Sprint Marketing to College Students Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 11:27:45 -0500 Organization: Cornell University, Department of Physics I'm a graduate student and I recently had an unpleasant experience with Sprint's marketing arm aimed at college students. A telemarketer called up Olivia a few weeks ago asking if I was in and she said I wasn't -- they asked if I'd like a "free foncard" and she said no and hung up. She didn't think anything of it. Well, yesterday I got not one but two foncards with my name and phone number on them. When I called the customer service number listed on the card, I was directed into a voice-response comptuer maze. After wasting ten minutes I decided to push the panic button and "press 2 to report a lost or stolen card." This got me through to an operator who gave me a lot of grief. For instance, she wanted my social security number. I told here that it wasn't her business since Sprint shouldn't even know what my social security number is since I haven't given it to them. She ended up having to call me back to verify that I was really calling from home and then she canceled the cards. I wrote a letter to the customer service address given on the junk mail complaining about the sleazy tactics. Is there anybody I can write to to help Sprint catch hell for this? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #663 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 04:14:42 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id EAA10779; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 04:14:42 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 04:14:42 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612170914.EAA10779@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #664 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Dec 96 04:14:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 664 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report (hisys@rmi.net) Internet/TV Convergence (Monty Solomon) Dataquest Survey Blasts Internet Television (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (Igor Sviridov) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (James E. Bellaire) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Sad Story (jfmezei@videotron.ca) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jeff Becklehimer) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Travis Dixon) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: WebTV Sad Story (A Realworld Experience) (Bob Brown) Re: WebTV Sad Story (bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hisys@rmi.net Subject: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report Date: 17 Dec 1996 07:18:14 GMT Organization: Rocky Mountain Internet Allow me to be the curmudgeon for a moment ... Is WebTV a blessing for the Internet, or for our culture? I have my doubts. And all the hand-wringing charges of elitism aren't going to change any facts, either way. This message will be quickly labeled as doomsaying and other predictable dismissals by some. Feel free to stop reading now and slap on a convenient label, if such oversimpli- fications appeal to you. There's a soundbite at the end; skip to it if you get bored. I don't think there's a great deal we can do about the movement of which WebTV is one leading edge; that is a massive juggernaut, probably building up near to trillions of dollars in cumulative revenues in my lifetime. The best I can do right now is to "name the beast" with as clear and honest sight as I have (and maybe suggest some interesting eddies that coexist with the main flow rather than stopping it). Be warned that this is largely focussing on the "down side", because the "up side" will be promoted and hyped with a thousand paid and a million unpaid voices, and doesn't need my help. It's not all bad, but we need to acknowledge the bad aspects rather than pretend not to notice. My concerns have to do with quality and quantity, as well as "net culture". WebTV seems to be taking the the same fine quality delta that AOLine has been known for, and moving it several notches further. No doubt we'll pick up a few eloquent voices, a few urban poets of great vision, and a few unsong heros. But in all honestly, WebTV aims to bring massive numbers of the couch potato "I pay you to keep me amused" folks online. The goal is to ultimately expand the user base for the Internet by many fold, swamping the current users and any 'net culture' they might still have; there will be little chance to "enculturate" the newcomers with any of the values or (sub)culture of the old internet -- their "culture" will be manufactured the big media corporations. My predictions: the differentiation into 'info providers' and 'informa- tion consumers' will continue to accelerate, with collaboration, peer networks, information sharing, volunteerism and mutuality becoming ever less used concepts. "Info consumers" will be looking to be entertained, or at most superficially "educated". As Intel has stated, their mission statement is not to build computers, but to compete for consumer eyeball time, head to head against television. Expect more action on the screen, of the flash-without-content sort. Fast cuts, short nibbles of "sound bite" type text. Aimed at "don't change that channel", at keeping people amused or bemused. Designed by the same people who today design supermarket packaging and magazines and television, for the same purposes. A somewhat more interactive version of the same intellectual and spritual wasteland (with islands otherwise). Most newspapers are calculatedly written for a 4th grade reading level today, a least common denominator and thus very large market. This is well documented and verifiable, not just an opinion. Pages designed for WebTV will aim lower if anything. More than a few sentences on a page will be inconsistent with the viewership. This *IS* a change from the old Internet, no matter that some apologists will try to make it a shameful, elitist thing for us to notice such facts. "Info providers" will increasingly be large corporations with employees paid to disseminate the corporate product, rather than individuals (per the academic model which jump started net culture). Most of the market will be a relatively small number (proportionately) of mega websites, with enormous high speed networks of servers. These will be very capital intensive, costing millions of dollars and having largish professional staffs of specialists, much like other mass media: Televisions stations/networks; major newspapers/chains; major magazines; the motion picture industry. Product advertisers, paid subscriptions, and corporate PR will fund and control most defacto content, seeing that it's basically not much different than existing mass media. They won't expect much info contribution from info consumers, beyond play-polls [Would you have sex with a stranger for $1,000,000 as X did in the movie? Yes/No; Current totals 5,236,197 yes/ 3,494,855 no/ 1,298,114 undecided] and marketing demographic feedback [What's most important to you in a car, pick one:...]. Most WebTV viewers will "surf" on whims and fads, more like channel surfing than library research. A mention in the right places could mean any web site can get its 15 minutes of fame, and be totally saturated - unless it's one of the big corporate megasites which specialize in this. Of course, if it has more than two television- resolution screens of text, or uses more than 4th grade vocabulary, or doesn't have snazzy moving Java aplets, it won't hold people's attentions. Yes, WebTV will allow "gee whiz" email to Aunt Betty, supplementing the telephone and written mail. And later even some real time audio and low res video! This will be sorta nice at times, useful; but it won't truly do much to stay humanly more in touch with Aunt Betty for most folks, it won't impact our lives as positively as even the telephone did (ie: there will be a small incremental gain). Few people will take the time to learn and practice skillful or heartfelt communication, instead going for quick cliches and then change the channel. (The idea of spending 15 minutes *thinking* about what you really want to say and how to say it will seem alien, when you could instead click on an efficient professionally written "greeting card" slogan (without even buying one of those hard to use alphanumeric keyboards) and be off to Bay Watch Online or Web Sites of The Rich and Famous). Despite this, email is probably the best part of the whole deal, even if over hyped. Content-wise, its cultural effect will be slightly positive or slightly negative or neutral, because most of it will be contained as private communication, like the telephone (as opposed to television, which has large cultural impacts). As mentioned above, the incrmental "media format" impact will not be as great as the phone, which had cultural effect via the immediate real-time human-identifiable-voice connection which mail did not have. Email is less radical to the human psyche than the telephone was, and videophones are only a notch more effective). Oh, another prediction: personal websites will become the message doormats, bumperstickers, painted mailboxes, answering machine messages, and "personalized greeting cards" (ref Target or Kmart) of the future. 90% will be uncreative "fill in the blank" semi-rote creations of formulistic mass software. Very few will actually have original text beyond captions, interesting insights, personally created images of merit, or functional things to share (like source code). Expect cliche'd clip art of the latest fad toys (cute little ponies with hair you can comb) and hot celebs. But nearly everyone (it will seem) will be able to have one! (And some will be wonderful!). "Look it up on the Web" educational assistance will in many, perhaps most, cases become another tool for kids to regurgitate rather than learn. With relatively little work, they can "write" reports on, say, dolphins, by typing "dolfins" in a search engine form, click on the first few sites to find an interesting one, grab text and images from one or two sites, rephrase the text some (optional), throw in some fonts and emphasis, and make a report that LOOKS better than most college students could have in 1985, but without ever thinking or learning anything. (Of course, WebTV kids will be at a "disadvantage", without a word processor and local hard disk and printer. They might have to do more work than cut and paste, and something might even seep in during the processs. But I think those will be fixed before long). As always, of course, it will be *possible* for some to learn a lot, if they are so motivated. But it will be easier for most to avoid real learning. Online discussion groups, whether Usenet or mailing lists, will be deluged with folks who don't contribute much. They will either be looking for free advice (the internet has been sold as this), or will be endlessly repeating a small set of trite mass-produced opinions - the ones that don't get into the newspaper letter columns, not due to political censorship but due to simple quality control. I say "deluged" even tho I expect only a smallish fraction of the WebTV crowd to attempt to participate - but it's a small portion of a very large market. Initially, using conventional modems, there won't be too great an impact on the bandwidth. Why should tripling the number of users expecting unlimited usage for $20/month do more than accelerate the existing problems? But that will prove way too slow, because graphics, sound, movement, animation, and video are required to steal those eyeballs away from MTV. Text can come fast, but it's too boring. So there will be much movement to implement cable modems and xDSL (especially ADSL), to give every one of those consumers 1.5-8 Mbps of download channel. Think what that means: ONE NEIGHBORHOOD could saturate today's entire backbone, and one city could require the backbone to expand 100 fold to keep up (not likely to be well funded by $19.95/month). Of course, they won't get that kind of bandwidth, their big pipes will be very jerky and sporadic. But they will act as sponges, able to soak up many times a much backbone bandwidth as there is available. A low impedance short to ground, datawise. This will have real impact, tho it's not clear yet whether we'll go to some form of volume-based charge, universal access-time charges, or corporate financing of infrastructure like television (at which time it becomes "theirs" and serves their purposes). But note that these folks are largely going to be people who were once satisfied by a few dozen TV channels, and 50 popular magazines. Caches are going to work well for this market, as they are faddish and trendy and not as proportinately intellectually diverse as the former internet. (Think of the magazines near the supermarket checkout stands, rather than the selection at the best newstand in town). This will mitigate the effect some, but won't erase the thousandfold increase in demand (imagine 300 million users worldwide expecting 1-8 mbps each download at peak hours). The bandwidth crisis will be real, and it will shift the paradigm as much as the commercialization of broadcasting or the centralization of ownership of media has changed those communication channels. The internet infrastructure of 2005 will be optimized for "broadcast" information from "megasite" producers to mass consumers who are mostly passive except for "channel surfing", rather than for information collaboration among relative peers. Organizationally it will resemble today's television industry much more than 1990's internet. It may even merge into one industry with television. And it may "penalize" atypical interests. "Geraldo Online" is going to be quick to download, because six other people on your block are viewing it too, after that reference on TV this evening. But you may have to wait for anything non-faddish and uncached to download. Some will say that WebTV "democratizes" the net, making it more accessible and representative, empowering more people. To some degree it might, for some people. But the overall thrust is NOT coming from the grass roots. This is not a project wherein inner city neighborhoods gets together than uses the network to organize politically, to nourish and expand their non-mainstream culture, to address their real life problems like gangs or jobs. It's a creation of Phillips and Sony and RCA and Disney and Time and Reuters and NBC/ABC/CBS/CNN and Paramount and all the same extremely wealthy and powerful commercial portions of our society that have dominated and controlled the mainstream media. They will tout isolated examples of good deeds in things like inner cities, but those are PR; the core of this change in direction is based on the exact same agendas and worldviews that control TV or People magazine (or major sports teams). Has the ubiquity of CocaCola ads or the popularity of Cheers democratized the world? The best I can hope for now is to keep alive some "commercially unviable" niches of intelligent and thoughtful discussion, peer creativity, collaborative information exchange, and free and diverse thought that will never show up significantly on CBS's broadcasts or AT&T's web sites. Perhaps some of the magic of the old internet can survive in these niches, or even expand and flourish. We can be an insignificant (volume wise) "rider" on the tidal wave of the corporate media information model. We can be a net within a net, where one can find thoughtful and meaningful words and concepts that don't fit the MTV or WebTV "good design" guidelines. We can use a tenth grade vocabulary :) We can discuss grey and multi-hued issues. We can joke and learn about each other (in some niches) as humans, outside of only professional roles. We can balance give and take. Things like the old practice of asking for information, and then spending the time to organize and post a summary of responses. Writing FAQ-like documents. Ask for help in a respectful way, rather than thinking our $19.95 bought us a bunch of consultants just as it bought us entertaining eyecandy professional web sites from Disneycorp and GM. I call this new/old "guerilla internet" subnet the CoyoteNet (not trademarked :-) in honor of the coyotes which unlike bears and wolves and ferrets, have managed to live amidst "development", even development which ravishes the formerly fertile landscape. Don't be surprised to see web sites which deliberately seek to be unattractive to WebTV. I expect to see somebody write an FAQ on "how NOT to optimize for WebTV". As in "how not to compromise your content" or even "how to bore the couch potatos so they'll channel surf elsewhere". Rather than "how to make it impossible for them to read