From Communications Week, September 28, 1987: Status: O CALL IT CONTROVERSIAL: NJ BELL TO TEST SCREENING SERVICE THAT DISPLAYS INCOMING CALLS By Kathleen Killette NEWARK N.J. -- Local telephone customers in New Jersey will be able to screen their incoming calls in a controversial test by New Jersey Bell Telephone Co., beginning in early November. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities recently granted the Bell operating company permission to test a package of call management services on about 250,000 local customers. The test will occur in six exchange areas in Atlantic and Hudson counties to determine whether the service, called CLASS, should be offered statewide. The experiment is scheduled to last until September 1989. New Jersey Bell originally sought permission to test CLASS last November, but withdrew the proposal in March for further study. The telephone company has said the delay had nothing to do with opposition to one of the CLASS services, called Call Identification. Call Identification would let users with special display attachments view the number of the person placing the incoming call. That would enable the answering party to decide whether to take the call. Some groups, particularly the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, have objected to Call Identification. The ACLU argues that the feature constitutes an invasion of privacy because unlisted phone numbers would be displayed on the attachments. But some law enforcement officials hailed the plan, saying that it would let customers evade and even trace abusive and obscene calls. Another CLASS service, Call Trace, lets customers have the phone company trace a call -- but only for law enforcement purposes -- by hanging up on the call and dialing prescribed digits. Other services grouped under CLASS include the ability to let customers dial back the last incoming call whether or not the user answered it; redial the last outgoing call; key in up to six "priority" numbers that will give a distinctive ring to important call; block unwanted calls; and forward calls. In approving the experiment, New Jersey utilities commissioner George Barbour said the only way to judge Call Identification fairly would be to test the service. But the utilities board will investigate whether its use could be restricted and whether a beep tone or other signal could be developed to let callers know that the called party subscribes to the service. Excepting Call Identification and Call Trace, CLASS will cost residential users $4 per month for the first service and $1.50 per month for each additional service. Business users will pay $6 per month for the first service and $2 per month for each additional service. Call Trace will cost $1 per successful trace. Call Identification will cost $6.50 per month for residential customers and $8.50 per month for business users. The display attachment, about $65, is expected at electronics stores sometime this fall. ------------------------------ Date: Tue 29 Sep 87 23:43:16-EDT From: Philip A. Earnhardt Subject: Error reporting by MCI I recently attempted to make a long-distance call with MCI. The call did not go through; the recording suggested that I call MCI and check on the status of my account. The MCI account rep. didn't notice anything wrong with th account. She did try the number I was calling and verified that it was just a wrong number. This seems an exceedingly cumbersome (and costly) mechanism for a LD carrier to handle a wrong number. Is there some technical reason that MCI is doing so badly, or is this broken for the normal reason? --phil ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 87 01:53:46 EDT From: *Hobbit* Subject: "no main list" If the number doesn't appear in the directory, what's the difference between that and having it "unlisted"? _H* ------------------------------ From: Wes Morgan Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Date: 29 Sep 87 13:46:19 GMT lear@ARAMIS.RUTGERS.EDU (eliot lear) writes: > > > How many people would like to know who is calling them before they > pick up a phone? I sure would...now if I can just wire in a busy signal for the folks I don't want to talk with........ > The question of the day: Is it > legal? What if you have an unlisted number and do not want it > revealed? Has Ma Belle Broken a contract she made with you? > Hmmmmmm.....it seems me that unlisted numbers should be protected in some way. Now, Ma Bell might charge you for this additional protection, but if they offer it to you, they are effectively out of their contractual obligations. The mere fact that it was available to you and you didn't take it negates the contract. .... > -- > Eliot Lear > [lear@rutgers.edu] Wes Morgan ------------------------------ From: mimsy!cvl!decuac!netsys!len@RUTGERS.EDU (Len Rose) Subject: Re: my new FONCARD Date: 30 Sep 87 02:41:23 GMT Reply-To: mimsy!cvl!decuac!netsys!len@RUTGERS.EDU (Len Rose) In article <8709280124.AA03847@armagnac.DEC.COM> "Christopher A. Kent" writes: >Advantages? I can see only disadvantages. It used to be that I could go >to most any phone in most any large city and dial 950-0777 and get a >Sprint dialtone. Then I entered my 9 digit access code, which was short >enough to memorize, and dialed away. > >Now, I have to either memorize a new access number + a fourteen-digit >Lose it and grant some sucker free reign over your phone bill. > >I'd like to know what bright boy at Sprint thought this up, so I could >write him a nastygram personally; so far I've only been able to point my >venom at Customeer Disservice. Even Ma Bell knows better than this. Chris..the problem is that without going to this particular format,they would lose millions of dollars to people using "hacker" programs coupled to a pc and reaping hundreds of valid 9 digit codes. Unfortunately,it will only take a short while for the people writing these "hacker" programs to increase their dialing digits and random number routines to cope with it.. The only way to solve this form of telephone fraud is to put ANI on each 950 dialup and spend megabucks prosecuting the hackers. Believe me,they had no choice. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1987 11:49 EDT From: ejs%acorn@oak.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Re: my new FONCARD > Date: Mon, 28 Sep 87 13:36:47 edt > From: sr16+@andrew.cmu.edu (Seth Benjamin Rothenberg) > Subject: Re: my new FONCARD > Reading the fine print, I found that the FONCARD is valid only > for calls on Sprint's Fiber Optic Network(FON). To use the > FON costs roughly twice what it costs to use the regular nextwork. > I threw mine out. > Seth Rothenberg > sr16@andrew.cmu.edu I just called a customer service representative at US Sprint (phone number is 1-800-531-4646, if anyone else wants to call) and asked about the FONCARD and cost. I learned that the FONCARD can be used just like any other telephone credit card, and that, just like any other credit card, there is a surcharge for using it. The surcharge for inter- and intra-state calls is $0.55. Evidently, MCI and AT&T have higher surcharges for inter-state calls. For those of us who have been old, loyal GTE customers, this $.55 surcharge is new, but I guess unavoidable, since all the other long distance companies charge surcharges. I complained about the new access code, and the CSR indicated that US Sprint is receiving a lot of complaints, but, as I expected, he indicated that the long access codes are for our security -- to prevent unauthorized use of credit cards. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 87 10:54:22 PDT (Wednesday) Subject: Re: my new FONCARD From: Wegeng.WBST207V@Xerox.COM I received one of the new FONCARDs about a month ago. My understanding is that Sprint introduced the new system, with longer acct numbers that you listen for a voice prompt before typing in, is to make it more difficult for computers to access their network (under the theory that this is how crackers find acct numbers, they keep trying random digits until one works). Personally, I dislike the FONCARDs for the same reasons as everybody else. Maybe it's time to call MCI... /Don PS. A co-worker whose home phone is in the same exchange as mine just received a letter saying that since Dial-1 service is now available they're turning off 950-XXXX access for his account. The interesting part is that our exchange won't have Dial-1 service for another two years (a call to the local TelCo confirmed this). I didn't receive a similar letter, so maybe it was sent in error. Otherwise Sprint will be losing at least two customers. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 6-Oct-87 19:37:41-EDT,13055;000000000000 Mail-From: DIXON created at 6-Oct-87 10:48:59 Date: 6 Oct 87 10:48-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #4 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, October 6, 1987 10:48AM Volume 8, Issue 4 Today's Topics: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Sprint mistakes Re: "no main list" Re: my new FONCARD Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Re: RingMaster service Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Call Trace ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ian@sgi.sgi.com (Ian Clements) Date: 2 Oct 87 02:07:29 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: sgi!ian From: ian@sgi.SGI.COM (Ian Clements) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: CLASS Summary: Great ! It's about time. Message-ID: <6596@sgi.SGI.COM> Date: 2 Oct 87 02:07:28 GMT References: <8709291842.AA01826@Sun.COM> Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc, Mountain View, CA Lines: 12 It's about time that this service is offered. As someone who has recieved many crank calls and finding out that the phone company basicly can't do anything unless the caller made "life threatining" remarks, I find this useful. What better way to great a crank caller than by telling that person where they are calling from ! Since most CO's are digitaly switched I would assume that those whose numbers are unlisted could easily be programmed out. ian@sgi.com "On a clear disk You can Seek forever !" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 12:37:03 PDT From: samho@umpqua.cs.washington.edu (Sam Ho) Subject: Sprint mistakes We also got a letter stating that 950-0777 service would be shut off immediately, since Dial 1 service was now available, and to just dial 1+ phone number to automatically route calls to Sprint. Unfortunately for Sprint, our primary LD carrier is MCI, and 1+ calls do indeed go to MCI. It looks like Sprint sent out those letters to a lot of people who shouldn't have got them. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 13:14:10 PDT From: amdahl!uucp@ames.arpa (Generic UUCP user) Last, but not least, manufacturers understand that in order sell ISDN equipment, such equipment will have to be compatible with the current Public Switched Network and with functions provided by and within it; therefore, initially Path: amdahl!fai!stevem From: stevem@fai.UUCP (Steve Minneman) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: ISDN Summary Keywords: ISDN Message-ID: <655@fai.UUCP> Date: 1 Oct 87 18:28:28 GMT References: <8709260251.AA15786@bu-it.bu.edu> <1586@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Reply-To: stevem@fai.UUCP (Steve Minneman) Distribution: world Organization: Fujitsu America, Inc. Lines: 38 In article <1586@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> mit-amt!jrd@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Jim Davis) writes: > >I'm looking for a discussion of ISDN, on about the technical level of IEEE >Spectrum or CACM. I'm especially interested in how it affects user >interface. For example, now that DTMF is not used for signalling (the D >channel handles that) can I be sure I'll be able to control e.g. my home >answering machine remotely? Now I *don't* want someone to answer >this quesion, nor do I want to read the Specifications (which are surely >overkill): what I want are pointers to decent summaries, even up >to book length. > First, you must understand that the ISDN is still in the definition process -- there are still holes in the definition and there are conflicts between some of the definitions generated by 2 or 3 main groups who are defining it. Secondly, because the lower layers are still being defined, there is very little printed matter available in the form of summaries, especially as it applies to the user interface. Every effort is being made during the definition process to not define the user interface. This is being left to the manufacturers (that's how they distinguish their equipment from that of another manufacturers'). The definition of the ISDN is being accomplished in a form which hopefully maximimizes the extent to which existing applications can be implemented in or interfaced to the ISDN with their user interface intact. Last, but not least, manufacturers understand that in order sell ISDN equipment, such equipment will have to be compatible with the current Public Switched Network and with functions provided by and within it; therefore, initially (and probably for a very long time) ISDN equipment will be compatible with existing facilities and functions (if you plan to be able to sell it). -- Steven A. Minneman (Fujitsu America Inc, San Jose, Ca) !seismo!amdahl!fai!stevem The best government is no government at all. ------------------------------ From: steinmetz!davidsen@steinmetz. (William E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: "no main list" Date: 2 Oct 87 17:03:17 GMT Reply-To: crdos1!davidsen@uunet.UU.NET (bill davidsen) In article <12338658193.15.AWALKER@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> AWalker@RED.RUTGERS.EDU (*Hobbit*) writes: |If the number doesn't appear in the directory, what's the difference between |that and having it "unlisted"? If your number is unlisted it is not available from directory assistance. If it is "no main list" is isn't in the phone book, but can be gotten by anyone on request. That's what my business office thinks, anyway. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me ------------------------------ From: bob@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Robert Hofkin) Subject: Re: my new FONCARD Date: 2 Oct 87 23:08:58 GMT Reply-To: bob@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Robert Hofkin) A Sprint representative told me that the 950 numbers would be going away soon. On a tangent, the Sprint bill I got today had as letter fro Robert H. Snedaker, Jr., the president, promising that the billing system will be back on scheduyle real soon now. Tough, I already switched to MCI. Five months of harrassment from the receivables management department (threatening legal action when I already had my cancelled check back -- repeatedly!) was too much. Quoth the service rep, "We hope our old customers come back, because we always intend to have the cheapest rates." You get what you pay for, apparently. ------------------------------ From: steinmetz!davidsen@steinmetz. (William E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Date: 2 Oct 87 17:08:21 GMT Reply-To: crdos1!davidsen@uunet.UU.NET (bill davidsen) In article <1605@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> wes@engr.UKy.EDU (Wes Morgan) writes: | |I sure would...now if I can just wire in a busy signal for the folks |I don't want to talk with........ | |> The question of the day: Is it |> legal? What if you have an unlisted number and do not want it |> revealed? Has Ma Belle Broken a contract she made with you? |> |Hmmmmmm.....it seems me that unlisted numbers should be protected in |some way. Now, Ma Bell might charge you for this additional protection, |but if they offer it to you, they are effectively out of their contractual |obligations. The mere fact that it was available to you and you didn't take |it negates the contract. .... I would not see a problem here. Your number is unlisted, but you can give it to people if you choose. I don't see that giving the number by calling someone is in need of protection. If you don't want them to have your number, don't call. I'm suspicious of anyone who wants to make untraceable calls, and it defeats the reason for having the "know your caller" service. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me ------------------------------ From: News Owner Date: 4 Oct 87 03:45:18 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: watmath!utgpu!taras From: taras@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (T. Pryjma) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: RingMaster service Message-ID: <1987Oct3.221653.19564@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Date: 4 Oct 87 02:16:53 GMT References: <8709161804.AA00673@ima.ISC.COM> Reply-To: taras@gpu.utcs.UUCP (T. Pryjma) Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Lines: 21 Checksum: 62402 In article <8709161804.AA00673@ima.ISC.COM> think!ima!johnl@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (John R. Levine) writes: # Sounds like a clever way to get some revenue from CO equipment that has to be # present anyway to support the dwindling number of party lines. I dunno. All the new equipment is electronic and does not require any extra hardware to support RingMaster service. Party line service was supported on step by step type exchanges, amoung others, and I am sure that some poor old telco engineer would not want to install that equipment on their new modern exchanges. Besides that old equipment is usually more valuable as scrap. -- Taras Pryjma uucp: taras@gpu.utcs bitnet: tpryjma@utoronto Bell: +1 (416) 536-2821 Fear is never boring. hmmm. hmmmm. YEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn those trap doors! Yup. Fear is never boring. ------------------------------ From: "T. Pryjma" Subject: Re: RingMaster service Date: 4 Oct 87 02:16:53 GMT Reply-To: "T. Pryjma" In article <8709161804.AA00673@ima.ISC.COM> think!ima!johnl@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (John R. Levine) writes: # Sounds like a clever way to get some revenue from CO equipment that has to be # present anyway to support the dwindling number of party lines. I dunno. All the new equipment is electronic and does not require any extra hardware to support RingMaster service. Party line service was supported on step by step type exchanges, amoung others, and I am sure that some poor old telco engineer would not want to install that equipment on their new modern exchanges. Besides that old equipment is usually more valuable as scrap. -- Taras Pryjma uucp: taras@gpu.utcs bitnet: tpryjma@utoronto Bell: +1 (416) 536-2821 Fear is never boring. hmmm. hmmmm. YEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn those trap doors! Yup. Fear is never boring. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 87 04:31:53 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom From: mikel@flmis06.att.com (Mikel Manitius) Path: flmis06!mikel From: mikel@flmis06.att.com (Mikel Manitius) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: unlisted numbers Message-ID: <287@flmis06.att.com> Date: 6 Oct 87 04:31:53 GMT References: <8709290122.AA15573@jade.berkeley.edu> Distribution: world Organization: AT&T, Altamote Springs, FL Lines: 22 In article <8709290122.AA15573@jade.berkeley.edu> SPGDCM@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU writes: > I always got upset arguing with sales and wrong callers. My most successful > stretegies now: wrong numbers: "what number are you calling?" If not my > number, "you have misdialed". If my number, "where did you get that number"? > (note any repeats here from other callers-- they are a clue)-- then, "I'm > sorry, someone has given you the wrong number." For sales calls: "I don't > accept this kind of call, thank you" followed by hanging up immediately. I used to get upset too, and try to complain to someone about sales calls, but found that futile. Recently I was agrevated when trying to make airline reservations, when I received the message "Our computers are down at the moment, please try again later". This gave me an idea when receiving sales/renewal/questionare calls, I simply answer "Sorry, my computer is down at the moment." and they never bother to call back. It also probably leaves a lot of the clerks dumb founded, no expecting to receive such a reply! :-) -- Mikel Manitius @ AT&T mikel@codas.att.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 87 00:35 EST From: <11TSTARK%GALLUA.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> Subject: Call Trace hello, It is very interesting thing. My home is at Pittsburgh, Pa. I wonder if Alantic Bell will be serve Call ID and Call trace for protect our abusive calls. It is useful for BBS to monitor unauthorized use to logins. I am very surprised that Sprint lose millions dollars for hackers stole access codes. I felt sorry for you. -- Tim Stark BitNet: 11tstark@gallua Arpanet: 11tstark%gallua@wiscvm.wisc.edu (note: new internet address soon) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 6-Oct-87 19:39:28-EDT,11552;000000000000 Mail-From: DIXON created at 6-Oct-87 10:56:29 Date: 6 Oct 87 10:50-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #5 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, October 6, 1987 10:50AM Volume 8, Issue 5 Today's Topics: Re: my new FONCARD X.25 Gateways "no main list" ISDN notes Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Re: Secure Cellular Phones Re: "separate data network" is silly speculation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: my new FONCARD Reply-To: "Christopher A. Kent" Date: Wed, 30 Sep 87 13:42:44 -0700 From: kent@decwrl.dec.com Perhaps it's time for us to call Sprint Customer Disservice and flame at a few supervisors. They need to know why they're losing customers. chris ------------------------------ From: pete%wlbr%etn-wlv.eaton.com@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Pete Lyall) Subject: Re: my new FONCARD Date: 30 Sep 87 20:50:56 GMT Reply-To: pete%wlbr%etn-wlv.eaton.com@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (0000-Pete Lyall) In article sr16+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Seth Benjamin Rothenberg) writes: > >Reading the fine print, I found that the FONCARD is valid only >for calls on Sprint's Fiber Optic Network(FON). To use the >FON costs roughly twice what it costs to use the regular nextwork. >I threw mine out. I called to see what the deal was and was told that the only difference charge-wise was that there is an initial .50 charge when you use the card. You can however terminate the first call and make subsequent calls without redialing, or being re-charged. Is anyone aware if this untrue, or if there are other gotchas?? -- Pete Lyall Usenet: {trwrb, scgvaxd, ihnp4, voder, vortex}!wlbr!pete Compuserve: 76703,4230 (OS9 Sysop) OS9 (home): (805)-985-0632 (24hr./1200 baud) ------------------------------ From: steinmetz!mikeg@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Gionfriddo) Subject: X.25 Gateways Date: 30 Sep 87 22:19:21 GMT We are undertaking a project to allow our minicomputer product (Search) to have a gateway into our on-line service via an X.25 connection (Telenet). Initially, this gateway will be for "dial-in" service only, but eventually we would like to have Search to be able to communicate to our on-line service with some application specific protocol. We must also permit an X.25 connection to exist on a LAN environment. This project is geared towards the university environment, hence our solution for an X.25 connection must be flexible. Search runs under UNIX, VMS, VM/CMS, and MS/DOS and supports a number of hardware configurations. The product is written entirely in C. I am looking for any advice in this area, however I have a few specific questions. 1) Assuming a site has a Telenet connection, am I looking at a hardware and software combination solution. 2) Is there a software product available that will allow my application to tap the X.25 connection directly from either the host or LAN? Ideally, something in the form of a library of function calls. 3) What type of LAN environments should I expect in a university environment? Will every LAN - X.25 configuration be different? 4) What are the costs of some of these communication packages? We would like to form an alliance with some software/hardware/communications organizations that can provide solutions for our networking/communications needs instead of re-inventing the wheel. Please reply via mail. If there is enough interest I will post a follow-up. Thanks in advance. -- |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| || Mike Gionfriddo || mikeg@brs.com || Umm, my favorite soup, || || (518) 783-1161 || ihnp4!dartvax!brspyr1 || Cream of Nowhere || |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 87 19:23:57 EDT From: jsol@bu-it.bu.edu Subject: "no main list" Date: 30 Sep 87 01:53:46 EDT From: *Hobbit* Resent-Date: Wed 30 Sep 87 16:27:48-EDT Resent-From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Resent-Sender: DIXON@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Resent-To: ;@Telecom-Individual-Recipients If the number doesn't appear in the directory, what's the difference between that and having it "unlisted"? _H* ------- Easy, you can get the number from your local Directory Assistance operator. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 87 20:53:26 EDT From: "Keith F. Lynch" Subject: "no main list" > If the number doesn't appear in the directory, what's the difference between > that and having it "unlisted"? They will still give it out at Directory Assistance. ...Keith ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu Date: Wed, 30 Sep 87 12:38:15 PDT Subject: ISDN notes MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 09/30/87 12:38:13 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: ISDN notes To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Jim Davis asked for a pointer to ISDN specs, and did not want an answer to his example question. I am, however, commenting on that question for others who may be interested. I have some questions myself, and would rather not have to research the spec. My understanding is as follows: Once a voice connection is completed, by existing equipment or by newly proposed ISDN equipment, one may then send "in-band" (voice-frequency) tones across the wire, and receive them at the other end, as one pleases. For example, one could call existing answering machines, use bank information services, use modems in the old style, or play Yankee Doodle for that matter. If one wants, there will be newer ways to set up calls, signal, or send data; but these are optional, require the user to do something new, etc. The existing processes are not obsoleted. An example of this, of sorts, is at UC Berkeley, where we use DMS-100 equipment. This equipment does all its "dialing", and even multi-button phone operations, using out-of-band ISDN signalling. But once a connection is made, (a) if one creates tones externally (external beepers, sponge-cup acoustic couplers), and act upon these tones externally (at one's answering machine or regular modem at the other end), the tones still act as before. (b) the DMS-100 instruments even try to "help out"; normally the numeric keypad actuates the newer ISDN signalling. But once a connection is made, the system reacts to keypad use by emitting the older DTMF tones on the line, to be helpful. The actual process is to use ISDN signalling from one's phone to the central equipment, which then issues the DTMF tones on the circuit. (c) the PHYSICAL connection to external devices such as direct-connect modems, is, however, limited. To use a direct-connect modem here, or an answering machine, one must order a different type of circuit. We also participated in an experiment, during which I had a "DOV" unit (data over voice) at my home, and we had special equipment at the University. My home DOV box split the line into two plugs, one of which handled packet data at "9600 baud", and the other of which acted exactly like my regular home phone. While using my terminal on the new circuit, I could dial, send and receive calls, run my answering machine, and even run a second terminal connection using my modem, at the same time. This leaves open one ambiguity. If both the sender and receiver use "old-style" equipment, it appears things will remain the same and will work. If one uses a newer style circuit to call an older-style circuit, some aspects still operate. But if one adopts a newer ISDN circuit, for example at one's home, will this be similar to the university DMS-100 equipment, and make me forego my answering machine and modem, or will it be like the DOV connection, and allow both? 8 ISDN notes ------------------------------ From: moss!ihuxv!tedk@RUTGERS.EDU (Kekatos) Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Date: 30 Sep 87 20:23:14 GMT Reply-To: moss!ihuxv!tedk@RUTGERS.EDU (55624-Kekatos,T.G.) In article <1692@aramis.rutgers.edu> lear@ARAMIS.RUTGERS.EDU (eliot lear) writes: > > >How many people would like to know who is calling them before they >pick up a phone? NJ Bell has developed a service that will tell you >the number of the person on the other end. Word is that they will >begin betatesting around November. The question of the day: Is it >legal? What if you have an unlisted number and do not want it >revealed? Has Ma Belle Broken a contract she made with you? > >-- >Eliot Lear >[lear@rutgers.edu] Dear Eliot, This fab new feature is brought to you by the labor of your buddies here at AT&T Bell Labs, Indian Hill. It's called..... IIIIIIII SSSSSSS DDDDDD NNNN NNN II SSS S DD D NN N NN II SSS DD D NN N NN II SSSSS DD D NN N NN II SSSSS DD D NN N NN II SSS DD D NN N NN II S SSS DD D NN NNN IIIIIIII SSSSSSS DDDDDD NNNN NNN Yes, all the legal queations have been answered. There is a option where the caller can withhold the display of their directory number -- Ted -- ------------------------------ From: decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 07:15:08 edt Subject: Re: Secure Cellular Phones > ... I can understand the secrecy regarding technical details, > but can't see why the price would be restricted information. To interfere with the inevitable Congressional investigation of why it cost so much, of course! Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ From: decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 07:15:28 edt Subject: Re: "separate data network" is silly speculation > ... [ISDN] ... The resultant network would provide > 64kbps circuit switching and voice (digitized at 64kbps) for about the > same price, over the same lines, and throw in access to X.25 as well. I feel compelled to inject a cynical comment here. Anyone who thinks that ISDN will be as cheap as analog voice service any time before the year 2100 is dreaming. Until such time as ISDN becomes the default for POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), the phone companies will have enormous incentive to charge all the traffic will bear, to help keep the POTS price down. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 6-Oct-87 20:45:24-EDT,12290;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP; Tue 6 Oct 87 20:45:19-EDT Date: 6 Oct 87 10:53-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #6 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, October 6, 1987 10:53AM Volume 8, Issue 6 Today's Topics: TELECOM Digest V8 #1 Charges for "unlisting" "Auctioning" a telephone number? England to United States collect: on payphones! Re: "no main list" Favorite responses to "wrong number" (was - unlisted numbers) Re: my new FONCARD Submission for comp-dcom-telecom CLASS Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Sep 87 08:59:47 EDT From: simsong@broadway.columbia.edu (Simson L. Garfinkel) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #1 > Date: 25 Sep 87 22:47:49 PDT (Friday) > From: Paul Gloger > Subject: Listed Unlisted Number > Reply-To: Paul Gloger > > I would like to have a home phone number unlisted, at least effectively > so. I seem to have the choice of either paying my local phone company > (Pac Bell) to unlist it; or having it listed under a made-up name with > an unlisted address, which the phone company will do for free. > > The made-up-name ploy is cheaper than unlisting, and seems just as good > in every other respect. Is there any reason I shouldn't do it? > > Thanks, > Paul Gloger > Because it's very illegal. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 09:51:39 MDT From: William G. Martin Subject: Charges for "unlisting" Does anyone know how the telcos now justify their charges for "unlisting" now that they also charge for Directory Assistance? If anyone out there has access to the data presented to their state's Public Service (or Public Utilities, or whatever) Commission, I'd be interested to hear just what argument a local telco now gives for charging customers to NOT be listed in their various directories or number-giving services. It was my understanding that, in past years, these charges were justified by an increased load on Information or Directory Assistance, which was then free; you were charged some fee for an unlisted number because people couldn't find you in the directory and called Information, who then expended resources to discover that you were unlisted and told the caller that. This cost the telco some money, of course, so they charged the person who was not listed to make up for it. Annoying but logical. Now, though, the situation is changed. The telcos make money from calls to Information/Diretory Assistance! They charge for most (or all) of such calls, so they should be happy to have vast numbers of "unlisted" subscribers generating extra revenue via fruitless Information calls. So how do they NOW justify charging subscribers to be "unlisted"? I'd like to know what creative excuses they've dreamed up... Regards, Will Martin "wmartin@almsa-1.arpa" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 10:09:54 MDT From: William G. Martin Subject: "Auctioning" a telephone number? I'm the executor of my mother's estate, and it occurs to me that I may be remiss in my duties if I don't explore this possibility: The home telephone number she had for decades is one I would expect a business would want -- it is repetitive, easy to remember, and would look good on a business card or letterhead -- it happens to be "771-1020". If I just cancel this telephone service, that number goes back into the pool of unassigned numbers and would eventually get assigned by the telco (I don't know what procedure they follow -- anyone have any idea? Do they hold given-up numbers for "n" months, and do they charge you extra if you request a specific available number?). I would think that the estate should profit somehow from the value of this number -- that it should be able to offer to turn it over to a new business that is in that exchange area (or do such geographic restrictions on an exchange no longer apply?) for some finanial consideration, so the estate gets the benefit rather than the telco. The telco would just be presented with a request to terminate the existing serice and install the business's service with this number and only charge the normal installation fees. Anyone ever hear of such a thing happening before? Is it a reasonable thing to do, or totally off-the-wall? Any suggestions, comments, or advice? Regards, Will Martin "wmartin@almsa-1.arpa" ------------------------------ From: umix!itivax!chinet!djc@RUTGERS.EDU (David J. Carpenter) Subject: England to United States collect: on payphones! Date: 1 Oct 87 02:24:06 GMT A friend of mine told me an interesting story. Several students from the university which he attends took a trip to England and got homesick. So they called their home campus from an England payphone collect, to a payphone in the dormitory. The U.S. party gladly "accepted the charges" from the British operator, and they talked for two hours. Suddenly, the connection was broken, and a U.S. operator got on the line and asked "Who is this? Is this your personal phone? [Yes] Who is going to pay for this call? [I am, of course]. Well what is your name? [CLICK]". The college student got cold feet. Why was this possible in the first place? How did the local phone company finally after two hours figure out what was going on? Who is really going to pay for that call? -- ...!ihnp4!chinet!qpsn!david David Carpenter [home] (312) 545-8076 [work] (312) 787-9343 ------------------------------ From: mar@athena.mit.edu (Mark A. Rosenstein) Subject: Re: "no main list" Date: 1 Oct 87 17:56:39 GMT Reply-To: mar@athena.mit.edu (Mark A. Rosenstein) In article <12338658193.15.AWALKER@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> AWalker@RED.RUTGERS.EDU (*Hobbit*) writes: >If the number doesn't appear in the directory, what's the difference between >that and having it "unlisted"? > >_H* >------- There are three directories: the printed phonebook, the one that information operators look things up in, and the complete listing. Non-published (as opposed to non-listed) means that the number isn't in the printed phonebook, but information will give someone the number. This avoids calls from people who scan phonebooks, but still allows someone who knows your name to get your number. There are a lot of numbers that information has that are not in the published phonebook. For example, in many places the phone company refuses to publish the numbers for lesbian and gay organizations, although the numbers are available through information. -Mark ------------------------------ From: ralph@ncrcae.columbia.ncr.com (Ralph Hightower) Subject: Favorite responses to "wrong number" (was - unlisted numbers) Date: 1 Oct 87 16:40:50 GMT Reply-To: ncrcae!ralph@seismo.css.gov (Ralph Hightower) When somebody dials a wrong number at my home and asks "Can I speak to So-And-So?", I answer "No.". If that doesn't put them off and they demand to know why, I reply that So-And-So never doesn't live here, never has, and never will. I get offended at frequent wrong numbers and telephone solicitors wanting to sell me something or ask for donations. Also offensive are those callers that say "Congratulations!! You have won a free trip to Hawaii. All we need is your credit card number." In my opinion, you are setting yourself up for credit card charges charged by someone not authorized to use your card. It has been very pleasant at our house since we moved. We had the phone company disconnect our old service with no automatic new number referral. That way anybody that calls us at the old number will get "That service is disconnected." They have to call directory assistance to get our new number. We haven't had any telephone sales calls at our new home. Sigh, I wish there was a service that did not allow sales calls to get through. ralph@ncrcae ------------------------------ From: hqda-ai!merlin@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Hayes) Subject: Re: my new FONCARD Date: 1 Oct 87 18:47:41 GMT In article <870930-113144-2280@Xerox>, Wegeng.WBST207V@XEROX.COM writes: > Personally, I dislike the FONCARDs for the same reasons as everybody > else. Maybe it's time to call MCI... I dislike them for the $0.55 surcharge. I used to have a 9-digit Travelcode number, to use with the 950-0777 access service. The Travelcode calls did not have a surcharge. When Sprint sent me a FONCard, they turned off my Travelcode. I have not used my FONCard, and I will not use it, until they get rid of the surcharge. I used to make occassional personal calls from work. With the Travelcode, I could easily have them billed to my home number. Now, it costs 55 cents to do that. Result: I make no daytime calls, and Sprint loses the revenue from those peak-rate calls. I used Sprint for one reason: THEY'RE CHEAP. Now, maybe I'll give AT&T a call, and check out the "Reach Out America" plan. -- David S. Hayes, The Merlin of Avalon PhoneNet: (202) 694-6900 UUCP: *!uunet!cos!hqda-ai!merlin ARPA: merlin%hqda-ai@mimsy.umd.edu ------------------------------ From: USENET news Date: 1 Oct 87 20:08:56 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: aurora!labrea!rocky!andy From: andy@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Andy Freeman) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Message-ID: <634@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> Date: 1 Oct 87 19:50:21 GMT References: <1692@aramis.rutgers.edu> <1605@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> Reply-To: andy@rocky.UUCP (Andy Freeman) Distribution: world Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department Lines: 19 There is a simple, but expensive, way to get around most of the problems with an unlisted number when the caller's number is revealed. Namely, get two lines and disable the ringer on one and use it for outgoing calls and unlist the other. Then all you have to worry about is an association between the listed phone's number and you. The first thing is to de-list its address. Perhaps a wrong name as well. Then all you have to worry about is phone company security :-), and whether they give out information they shouldn't :-(. -andy ps - It may be cheapter to just use a pay phone for calls to people who shouldn't have your number. -- Andy Freeman UUCP: {arpa gateways, decwrl, sun, hplabs, rutgers}!sushi.stanford.edu!andy ARPA: andy@sushi.stanford.edu (415) 329-1718/723-3088 home/cubicle ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 20:16:18 EDT From: henry@GARP.MIT.EDU (Henry Mensch) Subject: CLASS Is this test scheduled for other areas? -- # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # {ames,cca,rochester,harvard,mit-eddie}!garp!henry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 20:21:40 -0400 (EDT) From: sr16+@andrew.cmu.edu (Seth Benjamin Rothenberg) Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell This question makes me think of the 2 minutes-to-trace claim. Now that the long distance carriers need to know the calling number prior to completing a call, the equipment is in place so that a trace should be instantaneous. It may require that the tracee be switched onto the same equipment as the 950- exchanges use, but that should not be hard. Does anyone know if the time has, in fact, decreased? And No, I don't want people to know where I am calling from. If I say I am at home, I don't want them to know I am at {the movies, ball park, concert}... Seth ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 8-Oct-87 18:18:30-EDT,10694;000000000000 Mail-From: DIXON created at 8-Oct-87 11:25:38 Date: 8 Oct 87 11:23-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #7 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, October 8, 1987 11:23AM Volume 8, Issue 7 Today's Topics: Re: Sprint mistakes Re: Charges for "unlisting" Submission for comp-dcom-telecom all this new stuff has been confusedly presented Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Oct 87 12:53:00 EDT (Tue) From: Boss Hog living together Path: array!dciem!utzoo!utgpu!taras From: taras@utgpu.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: RingMaster service Message-ID: <1987Oct3.221653.19564@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Date: 4 Oct 87 02:16:53 GMT References: <8709161804.AA00673@ima.ISC.COM> Reply-To: taras@gpu.utcs.UUCP (T. Pryjma) Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Lines: 21 Posted: Sat Oct 3 22:16:53 1987 Checksum: 62402 In article <8709161804.AA00673@ima.ISC.COM> think!ima!johnl@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (John R. Levine) writes: # Sounds like a clever way to get some revenue from CO equipment that has to be # present anyway to support the dwindling number of party lines. I dunno. All the new equipment is electronic and does not require any extra hardware to support RingMaster service. Party line service was supported on step by step type exchanges, amoung others, and I am sure that some poor old telco engineer would not want to install that equipment on their new modern exchanges. Besides that old equipment is usually more valuable as scrap. -- Taras Pryjma uucp: taras@gpu.utcs bitnet: tpryjma@utoronto Bell: +1 (416) 536-2821 Fear is never boring. hmmm. hmmmm. YEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn those trap doors! Yup. Fear is never boring. ------------------------------ Date: 6 October 1987, 09:48:30 EDT From: John Pershing "Unlisted Number" means just that: unlisted. It does *not* mean secret. Personally, I think that Call Identification is a great idea -- if you can call me (and annoy me) from your unlisted phone, then I can now turn the tables around. Fantastic! John A. Pershing Jr. T.J. Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights ------------------------------ From: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) Subject: Re: Sprint mistakes Date: 7 Oct 87 02:21:59 GMT In article <8710021937.AA02352@umpqua.cs.washington.edu> samho@UMPQUA.