if they are serious". I would like to have an open door for those who truly want more than the commercial pablum, even if their tool is WebTV. I hope there will still be paths of access for the black kid on the South Side of Chicago, who can't afford a network computer but whose family does have WebTV, and who is actually trying to learn, self-educate, and enculturate into an intellectually vibrant subculture absent at home or in the public schools. But it's OK with me if they have to learn to read and conceptually integrate more than 3 short paragraphs before jumping to another subject, in order to get into this niche. The "elitism" I represent is about expecting people to develop their potentials, and rewarding same, rather than sinking to the lowest common denominator. It's about relatively equal opportunity (within an imperfect world), but not guaranteed equal outcomes; effort does count. Trying to write well, thinking before replying, critically examining alternatives - there should remain a niche on the internet where these continue to be more valued than buying a new car because it's advertized as somehow making you more potent. And yes, the old internet (and usenet/uucpnet) had problems too. There was never a perfect golden age. But even in imperfection, it had value, and values, atypical of the mainstream culture. These are in great danger of being lost in the commercial repaving of the internet wildlands. I don't mean to preserve a static remnant as a museum piece, but to keep alive a dynamic and still evolving subcultural descendant, hopefully able to reach new heights. Here's the promised soundbite: The internet is the latest orange grove to be turned into (almost) indistinguishable suburbs modeled on those left by mass TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. WebTV is the bulldozers and contract assemblers putting up more ticky tacky boxes on the hillside. Rather than the internet culture following the path of the Amazon tribe whose land has been "developed", let's think more like the coyote, and co-exist in the "unprofitable" margins. Zhahai (a gardener of memes) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 23:17:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet/TV Convergence Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 12:50:55 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre Subject: Internet/TV convergence [Dan Schiller has been saying for a long time now that the emerging Internet business model is basically television. The evidence over the last six weeks is definitely heading in his direction. Here is his analysis.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 11 December 1996 Dear Phil: Your missive, to the effect that PCs and television were on a converging course, seems to me to open up a wide and important set of issues. Why is this convergence - or collision - happening? What does it mean to transfer television practices to this new context? How far can this transfer develop; may the process of convergence become generalized as a developing model for the net? Here are some comments. Internet Television: Net Makeover? By Dan Schiller Professor of Communication University of California, San Diego December 1996 Television and the Internet are pressing against one another, in a trend that raises vitally important issues. Why is this convergence - or collision - occurring? What does it mean to project contemporary television practices onto cyberspace? Might the process of convergence become generalized as a model for the Web's further evolution; how far can it go? Let's map some of the abundant recent evidence. 1. Convergence is real Television Systems: PC and TV manufacturers each seek enlarged markets. TVs that can stand in as Internet terminals, and PCs that can accept television signals are, in turn, obvious extensions of current consumer electronics markets. Similarly, U.S. computer software companies and broadcast television networks, program companies, and stations have commenced to jockey for competitive advantage as their industries merge. Nowhere has this internecine disagreement come through more forcefully than in the process of developing technical standards for digital TVs. Negotiators for computer companies recently staged an upset victory in the standards-making contest, setting the stage for what one analyst calls "a titanic battle for the nation's living rooms" between established set makers and personal computer manufacturers, "both of which want to build the digital device that will display these images."1 In truth, this epic contest will be even broader, in part because a stable Internet infrastructure has yet to materialize. Strategic alliances have been quick to proliferate. Microsoft and DirecTV - itself a subsidiary of GM's Hughes Corporation, with minority participation by AT&T - have inaugurated DirecPC, utilizing a satellite-delivery system to furnish television over a PC for a monthly subscription fee akin to that charged by cable television system operators.2 Philips Magnavox and, separately, Sony, are marketing "Web TV" set-top boxes, while Time-Warner, like other giant cable system operators, is contracting with suppliers for similar equipment, to work with emerging systems that will beam TV-like Internet channels to suitably equipped television sets.3 Network Services and the ongoing initiative to transform the Web into a "push" rather than a "pull" medium: The Interpublic Group, a major advertising holding company, has partnered with Ifusion Com, to create an Internet broadcasting system named Arrive. Akin to analogous services offered by Pointcast, Backweb Technologies and Intermind, Arrive will deliver customized information, including advertising, directly to users' screens whenever their computers are idle. The result, writes one observer, is to relieve users of "the need to search through the overwhelming amounts of data available" - because preselected sources of information are brought to users automatically.4 In such a context, the ability to control the viewer's start-up screen acquires newly decisive importance. Both Netscape and Microsoft have targeted the startup screen as what one writer calls a "platform[] for receiving Internet broadcasts."5 Microsoft's entry will utilize its Windows operating system software to create "Active Desktop" - a TV-like receiver that is already allied with a leading Internet broadcaster. One of Active Desktop's "premier" or default channels will be supplied by PointCast, whose on-line network already reaches an estimated 1.7 million subscribers with broadcast feeds of news and advertising.6 TheWall Street Journal tellingly refers to Microsoft's overall initiative, as "an important experiment in audience-building," and one with special appeal "to new consumers that haven't been moved yet to go on- line."7 (More momentarily on who these "new consumers" might be, and on how they relate to emerging "push" services.) Another important initiative arrived last summer, when Intel, the leading semiconductor manufacturer, rolled out Intercast, a system allowing Pentium processor-equipped computers to receive video and audio signals. Intercast permits concurrent Web surfing and TV viewing, and sends out specially created content that complements or ties back into TV shows. The venture depends on a growing list of major broadcast programmers, including GE's TV network NBC, Time- Warner's CNN, Viacom's MTV and, interestingly, Boston public broadcasting station WGBH.8 And then there is America Online's recent hire of Bob Pittman, the wunderkind who launched MTV fifteen years ago, "to polish the surface of the first break-out brand in cyberspace."9 AOL's churning subscriber base of 7 million may not look like much next to the tens of millions of net surfers, but perhaps that's not the relevant comparison. It's certainly a formidable basis on which to compete against the ratings numbers garnered by any of the existing cable networks. Perhaps AOL can identify means of symbiotically migrating audiences from and to TV. Oprah Winfrey, for example - whose television talkshow reaches a daily audience of some 15 million viewers - has successfully carried a portion of her on-air bookclub audience to her AOL program service.10 ESPN's popular Web-based Sportszone comprises another such linkage between the two media. Audience measurement infrastructure: Feverish discussion is underway of how best to track the net surfers' attention - especially to commercial messages.11 Nielsen, the longtime television ratings service, is actively developing audience measurement technique on the Web, where it already faces competition. DoubleClick, for example, comprises a network service for subscribing Web sites and advertisers; by monitoring usage it builds user profiles, on the basis of which it instantaneously uploads customized ads. Since March, 1996, DoubleClick has identified the preferences of some 10 million Web surfers, with a reported 100,000 more profiles flowing in each day. A new trade association, the Internet Advertising Bureau, helps ensure that the sponsors who are, according to one writer, "trying to turn the once-eclectic Web into the ultimate 24-hour marketing machine," do not lack for an institutional voice.12 Programming: "[A]dvertisers," writes Joan Voight, a reporter for AdWeek, "want to work hand in hand with publishers to coproduce the material that packs Web pages." ParentTime, a Web site that is a joint venture between Procter & Gamble and Time Warner, provides parents with interactive advice and promotes Time Warner magazines such as Parenting and Sports Illustrated for Kids. P&G has, in addition nine brand-specific Web sites, with dozens of others waiting in the wings; but ParentTime is a collaborative effort by the world's leading advertiser and a megamedia corporate ally to experiment with interactive program forms specifically targeted at consumer advertisers' most-needed audience: women.13 At this juncture, we return to the question of who the new targets of internet broadcasting will likely be, for the effort by advertisers to increase women's use of the net has indeed been at once widespread and concerted. Ed Meyer, then CEO of Grey Advertising, was asked in March of 1995 what "key issues" had to be explored with regard to new media. He responded: "One of the biggest issues is how we get women to use new-media applications and embrace these new technologies. With 70% of traditional advertising directed to women, it's vital to the success of new-media opportunities to appeal to and be used by women."14 Women's use of the Internet has duly increased, at least in the U.S.; women accounted for less than 10% of Internet users a few years ago but, according to one tally, totaled nearly one-third by summer 1996.15 It's significant, in this context, that one of Microsoft's six introductory TV-like channels is a magazine for women called UnderWire.16 Even beyond these new channels, the horizon of on-line network television is shrinking toward experiences that give Web users incentive to interact under the sign of one or another brand. Sponsored chatrooms, for example, encourage users to exchange personal messages that contextualize their use of particular commodities - make-up, say, or malt liquor - within the span of everyday social interaction. Thus is an emergent cultural practice reconsecrated to consumption, the most hallowed ground we have. Interactive genres of different kinds, from drama to news to games, seem certain as well to evolve further, under the watchful eye of sponsors who can lard them in all sorts of creative ways with product mentions and demonstrations. On one side, then, "push" services threaten to reduce use of the net to a more passive television-type experience. On the other side, however, there are ongoing reformulations of Web experience that put a premium on forms of active engagement - but mainly insofar as users' involvement can be rechanneled on terms established by sponsorship. There is little doubt that TVs and PCs are converging, and that a series of unfolding applications are beginning to recast the Web. What then are the implications of these developments? 2. Market Power and Commercial Sponsorship It is not "television" that is converging with cyberspace, of course, but a historically specific set of practices that we can more properly gloss as "commercial networked television." Commercial networked television is hardly new. It's crucial to stress that, long before the Internet, commercial networked television had already acquired the defining institutional identity that now bulks large in its convergence with the Web. Each of the two adjectives hints at a crucial feature. First has been the centralization of television content, or programming. This centralization should be distinguished from the considerable geographical concentration in programming and related industries that it encouraged. Centralization of programming via networking meant that large producers and distributors, rather than local or nonprofit broadcasters, were enabled to gain market power sufficient to dominate the larger television industry. (Thousands of U.S. musicians and untold other performers, by comparison, became casualties, as networks and stations successfully pushed to utilize recordings in preference to more expensive and unreliable live performances. Microsoft is putting $400 million annually into developing Web content, with no expectation of turning a profit for at least three more years. That's around an order of magnitude above the annual investment that was required by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Broadcasting network [or, for that matter, by Gannett's newspaper, USA Today], before each began to pay off. And corporations as a whole are estimated to have spent a couple of billions of dollars in developing Web pages. This scale of expenditure makes it all but certain that one or another megamedia company will eventually figure out how to innovate profitable cyberspace genres. But the question of how far such companies will be able to dominate the market for Web- based experiences is a larger and more complex one. The key goal of Webcasters, on current evidence, is to concentrate and stabilize relations between program services and audiences. Under active exploration in realizing this goal, and therewith in claiming additional market power, are "push" services, exclusive licensing agreements, a star system, blockbuster programming investments, and operating system software. But it must never be forgotten that this multifaceted attempt to stabilize the relation between programming and audience is itself largely a function of the second abiding aspect of a commercial networked model - its embedded reliance on advertiser sponsorship. The Wall Street Journal is perfectly correct to reduce this sprawling hubbub of business activity to the following headline: "How Net Is Becoming More Like Television To Draw Advertisers." The explosive growth of Internet broadcasting is tantamount to an admission that advertisers have succeeded in bending the Web to their particular social purposes. TV is the world's most effective selling tool. Simplifying only somewhat, it was because of its ability to accommodate live-action demonstration, over and above identification and endorsement of products and product applications, that TV succeeded radio as the foremost advertising medium. Advertisers are not yet confident that the Web portends an equally decisive new stage in the ongoing evolution of the sales effort - but they are certain that they cannot afford to overlook that possibility. So much at least we may take from the celebrated address, already two and a half years ago, by Ed Artzt, then CEO of Procter and Gamble. Before the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Artzt hectored his audience to rouse itself from its slumbers, and to "seize technology in [its] teeth" to ensure access for commercial sponsors to new media.17 Consider how far the debate has traveled - and metamorphosized - since then. Today it is no longer a question of whether advertising and marketing will move on the net. Now, rather, the issue has become how to make the pioneering forms of commercial representation - banner ads and corporate home pages - succeed more efficiently, or give up pride of place to "new and improved" advertising practices. Hunter Madsen, vice president for commercial strategy at Hotwired, makes a strong case for unremitting experimentation, toward less- standardized banners or "brand modules," and direct interpenetration of commercial and editorial matter ["content cobranding"].18 The generic forms of advertiser sponsorship and programming on the Web, surely, are nowhere near stabilization. But neither is their ultimate form the chief issue. Advertisers have proclaimed the necessity of colonizing cyberspace, and of making it dependent on their ability to provide funding. Does anyone still truly think that they will realize the folly of this ambition, and abandon the net? If advertisers ever recognized that the "culture" of the net was unreceptive, that time is long gone. They will try, and try again, until ... 