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU (Sam Ho) writes: > We also got a letter stating that 950-0777 service would be shut off > immediately, since Dial 1 service was now available, and to just dial > 1+ phone number to automatically route calls to Sprint. Unfortunately > for Sprint, our primary LD carrier is MCI, and 1+ calls do indeed go to > MCI. It looks like Sprint sent out those letters to a lot of people > who shouldn't have got them. Yes, but if you have an account set up, (and even if you don't) calls prefixed with 10777 1+AC+# will go on Sprint in all areas with Dial 1 service, and therefore 950-0777 is unnecessary except for calling card like service. Mark -- Mark Smith (alias Smitty) "Be careful when looking into the distance, RPO 1604, CN 5063 that you do not miss what is right under your nose." New Brunswick, NJ 08903 {backbone}!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu {backbone}!rutgers!unirot!msmith ------------------------------ From: rti.uucp!trt@mcnc.org (Thomas Truscott) Subject: Re: Charges for "unlisting" Date: 7 Oct 87 04:02:10 GMT In article <12339029180.10.WMARTIN@SIMTEL20.ARPA>, WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA (William G. Martin) writes: > Does anyone know how the telcos now justify their charges for "unlisting" > now that they also charge for Directory Assistance? ... I can not answer this question, although "special processing" and "loss of information => reduced value of phonebook" comes to mind. The indirect question I *can* answer is "how can one avoid this extra charge?" The answer is: list the number in someone else's name, just have it billed to you. Parents do this for their kids, you can do it for your pet cat. At home we have a second phone line for a modem. Our friends would call it by mistake until we changed its listing to: Unix, Guru 3916 Brixton Ln ........ 489-6289 The modem does not answer, so we don't worry about prank calls. The telephone service person laughed and laughed, but sent it through. Tom Truscott P.S. Out of paranoia, I never say "modem" when talking to the telco. ------------------------------ From: bill@uunet.uu.net (Bill Gunshannon) Date: 5 Oct 87 13:00:49 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: trotter!bill From: bill@trotter.usma.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: "no main list" Summary: just my concept Message-ID: <927@trotter.usma.edu> Date: 5 Oct 87 13:00:48 GMT References: <12338658193.15.AWALKER@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Organization: US Military Academy, West Point, NY Lines: 16 In article <12338658193.15.AWALKER@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>, AWalker@RED.RUTGERS.EDU (*Hobbit*) writes: > If the number doesn't appear in the directory, what's the difference between > that and having it "unlisted"? > If I remember correctly unlisted also means you can't get it from directory assistance. bill gunshannon UUCP: {philabs}\ US SNAIL: Martin Marietta Data Systems {phri } >!trotter.usma.edu!bill USMA, Bldg 600, Room 26 {sunybcs}/ West Point, NY 10996 RADIO: KB3YV PHONE: WORK (914)446-7747 AX.25: KB3YV @ K3RLI PHONE: HOME (914)565-5256 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 87 13:35:57 EDT From: genat!UUCP@uunet.uu.net (0000-uucp(0000)) like this is needed to handle matters when things get nasty. Does a good job on Q's security guard in the court scene. The Empath: Lousy name, but I think a potentially good character. We will see how she is developed in the series. Wes: Just what the Enterprise needs, a snotty precocious kid. I hope they tahey don't to any 'Wes plays with the double-talk generator and gets the Enterprise in letal danger" shows. Gordy Path: genat!mnetor!utgpu!taras From: taras@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (T. Pryjma) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: RingMaster service Message-ID: <1987Oct3.221653.19564@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Date: 4 Oct 87 02:16:53 GMT References: <8709161804.AA00673@ima.ISC.COM> Reply-To: taras@gpu.utcs.UUCP (T. Pryjma) Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Lines: 21 Checksum: 62402 In article <8709161804.AA00673@ima.ISC.COM> think!ima!johnl@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (John R. Levine) writes: # Sounds like a clever way to get some revenue from CO equipment that has to be # present anyway to support the dwindling number of party lines. I dunno. All the new equipment is electronic and does not require any extra hardware to support RingMaster service. Party line service was supported on step by step type exchanges, amoung others, and I am sure that some poor old telco engineer would not want to install that equipment on their new modern exchanges. Besides that old equipment is usually more valuable as scrap. -- Taras Pryjma uucp: taras@gpu.utcs bitnet: tpryjma@utoronto Bell: +1 (416) 536-2821 Fear is never boring. hmmm. hmmmm. YEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn those trap doors! Yup. Fear is never boring. ------------------------------ From: daemon@sgi.sgi.com Date: 7 Oct 87 16:40:20 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: sgi!mtoy From: mtoy@rhyolite.SGI.COM (Michael Toy) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Know who called you Keywords: wrong numbers Message-ID: <6717@sgi.SGI.COM> Date: 7 Oct 87 16:40:18 GMT Sender: daemon@sgi.SGI.COM Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc, Mountain View, CA Lines: 5 Having just experienced a couple of obscene phone calls, I really like the idea of knowing who is calling me. This may be just over-reacting but right now I'd pay a lot just for the good feeling of knowing that if that guy ever calls again, I'll "get him." ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 87 18:50:08 EDT From: *Hobbit* Subject: all this new stuff has been confusedly presented Okay, my recent reading of Telecom has raised many questions. Could some persons who know provide the following info: Is this new "ID the caller" beta-test service handled by / the same as / utterly unrelated to / etc ISDN? Exactly, and by this I mean electrically down to the bit level, how does the beta-test service [I forget its name offhand] work? How is the number of the caller passed to the recipient's equipment, and what is required on the called end to display it? [I'm thinking "build my own" here...] It seems to me that for this service to work the caller must be in an office where the service is being tested too. Present ["normal"] offices wouldn't have the capability to pass a packet containing the caller's number to the destination end, right? Is this packet the same kind of thing an office passes to a TSPS on 0+ calls? Grubby internal details, please?? And finally, where is the documentation for ISDN protocols located? _H* ------------------------------ From: kaufman@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Marc Kaufman) Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Date: 8 Oct 87 00:53:06 GMT Reply-To: kaufman@Shasta.stanford.edu (Marc Kaufman) In article <2149@ihuxv.ATT.COM> moss!ihuxv!tedk@RUTGERS.EDU (55624-Kekatos,T.G.) writes: .>begin betatesting around November. The question of the day: Is it .>legal? What if you have an unlisted number and do not want it .>revealed? Has Ma Belle Broken a contract she made with you? (re: ISDN)... >Yes, all the legal queations have been answered. There >is a option where the caller can withhold the display of >their directory number However.. the current specification for ISDN 911 calls provides that the call will NOT go through if the caller withholds the number! Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Shasta.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 15-Oct-87 21:35:40-EDT,13121;000000000000 Mail-From: DIXON created at 15-Oct-87 20:44:48 Date: 15 Oct 87 20:34-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #9 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, October 15, 1987 8:34PM Volume 8, Issue 9 Today's Topics: touch-tone phones in London? My adventures with U.S. Sprint Re: "Auctioning" a telephone number? TTY/TDDs and Baudot Re: "no main list" Dial In/Out Control Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Submission for comp-dcom-telecom US Sprint FON Card ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes from the editor: Im going to be vacationing in sunny CA from Friday 10/16 (tomarrow) to Sunday 10/25. During this time JSOL will be doing my digesting for me. Also, a few people have not given me enough time to complete a request to add/delete a name from the list before they send another one. One of the main reasons for a delay is that I send the new digest BEFORE I make changes to the distribution list. (There are some sane reasons for doing this, although it may look rather illogical). A few of your requests just plain and simply have not been possible to be processed (like a name not being on the list to begin with), and several time when I have mailed back asking for further clarification on these, the mailer bounces them back. SIgh!! Im still pretty new to this, and am getting the hang of it. Please bear with me. Jim Dixon (Your friendly Moderator) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Oct 87 23:52:04 EDT From: henry@garp.mit.edu (Henry Mensch) Subject: touch-tone phones in London? I'm spending a few weeks in London and I'm curious to know whether or not I'll be able to use "touch-tone" type phones there to pick up messages on my answering machine. -- # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # {ames,cca,rochester,harvard,mit-eddie}!garp!henry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 87 20:58:07 CDT From: kvue!sparks@sally.utexas.edu Subject: My adventures with U.S. Sprint Recently, my wife and I were contacted by a representative of U.S. Sprint who informed us that "Sprint One-Plus service is now available in your area", and asked us to "confirm our address". At no time during the conversation did the representative ask us to change our direct access LD carrier to Sprint, nor inform us that she would change our LD carrier, and we did not agree to such a change. We immediately contacted a Sprint Customer Service representative at the 800 number, related the story, and asked Sprint not to take any further action. The rep told us that he would "flag our account" and that Sprint would _not_ request Southwestern Bell to change our carrier. We also sent a notarized letter to Southwestern Bell (at Bell's request) stating that we did not want our direct access LD carrier changed without our written permission. However when our next Southwestern Bell invoice came, (about four weeks later) there was a small note at the bottom of the bill informing us that our new "Long Distance Carrier of Choice" was now U.S. Sprint. We were charged $5.00 for the carrier change-over. Southwestern Bell has agreed to change our LD carrier back to our original carrier, remove the $5.00 charge from our bill, and back-charge U.S. Sprint $5.00. When asked why Southwestern Bell ignored my notarized letter, a SW Bell customer service rep told me that they never received the letter, and even if they did, it would have been on the wrong form anyway(!) (They have since sent me the "correct" form to fill out - it had the same wording as my letter!) Southwestern Bell referred that situation to their "Specialty Group" for investigation. I was told this situation is becoming increasingly common among the various LD carriers. The Texas Public Utility Commission, while explaining that they had no regulatory authority over Sprint, told me they had received numerous complaints regarding this problem, and asked that I sent a formal complaint to the Texas Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection. We have done the following: Cancelled my service with U.S. Sprint. Sent SW Bell another letter asking that they not change my LD carrier. Sent formal complaints, in writing to: The President of U.S. Sprint, The Austin Better Business Bureau, The Texas AG Office of Consumer Protection, The FCC Consumer Affairs Division, and the Texas Public Utilities Commission. (In the letter to U.S. Sprint, I mentioned that I was posting a description of their actions to USENET, explaining what it was, and how many people would probably read this.) Each of the regulatory agencies will require U.S. Sprint to explain their actions in this matter, in writing. I would urge anyone treated like this by their LD carrier to cancel their service immediately, and complain in writing to the appropriate regulatory agency. Slimy marketing techniques, like the ones used by U.S. Sprint, can be eliminated if people complain loudly! Regards, Ed Edward Sparks, KVUE-TV Austin, TX (sparks@kvue.uucp) {asci1,ihnp4,seismo,gatech,harvard,ctvax,ucbvax}!ut-sally!kvue!sparks ------------------------------ From: gatech!codas!aicchi!dbb@RUTGERS.EDU (Burch) Subject: Re: "Auctioning" a telephone number? Date: 12 Oct 87 05:31:56 GMT Reply-To: gatech!codas!aicchi!dbb@RUTGERS.EDU (Burch) Well, Will, you do not own your telephone number. It may be changed at will by the phone company. When you give it up, any business in your exchange area may request it, and the phone company will finally decide who gets it. The phone company would probably not allow you to sell the number to anybody else, and need not honor the say if you did. Sorry for quashing an otherwise good idea. -- -David B. (Ben) Burch Analysts International Corp. Chicago Branch (ihnp4!aicchi!dbb) "Argue for your limitations, and they are yours." - R. Bach ------------------------------ From: cuccia@monet.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Cuccia) Subject: TTY/TDDs and Baudot Date: 13 Oct 87 05:13:50 GMT Reply-To: monet.Berkeley.EDU!cuccia@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Cuccia) Hello, I have access to a TDD that my SO uses to call her deaf grandmother in Connecticut. I'm curious about how it works, but the manual that came with it tells me nothing. Therefore, I pose the following questions: (1) What form of Baudot does it use, and what five-bit codes correspond to what characters/figures? (2) What method is used for communication? Is it a form of Frequency-Shift Keying, and if so, what are the frequencies used? (3) What data transfer rate is used, and what are corresponding bit lengths? I would appreciate any answer, either directly concerning the above questions, or that point to references that deal with TTY/TDD communication. Thanks in advance, --Nick Cuccia --cuccia@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: umix!ccd700!ron@uunet.UU.NET (ron) Subject: Re: "no main list" Date: 12 Oct 87 02:37:27 GMT In article <8709302323.AA20831@buita.bu.edu>, jsol@BU-IT.BU.EDU.UUCP writes: >> If the number doesn't appear in the directory, what's the difference between >> that and having it "unlisted"? > Easy, you can get the number from your local Directory Assistance operator. some of these "bell" jerks think that the "no main list" function is what we want when we mean "UNLISTED". for a fact I have obtained these numbers by stating the fact of a serious situation. This is not to say EMERGENCY! some of the DAMM FOOL operators will put through a call just because some ass..... will says it's important!. my sugestion is that ALL calls should be traced and the origin be available to the CALLEE at NO CHARGE! that will stop a lot of crap going on today with jerks and the dammed computer FONE phreaks. ronald r. tribble ...mibte!ccd700!ron I love FIRE... flame me on this opinion all you want !!!!!!!!!!! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Oct 87 06:54:32 edt From: thinder@nswc-wo.ARPA Subject: Dial In/Out Control We have a broadband LAN that has dial-in and dial out modems on it. We would like to install some amount of control over these circuits. I have looked at several vendor offerings but have not found a suitable device. Most of the items I have reviewed are for dial-in use only and involve dial-back as a form of control. The problem occurs on our dial-out circuits, its here that we want to control user access. Currently the most "reasonable" suggestion is to use a data switch, like the Gandalf PACX 2000. Does anyone on the net have any suggestions. If so please contact me at: thinder@nswc-wo.arpa or thinder@nswc-oas.arpa Thomas Hinders Naval Surface Warfare Center (301) 394 4225 or 1802 Autovon 290 4225 Thanks, Tom Hinders ------------------------------ From: andy@rocky.stanford.edu (Andy Freeman) Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Date: 1 Oct 87 19:50:21 GMT Reply-To: rocky!andy@RUTGERS.EDU (Andy Freeman) There is a simple, but expensive, way to get around most of the problems with an unlisted number when the caller's number is revealed. Namely, get two lines and disable the ringer on one and use it for outgoing calls and unlist the other. Then all you have to worry about is an association between the listed phone's number and you. The first thing is to de-list its address. Perhaps a wrong name as well. Then all you have to worry about is phone company security :-), and whether they give out information they shouldn't :-(. -andy ps - It may be cheapter to just use a pay phone for calls to people who shouldn't have your number. -- Andy Freeman UUCP: {arpa gateways, decwrl, sun, hplabs, rutgers}!sushi.stanford.edu!andy ARPA: andy@sushi.stanford.edu (415) 329-1718/723-3088 home/cubicle ------------------------------ From: decvax!cg-atla!duane@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Andrew Duane X5993) Date: 12 Oct 87 21:08:32 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: cg-atla!duane From: duane@cg-atla.UUCP (Andrew Duane X5993) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Question about new area code Keywords: How do they do this Message-ID: <951@cg-atla.UUCP> Date: 12 Oct 87 21:08:32 GMT Organization: Compugraphic Corp., Wilmington, Mass Lines: 28 I just received my official notice about the new area code going into effect in parts of Eastern Massachusets next year (508). I am in the area that gets it, and have some questions about how the phone company will be handling the switchover. How will they (telco) be handling the transition. Will there be a grace period where my old area-coded number will get a recording about the new area code (and/or transferred to it)? Is the switch going to be similar to NYCity's new area code? Will they avoid duplicating exchanges for some amount of time to avoid accidental wrong numbers? Will any rates or services change? They talk about new business cards and letterhead being necessary...they aren't going to pay for this, so are they going to subsidize rates for a while (8-) Any other interesting things about this procedure? I am really interested in what is going on "behind the scenes" here. Andrew L. Duane (JOT-7) w:(617)-658-5600 X5993 h:(617)-475-9188 Compugraphic Corp. decvax!cg-atla!duane 200 Ballardvale St. ulowell/ Wilmington, Mass. 01887 cbosgd!ima/ Mail Stop 200II-3-5S ism780c/ Only my cat shares my opinions, and she's out for the day. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 12:04 MST From: Schuttenberg@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA (Jim) Subject: US Sprint FON Card When I received my new US Sprint FON card, I was asked whether I wanted one or more additional cards for other family members. I ordered a card for my wife, and a few weeks later it arrived. The curious thing is that the second card contains a completely different 14-digit code than the first. Time will tell whether charges against the two cards arrive on the same billing statement. Is this done so that if one card is lost, it can be cancelled without invalidating the other? Jim Schuttenberg Honeywell Bull Inc. Phoenix, AZ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 18-Oct-87 21:19:46-EDT,10431;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sun 18 Oct 87 21:19:44-EDT Date: 18 Oct 87 20:20-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #10 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, October 18, 1987 8:20PM Volume 8, Issue 10 Today's Topics: Key Phones Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Spurious "}" on 1200 baud modem connections Subscriber Line Interfaces (SLIC) characteristics ? TTY/TDD Inference/Malfunction ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Oct 87 12:33 EDT From: Neal Feinberg Subject: Key Phones We have an ancient 5 line key phone system at our house. It consists of three rotary phones (each with 5 big push-button line selectors plus hold) and a box in the basement which makes mechanical-sounding noises. Currently it costs us a lot of money to rent these phones and the box in the basement from AT&T. It would also cost a lot of money to buy the system from AT&T. Clearly they don't want to support this klunky equipment anymore. Rat Snack claims to sell key phones for $150, but I don't really trust them to be of suitable quality. Questions: 1) Who sells reasonable quality key phones at a good price? 2) What does the box in the basement do? Do modern key phones need this box? If so, where can we buy one? ------------------------------ From: swlabs!jack@uunet.UU.NET (Jack Bonn) Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Date: 16 Oct 87 17:34:54 GMT In article <1073@gumby.wisc.edu>, g-inners@gumby.UUCP (Michael Inners) writes: > There is precedent for such a rule in that devices designed to record phone > conversations are required to emit a 'beep' tone to alert the other party. I this the case? I thought it was only necessary when there was a chance that neither party was knowledgeable about the recording device. If either party (me, if I'm operating the machine) knows it is operating, I thought that no tone was necessary. I have another question. I understand that the # is sometimes used as an EOP (end of pulsing) indication. I have seen it documented as a mechanism for telling the office collecting the digits for an international call that there are no more digits to follow. This allows the call to complete faster since the alternative is to use timing as the indication that the caller has finished dialing. I have been using this for calls of the form 1-PPP-NNNN where the PPP prefix may very well also indicate a valid area code somewhere in the US. Does this really help? Or am I wasting my time? -- Jack Bonn, <> Software Labs, Ltd, Box 451, Easton CT 06612 uunet!swlabs!jack ------------------------------ From: ucbvax!ucscc.UCSC.EDU!usenet@saturn.UCSC.EDU (Usenet News Account) Date: 16 Oct 87 05:32:52 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: saturn!ucscc.UCSC.EDU!haynes From: haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU.ucsc.edu (99700000) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: TTY/TDDs and Baudot Message-ID: <991@saturn.ucsc.edu> Date: 16 Oct 87 05:32:52 GMT References: <21254@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu Reply-To: haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes) Distribution: world Organization: California State Home for the Weird Lines: 54 In article <21254@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> monet.Berkeley.EDU!cuccia@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Cuccia) writes: >I have access to a TDD that my SO uses... > (1) What form of Baudot does it use, and what five-bit codes > correspond to what characters/figures? THE Baudot, which is actually Murray, but everybody calls it Baudot. International Telegraph Alphabet #2 It's widely published (Radio Amateur's Handbook, ITT Handbook, etc.) > > (2) What method is used for communication? Is it a form of > Frequency-Shift Keying, and if so, what are the frequencies > used? Not quite frequency shift. Actually it's on-off keyed, with the tone on for the space frequency. That is the critical frequency, and I don't remember what it is. The other frequency (mark) is used only to have a signal as strong as the space tone so that noise and echoes don't trigger the space tone detector. The mark tone goes off after a short delay so that the station at the other end can send without any send-receive switching. So the frequency of the mark tone is not at all critical. > > (3) What data transfer rate is used, and what are corresponding > bit lengths? Nominally 60 words per minute, 45.45 baud, bit length is 22 milliseconds. > The system was invented and patented by the late Bob Weitbrecht, W6NRM, in the 60s. The reason for the archaic choice of 60wpm Baudot was that there were no electronic terminals at consumer prices in those days, but there were lots of surplus iron Teletype machines at low prices. The reason for the modulation technique was to avoid complexity - the Bell System standard at that time was an ancestor of the 103 modem, operating at 110 baud, frequency-shift keying, with a different band of frequencies in each direction of transmission for full duplex. A Bell modem of that vintage occupied more than a cubic foot and was quite heavy and expensive. I haven't kept up with this since Bob died a few years ago; perhaps now they have ASCII and Bell modem compatibility as options. Bob was a pioneer in Teletype operation on amateur radio for many years before he invented the TTD modem. He was entirely deaf, but could copy Morse code either by feeling the vibrations from earphones or by hearing the tone at some frequency where he had a little bit of hearing. He had a deaf friend whom he tried to get into ham radio; but the friend was unable to copy Morse at all and so couldn't get a license. So they turned to Teletyping over the phone. Initial experiments used simple on-off keying, space tone only (to allow the receiving person to break in). This worked fine on local calls, but on long distance there were echoes that confused the receiver. So he hit on the idea of sending quasi-FSK to suppress the echoes. haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu haynes@ucscc.bitnet ..ucbvax!ucscc!haynes ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1987 11:03 MDT From: Keith Petersen Subject: Spurious "}" on 1200 baud modem connections The Northern Telecom DMS100 digital switch being installed in some ESS central offices may be the cause of spurious "}" on 1200 baud modem connections. Illinois Bell recently found that one particular type of board in the DMS100 frames were the source of the problem. They found that about 1/3rd of the boards of this type were defective! They have sent out a nation-wide alert to all Bell operating companies describing the problem and how to determine which boards in the frame are bad. --Keith Petersen Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA Uucp: {bellcore,decwrl,harvard,lll-crg,ucbvax,uw-beaver}!simtel20.arpa!w8sdz GEnie: W8SDZ RCP/M Royal Oak: 313-759-6569 - 300, 1200, 2400 (V.22bis) or 9600 (USR HST) ------------------------------ From: gatech!lamont!dale@lamont.LDGO.Columbia.edu (dale chayes) Subject: Subscriber Line Interfaces (SLIC) characteristics ? Date: 17 Oct 87 21:04:54 GMT I am (reluctantly) doing an interface between a PBX (probably a Mitel SX-20) and a Magnavox MX-211 INMARSAT (ship earth station) and am in need of a (the) reference that defines (electrikly) a Subscriber Line (SLIC?.) The MX-211 uses a '4 wire' phone line. I already have a '4-wire to 2-wire' conversion that works, and the interface to get the MX-211 to establish a connection through a satellite. What I have yet to resolve is the 'off hook' detector. The interface was built for a Hayes 1200 baud modem and the 'off hook' is done with the other set of relay contacts that only appear to exist in the Hayes 1200s. It seems to me that the 'thing to do' is to supply a current source (as if there was a 'local office' in my 4 to 2 conversion box, and detect 'off hook' by from the current flow. Comments, reccomendations, and a reference are welcome. Dale Chayes snail: Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, Palisades, N.Y. 10964 phone: (914) 359-2900 ext 434 net: ...!philabs!lamont!dale fax: (914) 359-6817 -- are we having fun yet?.... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 87 01:08 EST From: <11TSTARK%GALLUA.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> Subject: TTY/TDD Inference/Malfunction Hello, I am deaf subscriber to this. I have my TDD machine for call my friends and my parent. When I started to call my parent, someone turned on stereo and adjusted higher volumne. My TDD display started display garbage characters and numbers when loud sound occurs. It may be inference by music and loud sound. What happens??? Someone abused my calls by loud sound that cause TDD malfunction. I recommand some TDD should be phone jack plug instead two speaker/microphone to resolve problems. (TDD signal LED still is up when music occurs) Stereo should be turned off when you want use your TDD machine. Also you should ask your friends to not yell. Yelling can cause TDD malfunct- ion. (it keeping display garbage characters). -- Tim Stark +==============================================================================+ | Timothy Stark | BitNet: 11TSTARK@GALLUA.BITNET | | Gallaudet University | Internet: 11TSTARK%GALLUA.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU | | P.O. Box 1453 | UUCP: ...!psuvax1!gallua.bitnet!11tstark | | Washington, DC. 20002 | CSNET: 11TSTARK%GALLUA.BITNET@RELAY.CS.NET | | USA | QLink: TimS18 | +==============================================================================+ slkjd fjdjlf ds fldsjlkj fldjfdjs sd f jfjflkdk fjffioweer fkfoe fdjjfd dkj sjnvngdi fddskmbb dkjrticks skfmvmff kfdigoulapsz f dskxi,e szki z??? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 20-Oct-87 00:49:51-EDT,7873;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Tue 20 Oct 87 00:49:48-EDT Date: 19 Oct 87 23:07-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #11 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, October 19, 1987 11:07PM Volume 8, Issue 11 Today's Topics: Re: Telenet legal Q & A FCC modem access fees proposal Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell recording telephone conversations Key Telephone Systems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 01:58 EST From: <11TSTARK%GALLUA.