3. Implications Let's distinguish two levels of analysis. The first is, what does advertiser sponsorship do to the media that become dependent on it? The second is, to what extent will the net come to be advertiser supported? There is plenty of evidence that advertiser sponsorship profoundly affects individual media practices, content, and relationships with audiences. It is not mainly a matter of poor ethics or lapsed standards, but of a systematic overall orientation. Advertisers want media to deliver audiences to them, in predictable quantities and at standard and comparably efficient costs. These audiences, moreover, need to be of ascertained composition and "quality," in the sense that advertisers desire to purchase access to a guranteed number of women ages 18-49, or men aged 25-54. (Of course audience sales is often much more nuanced and targeted than this.) I have already underlined that the rollout of "push" services instantiates an effort to recreate an old necessity in new form: access to stable - measurable and predictable - audiences for advertisements. When advertisers foot an appreciable proportion of overall media costs, they come to dominate that medium's workaday self- consciousness, which in turn places new pressures and limits upon that medium's relationship with its audience. It is not only a matter of "censorship" to suit the idiosyncracies of particular sponsors (though neither should censorship of this kind be gainsaid). It's also, and more substantively, a question of emphasis on particular program forms, and the priorities that they express - particular creative practices rather than others. The practices that saturate our culture, and that are now being transferred wholesale to the net, are market-driven in intent and in effect. That doesn't mean they cannot sometimes eventuate in true artistry, but rather that emerging forms of art on the net are themselves being placed in harness to a narrow and exclusionary social purpose: selling.19 How far can this convergence go? Of this we can hardly be confident. The trail is already littered with the effects of poor strategic judgments and corporate missteps. Consider only the just-announced decision by Pacific Telesis, Bell Atlantic and Nynex that their venture into television production, TeleTV, will disband. Or the trade journal Variety's recent pronouncement: that "convergence" itself is ceasing to be this season's buzzword in Hollywood. Surely there will be additional failures. Nobody can be certain that any particular venture will succeed, let alone that it will transform the net. But that doesn't mean the whole thing is an open question. Most significant, it seems to me, is that the outcome itself is being left essentially to "market forces," that is, to the very business behemoths whose actions I have briefly assayed. If present trends are not interrupted, the extent to which a variant of commercial network television comes to prevail on the Web will be very largely determined by profitseeking companies. Other social interests, prospecting for alternative visions of cyberspace, including churches, public-interest organizations and community groups, educational institutions, musuems, libraries, and labor unions, will either be marginalized, or else incorporated - and exploited - by sponsors seeking access to their members, and perhaps a patina of legitimacy. The debate over the propriety of advertiser-supported radio broadcasting (the so-called "American system") unfolded through years of public discussion,20 and drew outbursts of anticommercial concern from highly placed politicians, church leaders, businesspeople, educators, and philanthropic organizations. In contrast, the "debate" over commercialism in cyberspace has been a nonstarter. The established media have been nearly silent; aside from the question of "spamming" - basically a diversion - scant attention has been accorded to the grave questions raised by the growing commercial presence on the net. In such circumstances, what chance is there of building an abiding public purpose into the net? *** In actuality, many people and organizations, a diversity of motive and ambition continue to be present, as the commercial imperative unfolds across the Web. Some participants are unalloyed boosters; some are alienated cynics - seemingly above the dismal venality and small-mindedness of it all. Still others may take pleasure in successfully smuggling private messages - cybergraffiti - into sponsored spaces, or in covertly intruding in other ways. But what of those more active dissenters, who seek to carry forward on the net the longstanding oppositional traditions of independent film and video artistry, and of free thought and association more generally? We may place our hopes in them - with our hearts, at least, if not yet with our heads. ---Dan Schiller Professor of Communication dschille@weber.UCSD.edu 1quote from Mark Lander, "Industries Agree On U.S. Standards For TV Of Future," New York Times 26 November 1996: A1, C6; Bryan Gruley, "Television and Computer Makers Reach An Accord on Design of Digital-TV Sets," Wall Street Journal 26 November 1996: B10; Joel Brinkley, "Defining TV's And Computers For a Future of High Definition," New York Times 2 December 1996: C1, C11. 2Katherine Stalter, "NBC, Intel link to channel TV to PC," Variety 1-14 July 1996: 33. 3Mark Robichaux, "Time Warner Inc. Is Expected to Order Up to $450 Million of TV Set-Top Boxes," Wall Street Journal, 10 December 1996: B8. 4Stuart Elliott, "Advertising," New York Times 20 November 1996: C5. 5David Bank, "How Net Is Becoming More Like Television To Draw Advertisers," Wall Street Journal 13 December 1996: A1, A8. 6David Bank, "Microsoft Picks On-Line News From PointCast," Wall Street Journal 12 December 1996: B4. 7Don Clark, "Microsoft's On-Line Service Goes to a TV Format," Wall Street Journal 9 Dec 96: B7. 8Amy Dunkin, "PC Meets TV: The Plot Thickens," Business Week 23 December 1996: 94-5. 9Cathy Taylor, "Welcome! You've Got Bob Pittman," MediaWeek 2 December 1996: 24-27. 10Deirdre Donahue, "But some wonder if people are really reading," USA Today 12 December 1996: D1, D2. 11Jane Greenstein, "Advertisers Stell Trying to Get a Line on Net Users," Los Angeles Times 2 December 1996: D5. 12Joan Voight, "Beyond the Banner," Wired December 1996: 196, 204. 13Jeff Harrington, "P&G's programming push," USA Today 25 November 1996: 12B. 14"InterViews," Advertising Age 13 March 1995, S-26. 15Andrew Kantor and Michael Neubarth, "Off The Charts: The Internet 1996," Internet World Dec 96: 44-51. 16Don Clark, "Microsoft's On-Line Service Goes to a TV Format," Wall Street Journal 9 Dec 96: B7. 17For an illuminating discussion, see Matthew P. McAllister, The Commercialization of American Culture. Sage, 1996. 18Hunter Madsen, "Reclaim the Deadzone," Wired December 1996, 206-220. 19For those wishing to learn more about the role of advertising in television itself, check out Erik Barnouw's classic book, The Sponsor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. 20Robert W. McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: Dataquest Survey Blasts Internet Television Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 12:28:09 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) I usually have a lot of respect for Dataquest, but they blew it big time by spewing the results of a recent telephone survey. As part of Dataquest's new The Digital Consumer program, they surveyed nearly 7,000 home consumers. Their conclusion: "The Internet television in its current form does not have significant market potential in Dataquest's view," said Van Baker, director and principal analyst of Dataquest's The Digital Consumer program. Baker later gives himself an "out" by noting that Internet TV could be made more enticing. He sites "push" customization and the delivery of local content as two ways to expand Internet TV's market potential. However, their headline reads: "Dataquest survey shows U.S. households are turned off by Internet television." How many will see the headline and never read Mr. Baker's "exceptions"? First, WebTV and its cousins from Sega and Bandai need to have more interactivity. Also, customization, push technologies, and delivery of local content _ARE_ real issues. My response to Mr. Baker is that he isn't giving the Web TV (including WebTV) clan enough credit. These are OBVIOUS limitations, but limitations that are being aggressively addressed. An open word (or several) to Mr. Baker: "Open your eyes and see the possibilities." Frankly, chastising "Version 1.0" technologies in this industry is utterly ridiculous. Vision, Mr. Baker, it takes vision to see the future in all its glory. Second, I'd like to shoot down the survey results with a bit of academic backing. Moriarty and Kosnik point out that customer needs that form a foundation for targeting a market or a segment are difficult to discern, because potential customers are typically unable to articulate needs they do not know they have. (See R.T. Moriarty and T.J. Kosnik, "High-tech concepts, continuity and change," IEEE Engineering Management Review, March 1990, pp. 25-35. BTW, yours truly was the editor-in-chief of EMR from 1987-1995.) On a much more basic level, it comes down to the flaws revealed by Prahalad and Hamel in their McKinsey award-winning papers in Harvard Business Review. Remember their ideas on strategic intent, core competencies (which most people bastardize -- bluntly, "it's a technology, stupid!") and expeditionary marketing? Let's focus on the later concept: Expeditionary marketing. How about some examples, shall we? Traditional survey methods revealed that there was no market for: 1) The Sony Walkman, 2) NutraSweet, and 3) CT scanners And, believe me, there are plenty more examples. What gets under my skin is that most traditional market research is near worthless when applied to radical innovations. But the media touts the research as Gospel. Dataquest and the other leading market research firms should stick to what they do best: Simple extrapolation. If they choose to enter the realm of radical innovations, they need to implement a whole new set of tools. They need to take their telephone surveys and put them in the circular file; frankly, that's all they're worth! To review the Dataquest release, go to: http://stonewall.dataquest.com:80/irc/press/ir-n9652.html For the marketing perspective, see the following monographs: Factors that impact consumer adoption of innovative technological services over time: The case of the Internet by Roy Henrichs (1995) Marketing high technology: An analysis of organizational buyer and seller behavior in the expert systems industry by W.A. Rooks, Jr. (1991) Using market diffusion models for developing and assessing marketing strategies by Namwoon Kim (1993) Technological generations and the spread of the social definition of new technologies by R.S. Larsen (1993) Predicting the future: Assessing forecasts and predictions for residential broadband services by Sandy Kyrish (1993) Substitutability and complementarity in the diffusion of multiple electronic communication media: An evolutionary approach by L.L. Soe (1994) Evaluative criteria and user acceptance of end user information technology: A study of end-user cognitive and normative pre-adoption beliefs by E. Karahanna (1993) Predictive insights through analogical reasoning by H. Lee (1993) Understanding products and markets for radical innovations by Gary Lynn (1993) Lead user model for analysis of new product developments in the computer industry by M.G. Angur (1991) Strategies for new products in fast changing high technology markets by C.S. Kim (1991) Anyone want to debate this further? I'm ready! :-) GO WebTV!!! David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org Strategies & Technologies, an Internet marketing consultancy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 23:51:17 -0600 From: Igor Sviridov Subject: Re: WebTV Upgrade Released Organization: J. River, Inc. In article , David Scott Lewis wrote: > WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. [skipped] Actually, frames ARE there and DO work :-) Other nice enhancements are multimedia mail, audio control panel with pause/start/stop, phone number display when dialing, screen saver :) and scheduled mail check (unit will be ON, though TV may be off). SSL still not implemented :-( so sfnb.com customers like me still can't use WebTV for banking ;-). I eagerly wait for SSL, cookies and telnet (well, last may be tough). Other nice extension would be HTML editor and Web hosting service from WebTV - even WebTV customers will be creative ;-) --igor -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====----------------------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 96 17:52:00 EST From: James E Bellaire Subject: Re: WebTV Upgrade Released David Scott Lewis writes: > WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. > First, RealAudio has been added. That's one step in the right > direction. I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, > and frames aren't too far behind. BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff > can be resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for > JavaScript or ActiveX. What web spoofing stuff? Is there some kind of security hole in JavaScript that I have missed? (The last one I heard about was a few months back and was with a particular browser that has been upgraded since. That problem was related to machines behind firewalls running software to discover break-in points or relay information to machines outside the firewall. That would not affect most WebTV people, since they are on ISPs not corporate or educational dialups.) By the way: According to WebTV there is no 'local' dialup for my town of 20,000 in Indiana. (I'm 317-677, soon to be 765-677.) The non-local dialups given are in Ohio (513-291 and 513-640 - not the 317-638 and 317-977 Indianapolis numbers) A town 20 miles away (317-457) is given two other numbers, 513-868 and 513-640. Not sure why there would be a difference there ... By the way, BOTH 513-291 and 513-640 are, as of last September 28th, 937-291 and 937-640. Permissive is still in effect. (513-868 is remaining in 513.) Glad I subscribe to one of the three local ISPs! WebTV would be too expensive in this area. James E. Bellaire bellaire@tk.com Webpage Available 23.5 Hrs a Day!!! http://www.iquest.net/~bellaire/ ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV Upgrade Released Friday Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 10:01:52 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. First, RealAudio has been added. That's one step in the right direction. I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, and frames isn't too far behind. BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff can be resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for JavaScript or ActiveX. Second, they've added background music. The music seems to repeat after an hour or so, but it's pretty good. What they need to do is to support viewer selection of a musical genre. Personally, I like The Music of Cyberspace series. Third, they've made it possible to switch users without logging off and logging on again. There were a few other additions, such as checking for e-mail even when the unit is off, but the above are the main upgrade features. BTW, it was totally painless to add the upgrades. It took about 10 minutes, but it was a simple click on the remote control. That's it! WebTV, albeit a consumer product, is the best example of why NCs are needed: Ease of maintenance! And WebTV does NOT have goofy functions, like logging off by hitting the "Start" button (boy, isn't that intuitive!). For your enjoyment, here are four useful URLs (each is an article): http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6043,00.html http://www.packet.com/schrage/today.html (this one, because it ends with "today.html" may not last for long!) http://techweb.cmp.com:80/ng/nov96/fcompare.htm http://www.nytimes.com/web/docsroot/library/cyber/techcol/1202techcol.html For a pointer on the Web TV phenomena (including WebTV, and the systems from Sega and Bandai), go to: http://users.visi.net/~cwt/tv-inet.html David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ From: jfmezei Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 01:40:45 -0500 Organization: SPC Reply-To: nospam.jfmezei@videotron.ca Is WEBtv just a box you can connect to any TV set , or is it a combination of compatible CPU and monitor? Also, many have been impressed with the quality of the text. Could this be because the image is not "broadcast" but directly fed into the TV and that the monitor may in fact have a greater resolution than the broadcast NTSC standard? ------------------------------ From: beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 16 Dec 1996 23:51:22 GMT Organization: slidell.com inc, Slidell Louisiana Phil Leonard (pleonard@cybercom.net) wrote: > In article ID , beck@slidell.com > (Jeff Becklehimer) writes: >> Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an >> image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the >> number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? > If they ARE violating any copyright laws then everyone of us who cache > images we view on the Internet, are, as well. I know you can't easily > see this with Netscape, but Internet Explorer shows you every image > you ever looked at, until the cache is full and pushes the last image > out to make room for the fresh ones. This is true but what I was referring to is the fact that their proxy server modifies the image and then redistributes it. This is not a temporary copy used for viewing. I guess my question should have been "Is the proxy serving a derivative work or just a copy?" Jeff Becklehimer slidell.com, inc. ------------------------------ From: travisd@saltmine.radix.net (Travis Dixon) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 17 Dec 1996 01:39:39 GMT Organization: RadixNet Internet Services JP White (ffv.aerotech@ffvaerotech.com) wrote: > has a phone line. It's early days, give them a chance! Expect to see > a higher monthly rate when the cable modem does appear as an option. I > doubt they'll give away the extra bandwidth, though it would be real > nice if they did! I would imagine that the cost for extra bandwidth would be evened out by not having to provide a dial-up line for every user - just a POP at the CableCo's headend. Besides, just because they're on Cable modems doesn't mean that they're going to push more bits down the line. --travis ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:34:48 -0500 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Andy McFadden writes, > We occasionally find minor errors in the CCMI database or in the way > we use it, and like to get them resolved as quickly as possible. The troubles are severalfold. The CCMI database is as good as you can get in today's market, but that doesn't make it perfect. CCMI has to make compromises too. Local calling tariffs are not all "of a mold"; the way they work in different areas can be quite variable. CCMI just takes a couple of good estimates which work in most places, but not always for everyone. > We list expensive local calls (e.g. $0.25 flat rate per call) as being > non-local, which may be what you're seeing. Again, the goal is to > avoid causing any surprises for the customer. Most of them don't care > whether the bill comes from AT&T or the BOC, they're just concerned > about what the calls cost. > We're using the actual tariff data from CCMI. I did some tests on a few > phone bills and they were dead on. But whose phone bills? Nowadays there is competition for long distance, with variout discount plans, and local rates may have options galore too. > ...There are two problems with putting a bunch > of POP numbers on the screen. First and foremost, it's fine for > technical folks but fairly lame for the bulk of the population who > want to plug it in and then just not worry about it. The whole "it > just works" concept requires hiding as much of the internal workings > from the mass-market consumer as possible, without subjecting them to > any nasty surprises. But it does have nasty surprises. The CCMI database is great in those places where calls are "toll" or "local", period. That used to be the norm in most places, and still applies in many. But what about, say, Boston, where there are something like 8 valid "local" residence tariff options, with different radii? (Measured, contiguous, suburban, metropolitan, circle, measured-circle, LATA-wide, Bay State East, just in case anyone wonders, and I may be missing one or more.) The WebTV application gave me two numbers for Needham, MA. The "local" one was Waltham, the "toll" one was Boston. That's a good approximation. BUT Needham is not *contiguous* to either, or to any of their numbers. Under the NYNEX tariff, the basic residence "flat rate" package ($16/mo) is "contiguous" only. Other exchanges within an 8 mile radius are charged at Zone 1 Measured rates (1.6 cents/minute); "local" beyond 8 miles is charged at Zone 2 (5.5 cents/minute. Zone rates have *no* off-peak discounts, so night/weekend toll calls, at 3.6c/minute, are cheaper than zone 2 local!) A web junkie in Needham would be better off with Suburban service (about $25) calling Waltham, or Metropolitan (around $30) also calling Boston. Therefore a "contiguous" user in Needham would be presented with no "free" calls, but the zone 1 is correctly positioned better than zone 2. But now let's move up the road to Belmont. The WebTV application shows two "local" numbers, but the Boston number shows first, before the Waltham number. Both are Zone 1, but Belmont is contiguous to Waltham, not Boston! WebTV would miss the free call at any opportunity to make a Zone 1 metered call. Humans can figure this out. Wetware isn't perfect but it is trainable. Getting the local numbers right is a challenge for ISPs. I've looked at, for instance, UUNET's on-line list of dial POPs. They have some exchange names wrong, so if you don't research the actual whereabouts of the prefix, you'll sometimes get a toll or unwanted zone charge. For instance, they list a "Sherman Oaks" CA number which is really in Canoga Park, several miles to the west (overlapping but different calling radius). They're not the only ones with similar errors. Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 ------------------------------ From: Bob Brown Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story (a Realworld Experience) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:36:00 -0500 Organization: The EmiNet Domain (407)731-0222 Reply-To: rbrown@emi.net Andy, I saw your post on comp.dcom.telecom. This is an interesting thread because it homes in on the only problem I see with Webtv and that is the long distance charges in some areas. I am the Director of Information Technology at my company and spend way too many hours on the web. My parents are not computer literate at all and are not good candidates to purchase a computer to use to connect to a local ISP. Your product is the perfect thing for them. I actually find myself using it as much or more than my PC. I just wanted to share the experience I just had calling their local phone provider and A T & T since it might give you some insight into what people are dealing with. My mom and dad live in area code 803 in exchange 478. So I called their local company, Farmers Tel. They have no calling plan to give my parents a break. They are actually kind of high. I should say that they were very nice and gave me AT&T's number. This is where it gets interesting. Instead of just saying that I was looking for a calling plan to reduce the charges on a frequently called number I made the mistake of mentioning the internet and Webtv. So they politely transferred me to AT&T's Worldnet service, their internet service provider group. When I explained to this person what I was trying to find out and mentioned WebTv they politely transfered me to the Direct Satellite TV group in AT&T. Now I am kind of bummed out over the fact that my mom and dad will probably be soured on the internet deal because they are very frugal and will not happily pay a lot of long distance charges. But the real reason that I am writing this to you is to share the experience that a lot of non-techie people are going to run into when they try to use your beautifully designed product and service. I'm hoping that you are agressively pursuing a relationship with some major ISP's to provide toll free service in the areas that still remain isolated. Thanks for reading this if you got this far. I don't know about you but I sure feel better now. Oh, and if anyone can figure out who I can call at AT&T to find out about a calling plan for mom and dad please let me know. Robert T. Brown III (Bob) robert.brown@sfwmd.gov (at work) West Palm Beach, Florida rbrown@emi.net (at home) 26 40 32 NORTH 80 05 37 WEST http://www.emi.net/~rbrown ------------------------------ From: bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 16 Dec 1996 17:33:10 GMT Organization: Hughes Aircraft Company I've had the Philips box for over a month now and in so far I'm happy with it. The newest download last week which audio is on in the backgroud during surf'n sessions. Problem when you call-up your own selection of radio or cd's from the list they do not play. So WEBTV has some more debuging problems? Or is it a marketing strategy for more money? ------------------------------ From: bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: 16 Dec 1996 17:40:17 GMT Organization: Hughes Aircraft Company I'm going through printer withdrawl with my WEBTV. So I forward or send my email stuff to my office to print or spell check etc. but when WEBTV matures it will be a handy affordable toy instead of paying a couple of grand for an obsolete computer. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #664 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 05:06:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id FAA13384; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 05:06:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 05:06:04 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612171006.FAA13384@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #665 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Dec 96 05:06:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 665 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Echelon: The Global Surveillance System (Ian Geldard) The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Monty Solomon) Nevada Regulators Approve SBC-Pacific Telesis Merger (Mike King) Book Review: "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server" by Gerber (Rob Slade) Re: N11 Codes (Linc Madison) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Nils Andersson) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Clive D.W. Feather) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Steven R. Kleinedler) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: igeldard@capital.demon.co.uk (Ian Geldard) Subject: Echelon: The Global Surveillance System Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 10:37:54 GMT EXPOSING THE GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM by Nicky Hager ------ The article as it appears in hard copy in the magazine also includes the following sidebars: --"NSA'S BUSINESS PLAN: GLOBAL ACCESS" by Duncan Campbell --GREENPEACE WARRIOR: WHY NO WARNING? and --NZ's PM Kept in the Dark by Nicky Hager ********Hager's book "secret Power" is available from CAQ for $33.******* ----------- [See end] IN THE LATE 1980S, IN A DECISION IT PROBABLY REGRETS, THE US PROMPTED NEW ZEALAND TO JOIN A NEW AND HIGHLY SECRET GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM. HAGER'S INVESTIGATION INTO IT AND HIS DISCOVERY OF THE ECHELON DICTIONARY HAS REVEALED ONE OF THE WORLD'S BIGGEST, MOST CLOSELY HELD INTELLIGENCE PROJECTS. THE SYSTEM ALLOWS SPY AGENCIES TO MONITOR MOST OF THE WORLD'S TELEPHONE, E-MAIL, AND TELEX COMMUNICATIONS. For 40 years, New Zealand's largest intelligence agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) the nation's equivalent of the US National Security Agency (NSA) had been helping its Western allies to spy on countries throughout the Pacific region, without the knowledge of the New Zealand public or many of its highest elected officials. What the NSA did not know is that by the late 1980s, various intelligence staff had decided these activities had been too secret for too long, and were providing me with interviews and documents exposing New Zealand's intelligence activities. Eventually, more than 50 people who work or have worked in intelligence and related fields agreed to be interviewed. The activities they described made it possible to document, from the South Pacific, some alliance-wide systems and projects which have been kept secret elsewhere. Of these, by far the most important is ECHELON. Designed and coordinated by NSA, the ECHELON system is used to intercept ordinary e-mail, fax, telex, and telephone communications carried over the world's telecommunications networks. Unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the Cold War, ECHELON is designed primarily for non-military targets: governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals in virtually every country. It potentially affects every person communicating between (and sometimes within) countries anywhere in the world. It is, of course, not a new idea that intelligence organizations tap into e-mail and other public telecommunications networks. What was new in the material leaked by the New Zealand intelligence staff was precise information on where the spying is done, how the system works, its capabilities and shortcomings, and many details such as the codenames. The ECHELON system is not designed to eavesdrop on a particular individual's e-mail or fax link. Rather, the system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and using computers to identify and extract messages of interest from the mass of unwanted ones. A chain of secret interception facilities has been established around the world to tap into all the major components of the international telecommunications networks. Some monitor communications satellites, others land-based communications networks, and others radio communications. ECHELON links together all these facilities, providing the US and its allies with the ability to intercept a large proportion of the communications on the planet. The computers at each station in the ECHELON network automatically search through the millions of messages intercepted for ones containing pre-programmed keywords. Keywords include all the names, localities, subjects, and so on that might be mentioned. Every word of every message intercepted at each station gets automatically searched whether or not a specific telephone number or e-mail address is on the list. The thousands of simultaneous messages are read in "real time" as they pour into the station, hour after hour, day after day, as the computer finds intelligence needles in telecommunications haystacks. SOMEONE IS LISTENING: The computers in stations around the globe are known, within the network, as the ECHELON Dictionaries. Computers that can automatically search through traffic for keywords have existed since at least the 1970s, but the ECHELON system was designed by NSA to interconnect all these computers and allow the stations to function as components of an integrated whole. The NSA and GCSB are bound together under the five-nation UKUSA signals intelligence agreement. The other three partners all with equally obscure names are the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Britain, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) in Canada, and the Defense Signals Directorate (DSD) in Australia. The alliance, which grew from cooperative efforts during World War II to intercept radio transmissions, was formalized into the UKUSA agreement in 1948 and aimed primarily against the USSR. The five UKUSA agencies are today the largest intelligence organizations in their respective countries. With much of the world's business occurring by fax, e-mail, and phone, spying on these communications receives the bulk of intelligence resources. For decades before the introduction of the ECHELON system, the UKUSA allies did intelligence collection operations for each other, but each agency usually processed and analyzed the intercept from its own stations. Under ECHELON, a particular station's Dictionary computer contains not only its parent agency's chosen keywords, but also has lists entered in for other agencies. In New Zealand's satellite interception station at Waihopai (in the South Island), for example, the computer has separate search lists for the NSA, GCHQ, DSD, and CSE in addition to its own. Whenever the Dictionary encounters a message containing one of the agencies' keywords, it