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> Subject: Re: Telenet legal Q & A FCC modem access fees proposal Hello Modem Users: I still am not happy with Docket FCC 87-215! I believe that most online service may be out of business quickly if FCC want access charges on interstate service. I am QuantumLink subscriber too and live in East McKeesport, Pa. QuantumLink service live in Vienna, Virginia. It may be assessed for interstate. I *HATE* FCC 87-215! It will eat my income much. If FCC already passed, I will lose my income much. :-(((((( I am Student at Gallaudet University, Washington, DC. and our computer center doesn't have Telenet connection. Please send business-like complaint to your FCC chairman and other four men. Please be sure exaclt number of copies will be accept. When FCC law appear, that may be affect Fido BBS for access charge. Sysops will send complaints to FCC Chairman. I want stop Docket FCC 87-215. -- Tim Stark +==============================================================================+ | Timothy Stark | BitNet: 11TSTARK@GALLUA.BITNET | | Gallaudet University | Internet: 11TSTARK%GALLUA.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU | | P.O. Box 1453 | UUCP: ...!psuvax1!gallua.bitnet!11tstark | | Washington, DC. 20002 | CSNET: 11TSTARK%GALLUA.BITNET@RELAY.CS.NET | | USA | QLink: TimS18 | +==============================================================================+ slkjd fjdjlf ds fldsjlkj fldjfdjs sd f jfjflkdk fjffioweer fkfoe fdjjfd dkj sjnvngdi fddskmbb dkjrticks skfmvmff kfdigoulapsz f dskxi,e szki z??? ------------------------------ From: g-inners@gumby.wisc.edu (Michael Inners) Subject: Re: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Date: 19 Oct 87 11:34:50 GMT Reply-To: g-inners@gumby.wisc.edu (Michael Inners) In article <550@swlabs.UUCP> jack@swlabs.UUCP (Jack Bonn) writes: > >In article <1073@gumby.wisc.edu>, g-inners@gumby.UUCP (Michael Inners) writes: >> There is precedent for such a rule in that devices designed to record phone >> conversations are required to emit a 'beep' tone to alert the other party. > >I this the case? I thought it was only necessary when there was a chance >that neither party was knowledgeable about the recording device. If either >party (me, if I'm operating the machine) knows it is operating, I thought >that no tone was necessary. According to the Wisconsin Bell (Ameritech) people: "If your conversation is being recorded for business or other reasons, one of the following MUST apply: All parties to the conversation must give their prior consent to the recording of the conversation and the prior consent must be obtained in writing or be part of and obtained at the start of the recording. Or, A distinctive recorder 'beep' tone, repeated every 15 seconds, is required to alert all parties when the recording equipment is in use." It then gives a few exceptions for law enforcement, 911 numbers, and broadcasters recording for rebroadcast. I also believe that the FCC requires that this beep tone be generated by all FCC-certified equipment intended for direct connection to the telephone network. -- Michael Inners ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 87 21:31:24 EDT From: simsong@broadway.columbia.edu (Simson L. Garfinkel) Subject: recording telephone conversations Jack Bonn is indeed correct. If one party knows that the conversation is being recorded, you don't need a beep tone. ------------------------------ Date: Mon 19 Oct 87 11:34:44-PDT From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: Key Telephone Systems NOTE: Possible dupe, SIMTEL20 address bombed. This is a purely unscientific, anectodal answer to the recent query about the the current state-of-the-art/market in small telephone Key Systems. Key systems continue to get smarter and cheaper. Today they provide most of the functionalities of the late, lamented, electromechanical 1A2 systems with their user-friendly, intuitive buttons and lights as well as many PBX features. (There was, until recently, a distinction between Key Systems and so-called Hybrids which is rapidly vanishing). At the low end, as in the "home" application there are three basic choices: (1) Multi-line sets which act as a "KSU-less" System. (2) True KSUs which require special sets (3) True KSUs which accept ANY standard set. Basically, a Key system takes X outside phone lines (CO lines, Main Lines, 1MBs) and distributes then among Y inside lines (Stations, Extensions). The old 1A2s distributed 5 "outside" lines amongst 5 "inside" lines, this limitation soon dissappeared and today as many as 40 or more "outside" and 100+ "inside" are common. (The "hybrid" issue was largely a fiction caused by the higher rates charged by some Telephone Companies for PBX trunks vs Key System lines). Key sets are usually modular and the model number descriptive of their capacity (XY for inside/outside). So-called "KSU-less" which require no central control (the functions are contained in the sets) and "Plain-set" systems are beginning to appear. The more traditional Key Systems require both a KSU and propriatary sets. Prices range from the high-end, full service outfits like AT&T (Merlin) at about $5K for an 8X16 in NYC to less than $1K for do-it-yourselfs or used gear. I recently installed a "Do-it-yourself" for a friend. Here, without endorsement,is what I found: The system was a Panasonic KX-T616 (there is a newer KX-T61610 which is similar). Physically it looks like a home alarm sysstem, a flat, wall mounted box roughly 5"X14"X17". It uses standard sets, tone or pulse. Inside the cover are RJ-11 connections for the CO lines (up to 6) and the extensions (up to 16). If you open the Box, mount it, plug the phones in and the line cord to AC, you are in Business. Using an ordinary set from one station lets you program it but everything has a logical default setting if you are lazy or techno-phobic. As is, you get: Auto-line Hunt, Hold, Call Back, Call Waiting, Call Splitting, Music-on-Hold, Intercom, Re-dial, Speed Call, Power Failure Transfer etc etc. Options include External Music, Battery backup, Busy Lamp Fields, SMDR, Paging etc etc. Cost: Less than $600 from a parts house in LA. Installation time: 1 hour quick-and-dirty (line cords), 4 hours Bell standards (Punch downs, station wire etc. Catches: Only specialized stores carry Key Systems and seldom sell to the Public, the best and most reliable, Toshiba's Strata Series are sold through distributors who want to sell you installation and maintenance as a package. +HECTOR+ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 20-Oct-87 02:13:18-EDT,15117;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Tue 20 Oct 87 02:13:14-EDT Date: 19 Oct 87 23:08-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #12 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, October 19, 1987 11:08PM Volume 8, Issue 12 Today's Topics: Telenet legal Q & A on FCC modem access fees proposal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1987 19:48 MDT From: Keith Petersen Subject: Telenet legal Q & A on FCC modem access fees proposal Here is more information on the modem fees issue, from a file called LEGALQ&A.TXT which was uploaded to my BBS. It was written by someone at Telenet and is presented here "as-is" for informational purposes. --Keith Petersen Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA Uucp: {bellcore,decwrl,harvard,lll-crg,ucbvax,uw-beaver}!simtel20.arpa!w8sdz GEnie: W8SDZ RCP/M Royal Oak: 313-759-6569 - 300, 1200, 2400 (V.22bis) or 9600 (USR HST) --cut-here-- QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS regarding THE FCC'S ACCESS CHARGE PROPOSAL DOCKET 87-215 September 1987 Personal computer hobbyists and users of on-line information services and BBS have posted questions on various bulletin boards regarding the FCC's current access charge proceeding. What follows are some answers developed by Telenet's Regulatory Department. Question: Why don't access charges apply to "private" systems? Answer: The FCC's NPRM identifies "enhanced service providers" as targets for the imposition of access charges. Private systems do not appear to fall under the Commission's definition of enhanced service providers. Question: How will the access charge proposal hurt local BBS? Answer: Since the FCC only has jurisdiction over interstate communications, calls to a BBS located in the same state as the calling party would be unaffected by the FCC's proposal. Callers who reach a BBS located in a distant state via a Value-added network, however, would pay access charges. Thus, BBS systems which serve a "community of interest" which extends beyond the BBS' home state would be particularly impacted. Question: What is the $4.47 supposed to pay for that is not covered currently? Answer: The $4.47 per hour cost of access results from a POLITICAL determination regarding the price of local versus long distance telephone services. It has no real ECONOMIC justification. Under the formula developed for interexchange voice services, more than half of the $4.47 per hour access charge represents a subsidy payment from long distance telephone users to help defray certain costs incurred in providing local exchange telephone service, and part of the remainder of the charge covers costs incurred in providing specialized interconnections which are used only by long distance carriers. The FCC's NPRM simply proposes to take the formula structured for interexchange carriers and apply it to enhanced service providers. Question: How many jobs will be lost if access charges go into effect? Answer: There is no way of knowing this. Individuals who use data communications to support a "cottage" industry, e.g., free lance programmers, could find that the costs of access render them unable to continue their businesses. Although it could be argued that access charges would create jobs (if for example libraries return to card catalogs for bibliographic research rather than electronic database retrieval), such inefficiencies should perhaps not be promoted as a matter of public policy. Question: What will access fees cost taxpayers if access charges go into effect? Don't school districts, public libraries, and government agencies all use dial-up data services? Answer: Again, there is no way to predict what the imposition of access charges will cost taxpayers in terms of on-line services that are currently used by schools, libraries, and other public agencies. Hourly costs of such services would certainly increase substantially, forcing either higher total payments by public agencies which use them, or a commensurate reduction in usage (and thus poorer service to the taxpayer). Question: Isn't "value-added network" a vague term? How can access charges be applied fairly when we don't even know what a value-added network is? Answer: What constitutes a value-added network is indeed vague, yet the FCC proposal would apply not only to such networks but to all "enhanced service providers" -- a broader but equally vague term. The point, at any rate, is a good one. Not only would it be virtually impossible for a local exchange carrier to identify an enhanced service provider in order to assess access charges on his traffic, it would also be quite difficult to determine what portion of any customer's traffic is "enhanced," and what portion of that is interstate. Question: What exactly is "stored and forwarded" data? If a BBS operator physically transports a CD ROM full of recent messages and data from San Fancisco to her Chicago BBS, is that any less "long distance" than if the data is downloaded from San Francisco to Chicago? Answer: Clearly, the end result is the same. The BBS operator, however, would pay access charges in the latter case under the FCC's current proposal, if local exchange dial access is used. Question: Could not certain users such as colleges and universities, including dormitories, avoid all access charges when communicating via Telenet to The Source if there were private leased lines from the colleges to Telenet and dedicated lines between Telenet and The Source? Answer: If there were no use of the local exchange, as indicated by this example, access charges could be avoided. However, relatively few terminal users have sufficient traffic volume to justify the cost of a leased-line connection to Telenet. Question: I reside in the same state as the telecommunications services I use. How will my rates be affected? Answer: Rates for INTRASTATE data communications are not affected by the FCC's NPRM in Docket 87-215. FCC action on this issue, however, sets a precedent for possible state action pertaining to intrastate access charges. Question: What's the status on the access charge proposal? I heard that Telenet was exempt. Any truth to this? If not, who do I write to and when -- or have I missed the deadline? Answer: Telenet is not exempt from the FCC's access charge proposal, but rather is a prime target since there is no doubt that, as the largest value-added network in the U.S., Telenet is a highly-visible enhanced service provider. There is still plenty of time to register your concerns with the Federal Communications Commission; letters on the subject will be timely if received by October 26th. Send copies of your letter to each of the four FCC commissioners (Chairman Dennis Patrick, Commissioner James Quello, Commissioner Mimi Dawson, and Commissioner Patricia Dennis); William Tricarico, FCC Secretary; Gerald Brock, Chief, FCC Common Carrier Bureau; and your Congressional representatives. Letters to the FCC can be sent to 1919 M Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20554; letters to Congress simply require the zip code 20515 for the House and 20510 for the Senate. Question: Hey, I heard that the FCC doesn't read your letters unless they arrive on the right form with the right number of copies! What do I need to know to comply? Answer: Formal legal briefs need to follow a set format, but informal letters simply need to include the header "Regarding: FCC Docket 87-215" in order to be filed with the appropriate proceeding. Question: If enhanced service providers pay access charges, long distance rates will come down so use of the voice network will go up and rates will come down further. Why don't we support lifting this exemption? Answer: Long distance rates MIGHT be reduced by less than one-half of one percent, or by 1 cent for every $2.00 spent on long distance services. This will have virtually no impact on the use of the network for voice services. At the same time, the imposition of access charges on enhanced service providers (at the rate of approximately $4.50 per hour) would result in diminished use of the network for data communications and the loss of some services. Residential, small business, library, and educational users of enhanced services would suffer the greatest hit. Question: The Telenet analysis paper states that "originating rates are only available for traffic that also terminates using dial access which ordinary long distance (MTS) calls do, but most ESP traffic does not." Please explain. Why does ESP traffic not so terminate? Also, is it true that