automatically picks it and sends it directly to the headquarters of the agency concerned. No one in New Zealand screens, or even sees, the intelligence collected by the New Zealand station for the foreign agencies. Thus, the stations of the junior UKUSA allies function for the NSA no differently than if they were overtly NSA-run bases located on their soil. The first component of the ECHELON network are stations specifically targeted on the international telecommunications satellites (Intelsats) used by the telephone companies of most countries. A ring of Intelsats is positioned around the world, stationary above the equator, each serving as a relay station for tens of thousands of simultaneous phone calls, fax, and e-mail. Five UKUSA stations have been established to intercept the communications carried by the Intelsats. The British GCHQ station is located at the top of high cliffs above the sea at Morwenstow in Cornwall. Satellite dishes beside sprawling operations buildings point toward Intelsats above the Atlantic, Europe, and, inclined almost to the horizon, the Indian Ocean. An NSA station at Sugar Grove, located 250 kilometers southwest of Washington, DC, in the mountains of West Virginia, covers Atlantic Intelsats transmitting down toward North and South America. Another NSA station is in Washington State, 200 kilometers southwest of Seattle, inside the Army's Yakima Firing Center. Its satellite dishes point out toward the Pacific Intelsats and to the east. *1 The job of intercepting Pacific Intelsat communications that cannot be intercepted at Yakima went to New Zealand and Australia. Their South Pacific location helps to ensure global interception. New Zealand provides the station at Waihopai and Australia supplies the Geraldton station in West Australia (which targets both Pacific and Indian Ocean Intelsats). *2 Each of the five stations' Dictionary computers has a codename to distinguish it from others in the network. The Yakima station, for instance, located in desert country between the Saddle Mountains and Rattlesnake Hills, has the COWBOY Dictionary, while the Waihopai station has the FLINTLOCK Dictionary. These codenames are recorded at the beginning of every intercepted message, before it is transmitted around the ECHELON network, allowing analysts to recognize at which station the interception occurred. New Zealand intelligence staff has been closely involved with the NSA's Yakima station since 1981, when NSA pushed the GCSB to contribute to a project targeting Japanese embassy communications. Since then, all five UKUSA agencies have been responsible for monitoring diplomatic cables from all Japanese posts within the same segments of the globe they are assigned for general UKUSA monitoring.3 Until New Zealand's integration into ECHELON with the opening of the Waihopai station in 1989, its share of the Japanese communications was intercepted at Yakima and sent unprocessed to the GCSB headquarters in Wellington for decryption, translation, and writing into UKUSA-format intelligence reports (the NSA provides the codebreaking programs). "COMMUNICATION" THROUGH SATELLITES The next component of the ECHELON system intercepts a range of satellite communications not carried by Intelsat.In addition to the UKUSA stations targeting Intelsat satellites, there are another five or more stations homing in on Russian and other regional communications satellites. These stations are Menwith Hill in northern England; Shoal Bay, outside Darwin in northern Australia (which targets Indonesian satellites); Leitrim, just south of Ottawa in Canada (which appears to intercept Latin American satellites); Bad Aibling in Germany; and Misawa in northern Japan. A group of facilities that tap directly into land-based telecommunications systems is the final element of the ECHELON system. Besides satellite and radio, the other main method of transmitting large quantities of public, business, and government communications is a combination of water cables under the oceans and microwave networks over land. Heavy cables, laid across seabeds between countries, account for much of the world's international communications. After they come out of the water and join land-based microwave networks they are very vulnerable to interception. The microwave networks are made up of chains of microwave towers relaying messages from hilltop to hilltop (always in line of sight) across the countryside. These networks shunt large quantities of communications across a country. Interception of them gives access to international undersea communications (once they surface) and to international communication trunk lines across continents. They are also an obvious target for large-scale interception of domestic communications. Because the facilities required to intercept radio and satellite communications use large aerials and dishes that are difficult to hide for too long, that network is reasonably well documented. But all that is required to intercept land-based communication networks is a building situated along the microwave route or a hidden cable running underground from the legitimate network into some anonymous building, possibly far removed. Although it sounds technically very difficult, microwave interception from space by United States spy satellites also occurs.4 The worldwide network of facilities to intercept these communications is largely undocumented, and because New Zealand's GCSB does not participate in this type of interception, my inside sources could not help either. NO ONE IS SAFE FROM A MICROWAVE: A 1994 expos of the Canadian UKUSA agency, Spyworld, co-authored by one of its former staff, Mike Frost, gave the first insights into how a lot of foreign microwave interception is done (see p. 18). It described UKUSA "embassy collection" operations, where sophisticated receivers and processors are secretly transported to their countries' overseas embassies in diplomatic bags and used to monitor various communications in foreign capitals. *5 Since most countries' microwave networks converge on the capital city, embassy buildings can be an ideal site. Protected by diplomatic privilege, they allow interception in the heart of the target country. *6 The Canadian embassy collection was requested by the NSA to fill gaps in the American and British embassy collection operations, which were still occurring in many capitals around the world when Frost left the CSE in 1990. Separate sources in Australia have revealed that the DSD also engages in embassy collection. *7 On the territory of UKUSA nations, the interception of land-based telecommunications appears to be done at special secret intelligence facilities. The US, UK, and Canada are geographically well placed to intercept the large amounts of the world's communications that cross their territories. The only public reference to the Dictionary system anywhere in the world was in relation to one of these facilities, run by the GCHQ in central London. In 1991, a former British GCHQ official spoke anonymously to Granada Television's World in Action about the agency's abuses of power. He told the program about an anonymous red brick building at 8 Palmer Street where GCHQ secretly intercepts every telex which passes into, out of, or through London, feeding them into powerful computers with a program known as "Dictionary." The operation, he explained, is staffed by carefully vetted British Telecom people: "It's nothing to do with national security. It's because it's not legal to take every single telex. And they take everything: the embassies, all the business deals, even the birthday greetings, they take everything. They feed it into the Dictionary." *8 What the documentary did not reveal is that Dictionary is not just a British system; it is UKUSA-wide. Similarly, British researcher Duncan Campbell has described how the US Menwith Hill station in Britain taps directly into the British Telecom microwave network, which has actually been designed with several major microwave links converging on an isolated tower connected underground into the station.9 The NSA Menwith Hill station, with 22 satellite terminals and more than 4.9 acres of buildings, is undoubtedly the largest and most powerful in the UKUSA network. Located in northern England, several thousand kilometers from the Persian Gulf, it was awarded the NSA's "Station of the Year" prize for 1991 after its role in the Gulf War. Menwith Hill assists in the interception of microwave communications in another way as well, by serving as a ground station for US electronic spy satellites. These intercept microwave trunk lines and short range communications such as military radios and walkie talkies. Other ground stations where the satellites' information is fed into the global network are Pine Gap, run by the CIA near Alice Springs in central Australia and the Bad Aibling station in Germany. *10 Among them, the various stations and operations making up the ECHELON network tap into all the main components of the world's telecommunications networks. All of them, including a separate network of stations that intercepts long distance radio communications, have their own Dictionary computers connected into ECHELON. In the early 1990s, opponents of the Menwith Hill station obtained large quantities of internal documents from the facility. Among the papers was a reference to an NSA computer system called Platform. The integration of all the UKUSA station computers into ECHELON probably occurred with the introduction of this system in the early 1980s. James Bamford wrote at that time about a new worldwide NSA computer network codenamed Platform "which will tie together 52 separate computer systems used throughout the world. Focal point, or `host environment,' for the massive network will be the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade. Among those included in Platform will be the British SIGINT organization, GCHQ." *11 LOOKING IN THE DICTIONARY: The Dictionary computers are connected via highly encrypted UKUSA communications that link back to computer data bases in the five agency headquarters. This is where all the intercepted messages selected by the Dictionaries end up. Each morning the specially "indoctrinated" signals intelligence analysts in Washington, Ottawa, Cheltenham, Canberra, and Wellington log on at their computer terminals and enter the Dictionary system. After keying in their security passwords, they reach a directory that lists the different categories of intercept available in the data bases, each with a four-digit code. For instance, 1911 might be Japanese diplomatic cables from Latin America (handled by the Canadian CSE), 3848 might be political communications from and about Nigeria, and 8182 might be any messages about distribution of encryption technology. They select their subject category, get a "search result" showing how many messages have been caught in the ECHELON net on that subject, and then the day's work begins. Analysts scroll through screen after screen of intercepted faxes, e-mail messages, etc. and, whenever a message appears worth reporting on, they select it from the rest to work on. If it is not in English, it is translated and then written into the standard format of intelligence reports produced anywhere within the UKUSA network either in entirety as a "report," or as a summary or "gist." INFORMATION CONTROL: A highly organized system has been developed to control what is being searched for by each station and who can have access to it. This is at the heart of ECHELON operations and works as follows. The individual station's Dictionary computers do not simply have a long list of keywords to search for. And they do not send all the information into some huge database that participating agencies can dip into as they wish. It is much more controlled. The search lists are organized into the same categories, referred to by the four digit numbers. Each agency decides its own categories according to its responsibilities for producing intelligence for the network. For GCSB, this means South Pacific governments, Japanese diplomatic, Russian Antarctic activities, and so on. The agency then works out about 10 to 50 keywords for selection in each category. The keywords include such things as names of people, ships, organizations, country names, and subject names. They also include the known telex and fax numbers and Internet addresses of any individuals, businesses, organizations, and government offices that are targets. These are generally written as part of the message text and so are easily recognized by the Dictionary computers. The agencies also specify combinations of keywords to help sift out communications of interest. For example, they might search for diplomatic cables containing both the words "Santiago" and "aid," or cables containing the word "Santiago" but not "consul" (to avoid the masses of routine consular communications). It is these sets of words and numbers (and combinations), under a particular category, that get placed in the Dictionary computers. (Staff in the five agencies called Dictionary Managers enter and update the keyword search lists for each agency.) The whole system, devised by the NSA, has been adopted completely by the other agencies. The Dictionary computers search through all the incoming messages and, whenever they encounter one with any of the agencies' keywords, they select it. At the same time, the computer automatically notes technical details such as the time and place of interception on the piece of intercept so that analysts reading it, in whichever agency it is going to, know where it came from, and what it is. Finally, the computer writes the four-digit code (for the category with the keywords in that message) at the bottom of the message's text. This is important. It means that when all the intercepted messages end up together in the database at one of the agency headquarters, the messages on a particular subject can be located again. Later, when the analyst using the Dictionary system selects the four- digit code for the category he or she wants, the computer simply searches through all the messages in the database for the ones which have been tagged with that number. This system is very effective for controlling which agencies can get what from the global network because each agency only gets the intelligence out of the ECHELON system from its own numbers. It does not have any access to the raw intelligence coming out of the system to the other agencies. For example, although most of the GCSB's intelligence production is primarily to serve the UKUSA alliance, New Zealand does not have access to the whole ECHELON network. The access it does have is strictly controlled. A New Zealand intelligence officer explained: "The agencies can all apply for numbers on each other's Dictionaries. The hardest to deal with are the Americans. ... [There are] more hoops to jump through, unless it is in their interest, in which case they'll do it for you." There is only one agency which, by virtue of its size and role within the alliance, will have access to the full potential of the ECHELON system the agency that set it up. What is the system used for? Anyone listening to official "discussion" of intelligence could be forgiven for thinking that, since the end of the Cold War, the key targets of the massive UKUSA intelligence machine are terrorism, weapons proliferation, and economic intelligence. The idea that economic intelligence has become very important, in particular, has been carefully cultivated by intelligence agencies intent on preserving their post-Cold War budgets. It has become an article of faith in much discussion of intelligence. However, I have found no evidence that these are now the primary concerns of organizations such as NSA. QUICKER INTELLIGENCE, SAME MISSION: A different story emerges after examining very detailed information I have been given about the intelligence New Zealand collects for the UKUSA allies and detailed descriptions of what is in the yards-deep intelligence reports New Zealand receives from its four allies each week. There is quite a lot of intelligence collected about potential terrorists, and there is quite a lot of economic intelligence, notably intensive monitoring of all the countries participating in GATT negotiations. But by far, the main priorities of the intelligence alliance continue to be political and military intelligence to assist the larger allies to pursue their interests around the world. Anyone and anything the particular governments are concerned about can become a target. With capabilities so secret and so powerful, almost anything goes. For example, in June 1992, a group of current "highly placed intelligence operatives" from the British GCHQ spoke to