MTS companies already pay full freight? Answer: ESP traffic originates but typically does not terminate through the local dial network. Instead, calls typically terminate at a host computer that is linked to Telenet's network by a dedicated line. That is, almost all of Telenet's dial traffic is "originating" in nature; however, the FCC determined in an earlier proceeding that where a call originates but does not also terminate through the dial network it will be charged the higher "terminating" rate at the originating end. MTS (that is, ordinary long distance voice service) does indeed pay full freight -- and then some. MTS/WATS traffic subsidizes local exchange service. It is payment of this subsidy that the FCC now proposes to extend to enhanced service providers. Question: If the proposal is discriminatory because it earmarks only one class of local exchange users -- ESPs and their users -- who are the local exchange users that still have an exemption? Answer: Under the FCC's NPRM, private corporate networks with interstate leased lines and local dial access links -- functionally identical to the networks operated by Telenet and other ESPs -- would be exempt from paying access charges. Question: According to FCC Attorney Ruth Milkman, the charges currently paid by ESPs do not contribute sufficiently to the cost of the enhanced access facilities they use in offering services to the public? Does anyone have any figures to rebutt this statement? Answer: The nationwide average cost of a dial access line has been quoted by Bell officials as $28.00 per month. Telenet pays an average price of $33.00 per month for its dial lines (leased under the local telephone companies' business line tariffs). In addition, business users often are charged local message unit rates when they place calls to Telenet's dial access lines. Thus, we feel we -- and other ESPs -- are currently paying the full cost of the dial service we use. Question: Would access charges apply on a local call from McLean, Virginia to The Source on its local phone number (not using Telenet)? Would it depend if the caller accessed out-of-state computers like the Official Airline Guide? Answer: The FCC's access charge proposal does not apply to INTRASTATE traffic, regardless of whether the caller uses Telenet. That is, a call which originates in Virginia and terminates on a computer located in Virginia, such as The Source, would not be subject to the FCC charge. If the call terminates on a computer located out-of-state, access charges would apply. Question: Would access charges apply on a call to The Source originating from Thief River Falls, MN? The call would use AT&T to Fargo, ND (125 miles away, but the closest Telenet node). Since AT&T already charges an access fee on this call, would Telenet charge it again? If Telenet would levy an additional access fee, would the lower "originating" rate apply (after all, it's not a one-ended call)? Answer: Such a call, using AT&T's long distance (MTS) service to reach Telenet's North Dakota node from the user's location in Minnesota, would pay access charges three times. First, it would pay access charges on both ends of the AT&T connection ("originating" rate in MN and "terminating" rate in ND). Then when it arrived on Telenet's dial access line in North Dakota, it would be assessed an access charge again (at the "terminating" rate, since Telenet's connection to The Source in Virginia does not use the dial network). Total access payments on such a call would be approximately $11.50 per hour! --cut-here--END--cut-here-- ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 20-Oct-87 20:34:31-EDT,6039;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Tue 20 Oct 87 20:34:29-EDT Date: 20 Oct 87 18:43-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #13 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, October 20, 1987 6:43PM Volume 8, Issue 13 Today's Topics: Re: recording telephone conversations Recording conversations NJ Bell calling line ID Re: New Service...(actually recording) Submission for comp-dcom-telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: stuart@cs.rochester.edu (Stuart Friedberg) Subject: Re: recording telephone conversations Date: 20 Oct 87 07:42:31 GMT No, *ALL* parties must be notified that recording is in progress, NOT just ONE party. The caller (or callee) can NOT record without either (a) former written consent of all parties, (b) verbal consent obtained at the beginning of the call, or (c) an audible tone (beep) every 15 seconds. Stu Friedberg ------------------------------ Date: Tue 20 Oct 87 08:59:02-PDT From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: Recording conversations g-inners@gumby.wisc.edu (Michael Inners) writes (quoting Ameritech): >"If your conversation is being recorded for business or other reasons, >one of the following MUST apply: > >All parties to the conversation must give their prior consent to the >recording of the conversation and the prior consent must be obtained in >writing or be part of and obtained at the start of the recording..." Patently BS. Neither Voice Store and Forward Systems or, for that matter, home answering machines obtain consent in writing or make the consent "part of " the recording. I guess you give implied consent by not hanging up :-). +HECTOR+ ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 1987 16:36-EST From: ihnp4!mcb@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mark C Baker @ AT&T Network Systems) Subject: NJ Bell calling line ID The service being provided by NJ Bell this year which displays the phone number of the person calling you is not ISDN. It is part of a number of CLASS (Customized Local Area Signaling Services) features being offered from 1A ESS switch central offices. This is a analog switch by the way. The calling DN is sent to the customers premise equipment between the power ringing cycles. Calling Party DN is conveyed from one central office to another via CCIS, CCS7 in the future. ------------------------------ From: arnie@tikal.teltone.com (Arnold Koster) Subject: Re: New Service...(actually recording) Date: 20 Oct 87 20:17:03 GMT Reply-To: tikal!arnie@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Arnold Koster) In article <550@swlabs.UUCP> jack@swlabs.UUCP (Jack Bonn) writes: > >In article <1073@gumby.wisc.edu>, g-inners@gumby.UUCP (Michael Inners) writes: >> There is precedent for such a rule in that devices designed to record phone >> conversations are required to emit a 'beep' tone to alert the other party. > >I this the case? I thought it was only necessary when there was a chance >that neither party was knowledgeable about the recording device. If either >party (me, if I'm operating the machine) knows it is operating, I thought >that no tone was necessary. > From the Seattle Telephone Directory : Status: O RECORDED CALLS REQUIRE A BEEP TONE When you hear a beep tone at about 15-second intervals during a phone conversation, it indicates that the conversation is being recorded. In the State of Washington it is unlawful for any person to record any telephone conversation without first obtaining the consent of ALL the persons engaged in the conversation. In a somewhat related area: UNLAWFUL WIRETAPPING IS SUBJECT TO PROSECUTION It is a crime under Federal law for any person, including a telephone subscriber, to wiretap or otherwise intercept a telephone call, unless that person has first obtained the consent of one of the parties actually participating in the call. Under Washington State law, however, the consent of ALL the parties participating in the call must first be obtained before a telephone conversation can be overheard by a person who is not a party to the call. It then continues with the exceptions for law enforcment agencies, and discusses the imprisonment time and fines that can be used for penalties. THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS: Check with your own local phone company about the requirements in your area, it varies from place to place. Arnie Koster arnie@tikal.Teltone.COM ------------------------------ From: George Pell Date: 20 Oct 87 16:11:27 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: vice!georgep From: georgep@vice.TEK.COM (George Pell) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: TTY/TDD Inference/Malfunction Summary: inconsiderate S.O.B's Message-ID: <1992@vice.TEK.COM> Date: 20 Oct 87 16:11:25 GMT References: <8710190041.AA00200@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. Lines: 16 In article <8710190041.AA00200@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, 11TSTARK@GALLUA.BITNET writes: > Hello, > > I am deaf subscriber to this. I have my TDD machine for call my friends > and my parent. When I started to call my parent, someone turned on stereo > and adjusted higher volumne. My TDD display started display garbage ...... Tim, I suggest you invest in a good pair of diagonal wire cutters. Apply them to the speaker leads of the stereo next time this occures. I'll bet the same guy turns up his stereo when anyone gets on the phone. I guess you could beat on the door and say "could you turn down your stereo, I'm on the phone"! geo ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 22-Oct-87 19:58:05-EDT,15603;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Thu 22 Oct 87 19:57:57-EDT Date: 22 Oct 87 14:34-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #14 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, October 22, 1987 2:34PM Volume 8, Issue 14 Today's Topics: V8 Issue 8 Social Security numbers & telephone company Baudot, TDDs etc. More yet acoustic interference Request for Information Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #13 Recording calls Re: all this new stuff has been confusedly presented Re: Predictable network access prices (was: RCTE) Re: Automatic caller identification Re: England to United States collect: on payphones! Re: My adventures with U.S. Sprint Re: Beep Tone Requirement Varies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue 20 Oct 87 18:44:55-EDT From: Jon Solomon Subject: V8 Issue 8 Apparently that digest never made it to the mailer. I don't know what happened (I wasn't the one doing the digest at that time), and I'm sure by the time Jim gets back from his vacation, he will have forgotten. Please, no flames. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 87 14:59:10 EDT From: Mark Dionne Subject: Social Security numbers & telephone company Recently while I was ordering new telephone service from New England Telephone, I was asked to provide my Social Security number. I refused, and there was no problem. When asked, the service representative explained that the numbers are used for internal credit checking purposes, and that they were not required. I wonder how useful they could be for credit checking if they are not mandatory? If I gave them my number today and ran up unpaid bills, I certainly wouldn't give it to them the next time. (Unlike some states, there is no deposit in Massachusetts.) I think that it is legal for anyone to ask me for my SS number and to use it for things like credit checks. Do others also have the right to *publish* it? Can we expect N.E. Telephone to be selling a list of names, addresses, phone numbers and SS numbers some day? If so, should a monopoly public utility be allowed to do it? ...!harvard!umb!ileaf!md Mark Dionne, Interleaf ...!sun!sunne!ileaf!md Ten Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 (617) 577-9813 x5551 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 87 21:59:45 EDT From: Richard Barth Subject: Baudot, TDDs etc. More yet Re: From: haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU.ucsc.edu (99700000) Subject: Re: TTY/TDDs and Baudot > (2) What method is used for communication? Is it a form of > Frequency-Shift Keying, and if so, what are the frequencies > used? Not quite frequency shift. Actually it's on-off keyed, with the tone on for the space frequency. That is the critical frequency, and I don't remember what it is. The other frequency (mark) is used only to have a signal as strong as the space tone so that noise and echoes don't trigger the space tone detector. The mark tone goes off after a short delay so that the station at the other end can send without any send-receive switching. So the frequency of the mark tone is not at all critical. Uh, well, sort of. The original patent by Bob Weitbrecht used on-off keying, as stated. One tone was used only to actuate the echo suppressors on the phone line; the other tone (and the absence thereof) was the only one recognized by the receiving modem. Until his death a few years ago, Weitbrecht and his company continued to build his equipment that way. He was about the only one that did, however. More modern design, as used by everybody else in the business and as described in the draft EIA standard for TDDs, calls for FSK. The Space tone is 1400 Hz; standard Mark tone is 1800, although equipment built according to the Weitbrecht design don't consider the 1800 number as critical. As long as it's far enough away from 1400 not to interfere with the detector there. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 87 06:38:19 EDT From: *Hobbit* Subject: acoustic interference I suggest you invest in a good pair of diagonal wire cutters. Apply them to the speaker leads of the stereo next time this occures. A much more elegant and nondestructive fix would be to nuke your old acoustic modem, step into the 80s, and buy one that has a direct connection which is immune to ambient sound. Or hack a matching transformer into your old modem, if a replacement is hard to come by. Acoustic couplers simply *lose*. Whoever turned up the stereo probably didn't have the foggiest idea this could happen... _H* ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Oct 87 07:54:10 EDT From: Mike Koziol Subject: Request for Information I work for the RIT Campus Safety Department and we are interested in placing emergency telephones around the campus and in parking lots. Our problem is that digging a trench to run a pair of wires to a phone in the middle of a parking lot is prohibitively expensive. I'd like to find a source of telephones that you sometimes see along the sides of the road on interstates. I've called several suppliers and everyone has heard of such a system but no one knows where to get one. I'd like a phone system that uses a radio frequency. I've seen a cellular emergency phone system but we would like to explore other possibilities. Thanks for any help you can supply. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Oct 87 11:43:37 EDT From: ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #13 The reason why answering machines (and voice mail which is just a glorified answering machine) doesn't count is that you'll note that the regulation in question pertains to CONVERSATIONS. Talking to machines are not conversations. ------------------------------ From: csi!csib!lgold@spam.istc.sri.com (Lynn Gold) Subject: Recording calls Date: Wed, 21 Oct 87 12:27:12 -0700 As long as ONE of the parties involved in the telephone conversation knows that the call is being recorded, it's perfectly legal to record the conversation. In other words, if I feel like taping you, it's okay because *I* know I'm taping you. Re: playing someone's voice over the air -- THEN you MUST have either verbal or written consent (the former is often done by taping someone saying it's okay to use their voice over the air) in order to do so. --Lynn Gold Public Affairs Director KFJC-FM P.S.