the London Observer: "We feel we can no longer remain silent regarding that which we regard to be gross malpractice and negligence within the establishment in which we operate." They gave as examples GCHQ interception of three charitable organizations, including Amnesty International and Christian Aid. As the Observer reported: "At any time GCHQ is able to home in on their communications for a routine target request," the GCHQ source said. In the case of phone taps the procedure is known as Mantis. With telexes it is called Mayfly. By keying in a code relating to Third World aid, the source was able to demonstrate telex "fixes" on the three organizations. "It is then possible to key in a trigger word which enables us to home in on the telex communications whenever that word appears," he said. "And we can read a pre-determined number of characters either side of the keyword."12 Without actually naming it, this was a fairly precise description of how the ECHELON Dictionary system works. Again, what was not revealed in the publicity was that this is a UKUSA-wide system. The design of ECHELON means that the interception of these organizations could have occurred anywhere in the network, at any station where the GCHQ had requested that the four-digit code covering Third World aid be placed. Note that these GCHQ officers mentioned that the system was being used for telephone calls. In New Zealand, ECHELON is used only to intercept written communications: fax, e-mail, and telex. The reason, according to intelligence staff, is that the agency does not have the staff to analyze large quantities of telephone conversations. Mike Frost's expos of Canadian "embassy collection" operations described the NSA computers they used, called Oratory, that can "listen" to telephone calls and recognize when keywords are spoken. Just as we can recognize words spoken in all the different tones and accents we encounter, so too, according to Frost, can these computers. Telephone calls containing keywords are automatically extracted from the masses of other calls and recorded digitally on magnetic tapes for analysts back at agency headquarters. However, high volume voice recognition computers will be technically difficult to perfect, and my New Zealand-based sources could not confirm that this capability exists. But, if or when it is perfected, the implications would be immense. It would mean that the UKUSA agencies could use machines to search through all the international telephone calls in the world, in the same way that they do written messages. If this equipment exists for use in embassy collection, it will presumably be used in all the stations throughout the ECHELON network. It is yet to be confirmed how extensively telephone communications are being targeted by the ECHELON stations for the other agencies. The easiest pickings for the ECHELON system are the individuals, organizations, and governments that do not use encryption. In New Zealand's area, for example, it has proved especially useful against already vulnerable South Pacific nations which do not use any coding, even for government communications (all these communications of New Zealand's neighbors are supplied, unscreened, to its UKUSA allies). As a result of the revelations in my book, there is currently a project under way in the Pacific to promote and supply publicly available encryption software to vulnerable organizations such as democracy movements in countries with repressive governments. This is one practical way of curbing illegitimate uses of the ECHELON capabilities. One final comment. All the newspapers, commentators, and "well placed sources" told the public that New Zealand was cut off from US intelligence in the mid-1980s. That was entirely untrue. The intelligence supply to New Zealand did not stop, and instead, the decade since has been a period of increased integration of New Zealand into the US system. Virtually everything the equipment, manuals, ways of operating, jargon, codes, and so on, used in the GCSB continues to be imported entirely from the larger allies (in practice, usually the NSA). As with the Australian and Canadian agencies, most of the priorities continue to come from the US, too. The main thing that protects these agencies from change is their secrecy. On the day my book arrived in the book shops, without prior publicity, there was an all-day meeting of the intelligence bureaucrats in the prime minister's department trying to decide if they could prevent it from being distributed. They eventually concluded, sensibly, that the political costs were too high. It is understandable that they were so agitated. Throughout my research, I have faced official denials or governments refusing to comment on publicity about intelligence activities. Given the pervasive atmosphere of secrecy and stonewalling, it is always hard for the public to judge what is fact, what is speculation, and what is paranoia. Thus, in uncovering New Zealand's role in the NSA-led alliance, my aim was to provide so much detail about the operations the technical systems, the daily work of individual staff members, and even the rooms in which they work inside intelligence facilities that readers could feel confident that they were getting close to the truth. I hope the information leaked by intelligence staff in New Zealand about UKUSA and its systems such as ECHELON will help lead to change. CAQ SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: CAQ (CovertAction Quarterly) has won numerous awards for investigative journalism. In 1996, it won 4 of "Project Censored" top 25 awards for investigative reporting. CAQ is read around the world by investigative reporters, activists, scholars, intelligence buffs, news junkies, and anyone who wants to know the news and analysis behind the soundbites and headlines. Recommended by Noam Chomsky; targeted by the CIA. Each article in the 64-page magazine, which is in its 19th year of publication, is extensively footnoted and accompanied by photographs and graphics. For a single issue, send $6. A one year subscription: US $22; Canada/Mexico $27; Latin America/Europe $33; Other areas $35. A two year US subscription is $38 Please send check or money order in $US to: CAQ 1500 Massachusetts Ave. #732 Washington, DC 20005, USA Mail, phone or fax Mastercard or Visa with address info and expiration date Phone: 202-331-9763 Fax: 202-331-9751 E-mail: caq@igc.org CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITES: http://mediafilter.org/caq http://www.worldmedia.com/caq ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 22:20:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 18:28:23 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre Subject: The InterNIC: a case study in bad database management [Sorry for the heavy traffic on RRE. The world is going nuts this week.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 16:44:21 -0800 (PST) From: risks@csl.sri.com Subject: RISKS DIGEST 18.67 RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Friday 13 December 1996 Volume 18 : Issue 67 Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 17:07:04 -0500 From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" Subject: The InterNIC: a case study in bad database management (This message was also sent to comp.protocols.dns.ops .) The InterNIC (http://www.internic.net) is responsible for Internet domain name service for all top-level domains, as well as for second-level domains underneath all the old ARPA domains except MIL (EDU, GOV, NET, ORG, COM). Until a few years ago, domain registration services were provided by the InterNIC for free. That changed when they convinced the NSF that its grant money wasn't enough to cover their costs, so (amid much hubbub on the Net) they started charging $50 per year for any second-level domain registration, with the first two years (i.e., $100) payable in advance. According to , the InterNIC registered 638,788 new domains between August 1993 and September 1996. If I'm doing my math right, at $100 per domain, that's almost $64 million, or over $20 million per year. I would think that with that much money, they'd be able to provide competent service to their customers. Unfortunately, my experience has been that they're simply not doing an acceptable job. Some examples: ***** * Their automated systems do not function properly. They've introduced a PGP-based system for authentication of domain contacts. In other words, they allow domain contacts to register their PGP public keys in the InterNIC public-key database, and then requests which come from those contacts will only be accepted as authentic if they are signed with the corresponding provide key. Unfortunately, this system does not always work. Recently, I submitted a series of twelve database modification requests to the InterNIC in a single day. All of them were correctly signed with my PGP key. Of the twelve requests, three were returned to me in messages beginning, "We are not able to verify the PGP signed message that you sent us." To make matters worse, for one of those three failed requests, I received a message claiming the the modifications I'd requested had been completed, two days *before* I received the message informing me that they were unable to verify my PGP signature. I have asked the InterNIC multiple times why their system randomly fails to verify valid PGP signatures. They have not responded to my inquiries. Interestingly enough, another poster to comp.protocols.dns.ops claimed that when he asked an InterNIC on the telephone about their PGP authentication system, he was told that it is not currently working. That would seem to indicate that the InterNIC is aware that there are problems with it, and yet they continue to advertise it on their Web site without any indication that it might not work for any given request. * There are some data in the database which are impossible to update using the templates they provide. One of the types of data stored in the InterNIC database is hosts; in particular, hosts which act as domain-name servers for domains registered with the InterNIC have records in the database. Host records include an organization name and address associated with the host. And yet, the template for updating host records (available at ) does not have fields in it for updating that information! I believe that there are a couple of other record types in the database which have this same problem. This organization/address data has been described to me by an InterNIC employee as an "old hold-over;" it seems that new host records do not have organization and address data, but old ones do. Nevertheless, one would think that when switching to a new format for host records, the InterNIC would have either removed the obsolete data from the old records or established a procedure for updating it. Instead, the only way to update this information electronically is to send a plain-text message to hostmaster@internic.net explaining what you're trying to do, and then hope that whoever reads your message will be competent enough to understand what you're asking for and do the update by hand. Which brings me to my next point ... * When asked how to do something that is not handled automatically by their templates, their staff give incorrect answers (or simply ignore the query) more often than they give correct answers. Of the twelve requests mentioned above, six of them were handled improperly by the InterNIC staff members who processed them. Iwn several cases, I received a response instructing me to use a particular template to make the changes I had requested, when in fact those changes had nothing whatsoever to do with the template they told me to use. I finally had to escalate my requests by sending "out-of-band" E-mail to an InterNIC employee who has resolved problems of this sort for me in the past, and she was able to "bounce" my requests to a high enough level that they actually got processed. Incidentally, the InterNIC introduced one or more typographical errors into the data I sent them when processing six of my twelve requests (i.e., when they were done processing my requests, six of the twelve records I asked them to modify had one or more typographical errors in them). I suppose that sending incorrect answers is better than how things were a few months ago -- then, if you sent a request that the person who read your message did not know how to answer, he/she simply ignored it and sent no response whatsoever. * There are some data in their database which are impossible to update using their current procedures. Imagine this scenario ... Joe Admin at Foo, Inc. is responsible for system administration, including DNS administration. He therefore has a contact record in the InterNIC database indicating that he works for Foo, Inc., and he is listed as a contact for various domain, network, and host records, in the InterNIC database. Now, he leaves the company and takes a new job, with no further contact with Foo, Inc. He doesn't bother to update his contact record in the InterNIC database before he leaves. Foo, Inc. would rather not let records remain in the InterNIC database claiming that Joe works for them when in fact he does not. Therefore, they want to contact the InterNIC and tell them, "Look, the information in Joe Admin's contact record which says that he for us is incorrect. You can confirm this by attempting to send E-mail to the address in the record, or by calling the phone number in the record and asking to speak to him. The person who answers will confirm that he no longer works there. Please either delete the contact record completely or remove the information in it which associates Joe Admin with Foo, Inc." Sounds reasonable, right? Well, unfortunately, the InterNIC has *no procedures whatsoever* for allowing a company to remove contact information which incorrectly lists them. I attempted to do just what I described, i.e., to get the InterNIC to remove the contact record for a former employee of OpenVision who no longer works here, and who I cannot contact to ask him to update his own record (and considering that it's not hurting him in any way, I don't see that he'd have any incentive to update it even if I could ask him to). After several rounds of E-mail with the InterNIC, they called me on the telephone to discuss what I was trying to do. Once on the phone with them, I was "bounced up" through several layers of InterNIC staff, until I was finally able to speak to a woman who was perfectly willing to admit that yes, the scenario I described was a somewhat common one, and yes, it was perfectly reasonable for a company not to want the InterNIC database to associate non-employees with the company, but no, there's no way for anyone but the owner of a contact handle to update it. "Perhaps we need to establish a procedure for that, and I'll be glad to discuss that for you with our customer service manager, but we don't have one right now," she said, and she did not offer to make an exception and handle my particular request manually without the blessing of a "procedure". Presumably, this means that I could edit my own contact handle to indicate that I work for any company that I want, and that company would have no way to get the InterNIC to remove the fraudulent information. Similarly, presumably, that means that (to be a little morbid for a moment), if someone listed in the InterNIC database dies, there's no way for anyone else to get the InterNIC to remove the deceased's record from the database. When I pressed the woman about this, she said to me, "If you're a network administrator at this company, you presumably have control over the mail server" (an assumption which is not always true, and indeed isn't true in this case; although I can ask the people who administer the mail server to make changes and hope that they'll listen, I don't have the ability to make the changes directly). "Well," she continued," if you send us a mail message which claims to be from the former employee, asking for his record to be deleted, we'll process it." "Let me get this straight," I responded. "You're telling me that I should forge E-mail to your system in order to delete this record." She confirmed that interpretation. I said, "Surely you see the absurdity of that." She responded, "Well, obviously, ideally we wouldn't want anyone forging requests to our system, but in this case, that's the only way for you to delete the record." "What if the former employee had associated a PGP key with his contact record before he left the company." "Well, in that case, you'd need his private PGP key in order to delete the record." "But surely you know that's impossible -- the whole point of PGP is that only the owner a private key has access to it. Even if I had access to the file in which it was stored, I wouldn't know the correct password to unlock it." "Well, in that case, there would be no way for you to delete the record." ***** There are a number of countries with strict laws about the collection of private information in computerized databases. Database maintainers are required to seek permission from all individuals who have data about them stored in the database, to guarantee the security of the database, and to establish working procedures for keeping the data in the databases up-to-date. The United States has few such laws (there are laws about specific types of databases, such as credit and medical records, but no laws about databases in general). Until I started dealing with the InterNIC, I didn't see much point to them. Well, I've changed my mind. The InterNIC proves rather clearly that left to their own devices, companies will not maintain databases in a responsible manner. Incidentally, nowhere on the InterNIC's WWW site can I find the address or telephone number of the governmental office which oversees their grant and handles complaints about their services. Several months ago, I sent them E-mail asking for them so that I could file a complaint, to be considered the next time their grant comes up for renewal. Like many of my other messages to them, that request was ignored. Jonathan Kamens | OpenVision Technologies, Inc. | jik@cam.ov.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Nevada Regulators Approve SBC-Pacific Telesis Merger Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 19:22:48 PST ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:17:53 -0800 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: Nevada Regulators Approve SBC-Pacific Telesis Merger FOR MORE INFORMATION: Michael Runzler, Pacific Telesis (415) 394-3643 Joyce Trombley, Nevada Bell (702) 333-4332 Larry Solomon, SBC (210) 351-3990 Nevada Regulators Approve SBC-Pacific Telesis Merger CARSON CITY, Nevada -- The Nevada Public Service Commission today became the latest regulatory body to favorably approve the proposed merger of SBC Communications and Pacific Telesis Group, the parent company of Nevada Bell. The commission voted 5 to 0 in favor of the merger. "We are pleased that the Nevada Commission approved this merger expeditiously so that consumers can soon benefit from the increased competition our combined companies will provide in the fast-changing telecommunications market," said Phil Quigley, chairman and chief executive officer of Pacific Telesis Group. "We look forward to providing our Nevada customers with a full range of local and long-distance services as all telecommunications markets open to full and fair competition." "The combination of SBC and Pacific Telesis means that Nevada Bell will be part of a stronger, more competitive global telecommunications company that will provide customers with state-of-the-art communications services and quality customer service at affordable prices," said Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of SBC Communications. In conjunction with the application for merger approval in Nevada, the companies agreed to provide at least $4 million to Nevada Bell customers in lieu of siting four headquarters and adding jobs in California. The merger has been approved overwhelmingly by shareholders of both companies, and the U.S. Department of Justice has said the merger does not violate federal antitrust laws. Approvals from the Federal Communications Commission on license transfers and the California Public Utilities Commission are pending. SBC and Pacific Telesis announced their merger agreement April 1. Together, the two companies will have more than $21 billion in annual revenues and serve the nation's two most populous states and seven of its ten largest metropolitan areas. Pacific Telesis (NYSE:PAC) is a diversified telecommunications corporation based in San Francisco. Through its Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell subsidiaries, the corporation offers a wide array of telecommunications services in California and Nevada, including directory advertising and publishing. The corporation serves nearly 15.8 million access lines. It offers Internet access services to both business and residential customers. Another subsidiary, Pacific Bell Mobile Services, has begun offering new wireless "personal communications services" (PCS) in the San Diego area, and will expand service in California and Nevada in 1997. SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) is one of the world's leading diversified telecommunications companies and the second-largest wireless communications company based in the United States. SBC provides innovative telecommunications products and services under the Southwestern Bell and Cellular One brands. Its businesses include wireline and wireless services and equipment in the United States and interests in wireless businesses in Europe, Latin America, South Africa and Asia; cable television in both domestic and international markets; and directory advertising and publishing. Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 10:31:55 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server" by Gerber BKMSXSRV.RVW 960912 "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server", Barry Gerber, 1996, 0-7821-1867-4, U$39.95 %A Barry Gerber %C 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501 %D 1996 %G 0-7821-1867-4 %I Sybex Computer Books %O U$39.99 510-523-8233 800-227-2346 Fax: 510-523-2373 info@sybex.com %P 659 %T "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server" Gerber does offer a complete and easy to follow guide to setting up an MS Exchange Server. In addition, there is direction on the use of both the Server and the client software. The material is well presented, if little different than would be found in the documentation. Singularly missing is any compelling reason to use MS Exchange Server. Those who have heard some of the claims for Exchange will find little evidence to support its purchase. Examples of real applications would have made the book more convincing, and likely more useful. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKMSXSRV.RVW 960912 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca BCVAXLUG Envoy http://www.decus.ca/www/lugs/bcvaxlug.html ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: N11 Codes Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:03:25 -0800 In article , nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) wrote: > I subscibe to the theory that N11 are national treasures, to be > doled out very carefully. The 311 for "non-emergency" 911 may be a > good start (clogged 911 is a major problem, at least in the LA area). > OTOH, I have no problem with re-using the N11 (except probably 911) as > AREA CODES. There should be no ambiguities, as area codes are always > preceded by a one (except from some cellphones, but the cellswich gets all > the digits and can obviously determine by the presence or absence of more > digits whether an area code N11 or a special access N11 is dialled). Problem: in some toll-alerting areas (Texas, specifically, and probably other states as well), you don't dial 411 for local directory assistance. You dial 1+411, because there is now a charge associated with the call. (It changed in the late 1970s, when D.A. stopped being free.) That leaves you with only six N11 codes to use as area codes, and that doesn't seem worthwhile, given the public perception of N11 as "special." In fact, all area codes with the second and third digits the same (i.e., 222, 233, 244, 255, etc.) are reserved for special purposes as "easily remembered" codes. > The issue of 1+411 should go away, just because 411 is a charged call does > (in a contemporary setting) not mean that it has to be dialled as 1+... Tell that to the Texas PUC! These are the same dinosaurs who still refuse to PERMIT you to dial a local call with a leading '1'. If you dial a number in a different area code that just happens to be local, you MUST NOT dial the 1. And heaven *forbid* you should ever try to dial a local number in your own area code with 1+area+number! Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Date: 16 Dec 1996 19:27:02 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , D Banks writes: > Was BC the only place in North America to use 112+Number for LD instead > of 1+Number? Back in 1966 (yup, nineteen hundred and sixty-six AD), I was in Montreal. They switched sometime in the summer of that year from 112+ac to 1+ac. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 18:36:31 +0000 From: Clive D.W. Feather Reply-To: clive@demon.net Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Organization: Clive's laptop (part of Demon Internet Ltd.) In article , Nils Andersson writes > 999 is the older British code, NOT Europe-wide. (Example: Sweden uses 90 > 000.) > Various countries have had each their own emergency number. European > Union and possbly some non-EU countries in Europe are standardizing to > 112, currently some countries are in the "permissive dialling" mode, The UK has no plans to ever drop 999; 112 and 999 will run in parallel for ever. Clive D.W. Feather | Associate Director | Director Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd. Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | | Written on my laptop - please reply to the Reply-To address ------------------------------ From: srkleine@midway.uchicago.edu (Steven R. Kleinedler) Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Organization: The University of Chicago Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 18:56:08 GMT In article , D Banks wrote: > Was BC the only place in North America to use 112+Number for LD instead > of 1+Number? In my rural neck of the woods (eastern 517 quite close to the 313 (now 810) line about 20 miles southwest of Flint), until the early 80s, we had to dial 120 and then the area code and number. A live operator would come on line and we'd give our phone number, and then we were connected through. Since I lived in a small 517 corner of the school district, I did this quite a lot. This message has been brought to you by Steve Kleinedler. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #665 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 07:45:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id HAA18845; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 07:45:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 07:45:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612171245.HAA18845@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #666 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Dec 96 07:45:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 666 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Clive Feather) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Matt Landry) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (C. Cramer) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (H. Gorman) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (W. Leatherock) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Dave Hultberg) Kid-Safe ISPs (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 13:00:12 +0000 From: Clive D.W. Feather Reply-To: clive@demon.net Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Organization: Clive's laptop (part of Demon Internet Ltd.) Pat writes: > instead, try the appproach suggested by > mcs.net here in Chicago, which they are publicizing widely in their > advertising: they do not carry newsgroups which *on their face* are > intended as ways to exploit children; ie the newsgroups which by their > title suggest advocacy of pedophilia. The recent advertisement by > mcs.net lists about a dozen newsgroups. Part of the problem with this is determining which newsgroups actually do and don't carry illegal material (which is all, in my opinion, ISPs should worry about). Even a title like "alt.sex.pedophilia" doesn't tell you much - the group is supposed to be about supporting and helping people so that they *don't* abuse children. Cutting it off would, I am told, do more harm than good. > As mcs.net pointed out in its > advertisement, a survey of a few dozen ISPs found that about half > said they never 'censor' newsgroups in any way, shape or form. But > you say, not at this site. Go elsewhere. That is the stance mcs.net > has adopted. I don't have a problem with individual ISPs taking this attitude. So long as there is no coercion involved. > Common rebuttal: if deprived of mass circulation of their newsgroup, > 'those people' will start posting in other groups. Okay, so what? > That's not your problem. Let them deal with the flame war sure to > result when they post in some totally unrelated group. Firstly, there have been several examples of this happening - it's not just a theoretical problem. Secondly, the people doing these postings just ignore the flame wars. They want to get their stuff out to a specific audience, and are using Usenet to do so. Both senders and readers will ignore everything else. Thirdly, experience shows that the stuff tends to end up in totally unsuitable newsgroups, like alt.disney. The result is that children are *more* likely, not less, to come across the material. > Kids don't have to go in taverns -- where they are forbidden by law > to be -- in order to find some beer to drink. They don't have to go > to an adult bookstore in order to find a 'friendly' adult willing to > explain the facts of life to them. But that is not the problem of > the tavern owner or the bookstore manager who work to keep those > situations from occuring *on their own premises, in situations under > their direct control*. Not a good analogy. A better one is the one that a policeman once gave to me: every now and then, there are complaints about begging or prostitution in an area. The police go in, clamp down, and clean up the area. The net result is *not* to improve the environment, but simply to push the beggars and whores to somewhere else. Nothing's been gained - simply a load of police time has been wasted. In the UK this is known as the "displacement theory". There is now universal agreement, from ISPs, police, and government, that banning newsgroups is the wrong way to go. > Am I the only person who knows the purpose of, and how to use .http-access > files in connection with a web page? [...] > For instance, suppose you denied access to '@u18.' wildcard ... meaning > any site that had '.u18' as part of its name was denied viewing. There's a better way to do this. There is a technology called PICS - Platform for Internet Content Selection. This allows all that you suggest, but with a much finer level of detail and without needing to give every computer two names. What you do is to go to a rating service and generate a rating for your web pages. For example, the RSACi system rates pages on the level of bad language, nudity, sexual activity, and violence. You then place a string in the HTML source of your page which encodes this rating. When someone comes to view the page, their browser can detect this tag and not display the page if the rating is unacceptable. For example, with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3, you set the maximum acceptable rating and then lock it with a password. IE3 will then refuse to display a page over that rating until the password is entered. You can therefore allow your child to browse without worry, *and*, rather than a simple under/over-18 choice, you can fine-tune the sort of material they can look at. [RSACi has, in my and many other opinions, a number of deficiencies in its rating system. But the principles still apply.] Clive D.W. Feather | Associate Director | Director Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd. Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | | Written on my laptop - please reply to the Reply-To address ------------------------------ From: mbl@mail.msen.com (Matthew B Landry) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: 16 Dec 1996 21:04:31 GMT Organization: Flunkies for the Mike Conspiracy In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > even' ... not once did anyone say let's go over and talk to the > man and see what it is exactly he wants and try to find some way "What he wants" is not the issue. He might in fact be a decent guy that I wouldn't too terribly mind having to dinner at my house. That's not the point. No one (well ... no one credible) is attacking Sen. Exon or his cronies as individuals, the internet community is attacking their collective effort to muzzle us all. The fact that a bad law was drafted by OK people with good intentions doesn't mean it isn't a bad law, or that any punches should be pulled in getting it taken back off the books as soon as possible. The groups which pushed for this bill would not be happy with lesser restrictions. The government's defenses to the contrary, the aim of those who pushed hardest for CDA is to silence anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with them. "Indecent" is in that bill for a reason, and that reason is to give prosecutors all the latitude they need to lock up just about anybody. Maybe our representatives in Congress were duped into unknowing collaboration with this agenda, or maybe they actually agreed with it. (Personally, I rather suspect a combination of both.) That also isn't the point ... the point is that the law as written is constitutionally unacceptable. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don't care if they "meant well", I care that if they get their way a mildly popular and potentially controversial web page could earn me or any other American a longer prison term than that extended to such upstanding citizens as Al Capone, just as long as they can drag together twelve people in the entire united states who are offended by it. CDA's proponents say its purpose is to get the hard-core pornography off the internet. That cannot be reconciled with its actual and easily predictable effect of actively ENCOURAGING commercial pornography (just about the only impenetrable defense against prosecution under the law is that you charge someone's credit card before you show them anything) while stifling controversial free (in both political and economic senses) expression. > Why did no one go to Exxon (again, I am using him as a generic > example) and say something like this ... [See below.] > some of the protections you are looking for. Over a period of > two to three years, we should be able to identify parts of the > net which are adult in nature and pretty well segregate it from No, not really. Not until one can define a _precise_ standard, guaranteed by statute to be good nationwide, for what is "adult oriented". Good luck. > First Amendment hassles -- we will probably begin moving the > kids onto machines which are restricted in the contacts they > can establish. I've done a lot of research on this, and I have yet to encounter a commercial ISP that will allow anyone on without some kind of affirmation that the customer is over 18 or that his/her parents understand the implications of an internet account and accept liability for it. In other words, this change has already happened. The problem is, the kids can lie. I did, when I was 14 and wanted an internet account. And the ISP is still held liable if it's found out that the kids did lie. Moreover, since everyone on the net KNOWS that kids lie to get past these things, there's no way someone faced with a multimillennial prison term could defend himself by saying that he didn't know that minors might be able to access his site. Liquor store owners that accept fake ID get prosecuted pretty regularly. Why should ISPs or web site owners be any different? > Senator, suppose we use the term 'obscenity' instead of 'indecency' > as the cut-off point. It has already been defined, it has no [Here's the "below" I asked you to "see".] I did in fact speak to Sen. Exon's co-sponsor about this issue. And he specified to me, personally, on the phone, that "indecency" had been used as the standard deliberately. That is, limiting the law to well-defined restrictions had been considered and actively rejected during the drafting stage. That implies to me that they knew what they were getting America into, and did it anyway. It's a lot harder to forgive them when one knows that. > a lot the same with ISPs. No, they are not legally common > carriers, but for all intents and purposes they are. It really Well ... actually ... since Cubby v. Compuserve, ISPs and similar entities have had the content-isolation aspects of common carrier protection availible to them in a legally enforceable manner. > And *we* (yes I mean we, the net) could have participated in > drafting a law which would have been very favorable to us ... We did. Patrick Leahy had a net-friendly alternative ready, and he offered it up for consideration. Congress rejected it, which again makes one wonder where their priorities really are. > if we win, we still lose. Nope. > Because if we win, then they start on the next issue, which I > believe will be copyright. Ah, but the WIPO copyright monstrosity has enemies with a much easier time defending themselves. > same reason I have little business talking about it; I do not own > the computer upon which this is published and very few of you have > any property rights where the network or your local site is concerned. All Americans have the right to freely enter contractual relationships such as commercial internet accounts and positions of employment. No, I cannot compel my ISP of choice to offer me access to the facilities I want on the net. But I can go down the road to their competitors if they refuse. And I can insist upon (and generally receive) explicit guarantees of access as a non-negotiable condition of signing a user agreement. No, I do not have _all_ the priveledges of ownership over the infrastructure of the internet, but a complex web of such contractual relationships gives me all of those priveledges which are relevent to this discussion. > You are there with the blessings of your corporate employer who will > let you talk smart and sassy until he finally gets tired of it and > then fires you. Well, actually I'm here with the knowledge (but not explicit blessings) of my ISP employer, who will completely ignore whatever I say on the net as long as it does not relate to our company, and I include a disclaimer equivalent to the one actually installed in my .sig file. Before I worked here, I posted from the exact same account in my capacity as a customer of this ISP, and at that time they didn't care _at all_ what I had to say. The only change was that I stopped paying for the account, and I had to become a little more careful about talking to people in the company's market area about internet services. > being that a semi-retired prissy old-maid librarian who helps some > child log on to the net only to have the child do a search on > Alta Vista and turn up some string with a four letter combination > in the middle somewhere considered 'indecent' gets sentenced to > life in prison. All the librarians are now frantic. So the soloists Let them be frantic. It'll only last until The Court upholds the injunction. > for the court. What the judges know about computers could be written > on the head of a pin. Actually, given the level of detail in the court's findings of fact, it appears that by the time the ruling was issued, they knew quite well how the internet worked, at least as it relates to this issue. > Being respectful of the First Amendment, they go out of their way to > avoid violating it. This is proper and appropriate behavior for federal judges. Frankly, it's better than I had expected, until I saw the ruling. > how come you did not get Exxon and his buddies straightened out a I can't speak about Exxon as a specific person, but "his buddies" had no interest in being straightened out. They made that more than clear to me on the phone. Matthew Landry Well, yeah. Actually I do sometimes speak for Msen. But not from THIS account. O- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 09:41:36 -0800 From: Clayton E. Cramer Reply-To: cramer@dlcc.com Organization: Diamond Lane Communications Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News I am in complete agreement with you Pat. There are a lot of people out there who have no idea the damage that exposure to a group like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teens would do to a child. They have become enamored of an extremist point of view about the First Amendment that is contrary to original intent, and have mistakenly applied it to situations where children are present. Clayton E. Cramer Technical Marketing Manager, Diamond Lane Communications email: cramer@dlcc.com web page: http://www.cs.sonoma.edu/~cramerc ------------------------------ From: hillary@netaxs.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:50:36 -0500 Organization: Packet Shredders Anonymous In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Hillary wants to know what is a poor sysadmin to do? She suggests > hiring ten additional people to 'read everything' in the news every > day. No, not at all ... instead, try the appproach suggested by > mcs.net here in Chicago, which they are publicizing widely in their > advertising: they do not carry newsgroups which *on their face* are > intended as ways to exploit children; ie the newsgroups which by their > title suggest advocacy of pedophilia. The recent advertisement by I did not suggest hiring ten people to read news. I inquired as to what we should do to filter based on content that did NOT involve hiring ten people to read news. We already do not carry the kiddy porn groups, or any other group widely known to carry content in violation of federal law. But, the content is still extant in other groups, and we have no way of controlling what users may for example, scan in, and email to users at other sites. How do you filter on content in a case like that, Pat? Or, a user may put files called biblestudy.jpg and biblestudy.gif on his web page entitled seminary.html. If I grep through my users' web directories for sexual keywords, these files will not show up, but they could very well be pornographic ... > mcs.net lists about a dozen newsgroups. I suppose it would take > Hillary thirty seconds to call up an editor and cut a few lines out > of the system-wide .newsrc file. What you are saying is your site > does not receive those groups and does not pass them along. There is Right, we don't. But what about OTHER "illegal content" - it's not all in newsgroups. Plus, what if the content simply shifts to alt.haha.can't.find.us or some such? We *can't* read every new group that comes by. If informed of illegal content, we can act on it, but beyond that, it's out of my hands. > Common rebuttal: if deprived of mass circulation of their newsgroup, > 'those people' will start posting in other groups. Okay, so what? > That's not your problem. Let them deal with the flame war sure to > result when they post in some totally unrelated group. But they can start their OWN newsgroup, Pat. I have SEEN it. Or they can "take over" an unused existing group, like alt.conspiracy.yeast or something. And what if we don't find out about it until one of our users SUES us because his kid wanted to read about yeast and accidentally downloaded ten gifs of nude porn stars and now they're going to sue us? > Am I the only person who knows the purpose of, and how to use .http-access > files in connection with a web page? The presence of such a file in a > directory causes various things to happen: depending on what you put > in the file, you can deny access to a given user and/or site; you can > deny access to all but a select few users/sites, etc. So Hillary and > other sysadmins, why not teach your web customers how to install and > use .http-access files as a way to control who gets to see their page? - added load on server; - reconfiguring software required; - brains required (not all of every ISP's userbase has those); - can't control it anyway. Are you implying that I tell every customer they must use this, even if they don't have "adult pages"? How am I supposed to know if my users are complying, if only "adult pages" have to do it? View every user webpage? Right ... > For instance, suppose you denied access to '@u18.' wildcard ... meaning > any site that had '.u18' as part of its name was denied viewing. Now > suppose on the flip side of the coin, you (if you even have the > possibility of underage subscribers) take one of your machines and > give it -- in addition to its regular name -- an *alias* of 'u18', and > anytime that machine makes any outbound connection anywhere on the > net it introduces itself as 'u18.the.rest.of.its.name' ... actually > I think you would name the machine 'u18' and its 'alias' would be > the regular name it has had all along, so that your users need not > know anything at all about the 'u18' part ... Wait. You're saying that the users IP addresses should resolve to a hostname including the u18 bit in it, right? Well, dynamic IP addressing is used by most ISPs, and what if there are over 18 and under 18 year old subscribers? You're telling me that I have to limit the accessibility of my service to my users, because instead of having one pool of dynamic IP addresses to assign, now I have to have two ... one which resolves to hostnames including u18 and one which does not. And since I'm using xylogics terminal servers and because of the way we've got everything configured, the pools of IP addresses must be assigned to a specific terminal server. So I'd have to limit which phone number the u18 people could call in on. No way, Pat. I think you're underestimating the technical side of this all in a major way. And as far as the amount of users under age 18 ... we have quite a few. I was in COLLEGE when I was 17, do you think that all university computer labs need to have this u18 bit in their hostnames? Then how on earth will 17 yr old biology students be able to study the explicit portions of the visible man project, prithee tell? As far as marking user web files ... Who designates the files that must contain the wildcard? You're telling me I have to hire a bunch of people to review content for user web pages? Not something I'm about to do. > Now, starting with your next billing cycle, and continuing over a > period of several months with *existing users* and from the start > with *new users* you require your user to certify to the following: > "I am of legal majority age in the state in which I reside". In other > words, the person is 18 years of age or older. With new users, you > might decide to have them submit a photocopy of a driver's license > or birth certificate. With existing users, do something; do not > inconvenience your admins and do not unduly annoy your users. Just > phase them in over a period of time. > Those who do not certify or offer proof, etc get placed on the > 'u18' machine. Those who do get placed elsewhere. Now we no longer What about dynamically assigned slip/ppp users as stated above? It's not this simple, Pat. > have to worry about 'decency bits' or whatever they called them. You > decide which of the web pages on your site should be restricted in the > same way you decide which newsgroups will not be carried: a cursory > glance through the page at the time it is installed. If it appears Pat, users install web pages constantly, update them on the fly. I'm not going to read it every time it gets updated. One of my users updates his web page easily 20 times a day. I'm not going to have time for this ... would YOU? Even if I set up a process to grep for keywords, it wouldn't work. People would know about it and avoid the keywords, or they'd switch providers to someone who didn't do it and I'd be out of business. Any solution which requires the admins to actually load up a graphical browser and look at a user web page before approving it is, IMO, too much of a burden on the ISP. > (1) the web page owners will cheat and not deny access to u18. Of > course some will. There are merchants who sell cigarettes to minors > knowing good and well the kid is not old enough. There are bartenders > who do not bother to check identification. Sometimes they get caught, > sometimes not. That's not your problem. You have set the rules for > your site; you reserve the right to audit your users and drop those This is already the case: I have rules, I reserve the right to enforce them. We don't need some new law -- child pornography is already illegal ... allowing users under 18 to access pornography is already illegal. Why do we need another law which will make me a criminal when I am already exhibiting a desire to comply with the alleged spirit of this law? > Why not try dropping those users who refuse to categorize themselves > as 'adult' when such is the case? ***Note I did not say drop those > who operate adult web pages; I said drop those who refuse to lock > out minors from viewing adult material or who lie to you (the admin) > and claim they are not when you find out they are, etc***. Is the > goodwill of one user worth having the authorities come down on you > and possibly hassle your entire site? I think not. Nobody has ever complained to me about porn being accessible from our server, though I know that some is ... do you seriously think someone's going to complain that a page isn't restr