--We're in the middle of a fundraiser (yes, I KNOW this is going to a nation-wide dist list). If y'all feel inclined, call (415)941-2500 and pledge (they'd get a BIG kick out of someone from Massachusetts calling in!). :-) ------------------------------ From: obroin%hslrswi.UUCP%cernvax.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu (Niall O Broin) Subject: Re: all this new stuff has been confusedly presented Date: 21 Oct 87 15:12:16 GMT Reply-To: hslrswi!obroin@jade.berkeley.edu (Niall O Broin) In article <231@lf-jr.BBN.COM> jr@LF-SERVER-2.BBN.COM (John Robinson) writes: > >In article <12340678224.21.AWALKER@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> AWalker@RED.RUTGERS.EDU ( >> >>Is this new "ID the caller" beta-test service handled by / the same as / >>utterly unrelated to / etc ISDN? unrelated to. The signalling of the caller's number goes over your standard non ISDN line. ISDN can of course provide this capability. >>It seems to me that for this service to work the caller must be in an office >>where the service is being tested too. Present ["normal"] offices wouldn't >>have the capability to pass a packet containing the caller's number to the >>destination end, right? Wrong. All non primitive signalling systems have the ability to request and receive the caller's number. So the "ID the caller" service just requires software in the CALLED PARTY's exchange to request the caller's number (if it has not yet been received - it often already has) and software/hardware (and a signalling protocol) to transmit the number to the called party's telephone. This is fairly simple, though I don't know exactly how it will be done in this case. >This is something that comes under the ISDN service umbrella probably. Yes and no, but a lot more no than yes. >The information on calling number is probably passed >in signalling system #7 (SS#7) out-of-band data packets Just a tad unlikely ! Overkill by about n orders of magnitude - the cost of having a processor to handle C7 signalling attached to your phone would be horrible just to get "ID the caller" service. >this system (C7 signalling) is an outgrowth of internal Bell protocols Not unless you regard the whole principle of common channel signalling as an internal Bell protocol, it isn't. >and now will be public worldwide in ISDN systems. Yes, but C7 signalling and the ISDN are completely seperate entities. Signalling for 99.9' % of ISDN lines will be C7, but C7 is a telephony signalling system, and is currently in use worldwide on many different types of non ISDN trunk circuits Briefly, a C7 signalling system has two parts, a message transfer part and a user part. There are and will be many different user parts, a telephone user part (the area in which I have worked), an ISDN user part and more. Regards, #\\\\\-----\\\\\ Niall O Broin ###\\\\\-----\\\\\ AXE Software Development #####--------------- Hasler AG +-----------------------------+ #######--------------- Berne +This space available for rent| #########\\\\\-----\\\\\ Switzerland +-----------------------------+ ###########\\\\\-----\\\\\ ####### ///// ///// BITNET obroin%hslrswi.UUCP@cernvax.BITNET ####### ///// ///// UUCP .. {uunet,mcvax ..}!cernvax!hslrswi!obroin ##### ///// ### ///// Any resemblance between this message and the # ///// ///// opinions of anyone else, living or dead, is ///// ///// purely coincidental. ------------------------------ From: dan@wilma.bbn.com Subject: Re: Predictable network access prices (was: RCTE) Date: 15 Oct 87 10:51:29 GMT > ... one has to be able to > show that the economy of scale is working in general and, as I > believe, that the per-quantum costs would end up costing the smaller > user more ... Not to mention that the machinery for counting, and accounting for, packets can itself cost serious money. Nicholas Johnson observed some years ago that half the cost of a long-distance telephone call was in billing you for that call. (Nicholas Johnson was an FCC Commissioner and so presumably in a position to know.) Dan ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 87 10:09:37 +1000 (Thu) From: munnari!astra.necisa.oz.au!dave@uunet.UU.NET (Dave Horsfall) Subject: Re: Automatic caller identification Although we in Australia do not have this facility (but they're working on it!), it strikes me that a warped person could obtain an unlisted no. and use it to harass other people. I for one would like to know where such calls were coming from... Not that I get such calls at the moment. Alternatively, you could have two lines, you receive calls on the silent number and make calls on the (fake) public number. -- Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU) ACS: dave@astra.necisa.OZ.AU NEC Information Systems Aust. ARPA: dave%astra.necisa.OZ.AU@uunet.UU.NET 3rd Floor, 99 Nicholson St UUCP: {enea,hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}!\ St. Leonards NSW 2064 AUSTRALIA munnari!astra.necisa.OZ.AU!dave --- Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU) ACS: dave@astra.necisa.OZ.AU NEC Information Systems Aust. ARPA: dave%astra.necisa.OZ.AU@uunet.UU.NET 3rd Floor, 99 Nicholson St UUCP: {enea,hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}!\ St. Leonards NSW 2064 AUSTRALIA munnari!astra.necisa.OZ.AU!dave ------------------------------ From: westmark!dave@RUTGERS.EDU (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: England to United States collect: on payphones! Date: 21 Oct 87 03:30:01 GMT In article <1658@chinet.UUCP>, djc@chinet.UUCP (David J. Carpenter) writes: > A friend of mine told me an interesting story. Several students... > ..Who is really going to pay for that call? You are, I am, and the rest of the public who pays for their telephone service is, unless the toll carrier who was defrauded can determine who done it! -- Dave Levenson Westmark, Inc. A node for news. Warren, NJ USA {rutgers | clyde | mtune | ihnp4}!westmark!dave ------------------------------ From: uiucdcs!pur-ee!bucc2!jeff@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: My adventures with U.S. Sprint Date: 20 Oct 87 22:05:00 GMT > [story of Sprint causing unauthorized LD carrier change] > > Southwestern Bell has agreed to change our LD carrier back to our original > carrier, remove the $5.00 charge from our bill, and back-charge U.S. > Sprint $5.00. That was nice of SW Bell. My LD carrier had been Teleconnect for quite a while when suddenly one day (with absolutely no prior communication) I received a bill from AT&T, and a $5 charge for LD carrier change from Illinois Bell. When I questioned the friendly people at Illinois Bell, they told me that AT&T had requested the change. Despite as much fuss as I was up to generating at the time, they refused to refund the $5, and then had the gall to charge me ANOTHER $5 to change it back to the way I wanted it in the first place. I eventually got my $10 back from AT&T, but that took many, many complaints, and about 8 months. ------------------------------ From: "Kurt F. Sauer" Subject: Re: Beep Tone Requirement Varies Date: 22 Oct 87 08:28:45 GMT Reply-To: "Kurt F. Sauer" In article <1094@gumby.wisc.edu> Michael Inners writes: >According to the Wisconsin Bell (Ameritech) people: > >"If your conversation is being recorded for business or other reasons, >one of the following MUST apply: > >All parties to the conversation must give their prior consent to the >recording of the conversation and the prior consent must be obtained in >writing or be part of and obtained at the start of the recording. Or, > >A distinctive recorder 'beep' tone, repeated every 15 seconds, is required >to alert all parties when the recording equipment is in use." In Oklahoma, for example, calls need no beep tone under any circumstances so long as as least one party to the conversation is aware of its being taped or monitored. Also, these rules are merely state laws, tariffs, or regulations; they vary from state to state. In addition, if your call is interstate, many of the state laws may not apply; contact your organization's legal counsel for details. Kurt F. Sauer Tulsa, OK ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 23-Oct-87 19:39:53-EDT,14374;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 23-Oct-87 19:08:34 Date: 23 Oct 87 19:08-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #15 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, October 23, 1987 7:08PM Volume 8, Issue 15 Today's Topics: Re: Key Phones Recording calls New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell Charges for "unlisting" AT&T / Bell System Calling Card Costs Re: Charges for "unlisting" Re: England to United States collect: on payphones! Submission for comp-dcom-telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England)) Subject: Re: Key Phones Date: 22 Oct 87 21:26:04 GMT Reply-To: kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent England) In article <19871016163331.9.FEINBERG@BLACKSTONE.SCRC.Symbolics.COM> Feinberg@YUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM (Neal Feinberg) writes: >We have an ancient 5 line key phone system at our house. It consists of >three rotary phones (each with 5 big push-button line selectors plus >hold) and a box in the basement which makes mechanical-sounding noises. This system is called a 1A2 key system. It is entirely mechanical and expensive to maintain. These mechanical key sets are replaced with electronic key systems with PBX-like features and simpler wiring. The 1A2 key sets use 25 pair wire and elec key use 4 to 8 pair wire. Of course, your old wire can be reused with adaptors. Elec key systems need AC power and don't work when the power goes out. > >1) Who sells reasonable quality key phones at a good price? > You can buy an elec key system from your phone company. They probably sell Merlin from AT&T. New England Tel also sells TIE DataStar, but this is for larger installations. Buy from Radio Shack if you can get a good warranty and service contract. >2) What does the box in the basement do? Do modern key phones need this > box? If so, where can we buy one? Elec key systems use a box in the basement but it is new, smaller, and lighter than the 1A2. The old 1A2 box makes a good boat anchor. Talk to your phone company first, then Radio Shack. Then look at all the ads in the Wall Street Journal. Seems that WSJ is the place to sell company execs on the phone system for business. I don't know what professional mag to read to pick up info, but I think there are a lot of elec key systems in the 10-20 line range. Don't buy from any store that also sells housewares. :-) Kent England, Boston University -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Kent W. England | Boston University Network & Systems Engineering Group | Information Technology kwe@bu-it.bu.edu internet | 111 Cummington Street itkwe@bostonu BITnet | Boston, MA 02215 harvard!bu-cs!kwe UUCP | (617) 353-2780 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 87 21:29:08 EDT From: jsol@bu-it.bu.edu Subject: Recording calls The law in California is that one party must agree to have the conversation taped; in other states it is that ALL parties of a conversation must agree. It varies. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1987 01:51 EDT From: LENOIL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: New Service in BetaTest at NJ Bell >I would not see a problem here. Your number is unlisted, but you can >give it to people if you choose. I don't see that giving the number by >calling someone is in need of protection. If you don't want them to have >your number, don't call. I'm suspicious of anyone who wants to make >untraceable calls, and it defeats the reason for having the "know your >caller" service. Scenario 1: Ms. Smith calls Johnny's parents to talk about his D in history. Johnny, who answered the phone, takes down Ms. Smith's number and makes harassing calls from a payphone to her for the next 6 weeks. Scenario 2: An unscrupulous worker for a confidential crisis hotline saves the phone numbers of unsuspecting callers and uses them for purposes of extortion. ...These are only two examples; I can think of many more. The point is, I don't think you can fairly say that just because I am calling you, I must forfeit my right to privacy. Robert Lenoil ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1987 02:09 EDT From: LENOIL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Charges for "unlisting" >Now, though, the situation is changed. The telcos make money from calls >to Information/Diretory Assistance! They charge for most (or all) of such >calls, so they should be happy to have vast numbers of "unlisted" >subscribers generating extra revenue via fruitless Information calls. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that you are not charged for directory assistance if the number you seek is unlisted. Therefore, the old telco justification for charging subscribers for being unlisted still stands. However, if you want a good example of a service that we shouldn't be charged extra for, try touch tone on for size. Touch tone calls are dialed faster, and therefore take up less of the central office's processing time. Perhaps back in the Stroger or crossbar days it made sense to charge extra to cover the cost of installing touch tone dialing equipment, but for ESS offices, people should really pay extra for *pulse*. This would have the additional benefit of hastening the demise of antiquated pulse equipment. Robert Lenoil ------------------------------ Date: Fri 23 Oct 87 05:51:15-EDT From: Doug Reuben Subject: AT&T / Bell System Calling Card Costs In a recent issue of Telecom, I noticed that it was mentioned that ALL calling cards cost something to use. In MOST cases this is true, yet I CAN use my AT&T Calling Card and NOT invoke ANY surcharge if I call at specific times. If a customer is part of the AT&T "Reach Out America" Program, where one pays $7.55 an hour for OUT-OF-STATE long distance calls after 10PM, he can also subscribe to an additional Calling Card Plan. Customers who are on the "Reach Out America" do NOT pay the 'initial surcharge' when they make calls under the plan. IE, if I call from Connecticut to San Francisco on a phone #number WITHOUT the plan, I would pay something like $.25 for the first minute and $.14 each additional minute. Under the plan, if I make the same call (after 10 PM weekdays or all day Saturday and all day Sunday except between 5 and 10 PM) , it would cost 1/60 of $7.55 (the amount you pay per hour) for the first minute, or about $.12. Each additional minute would also cost $.12. (60 minutes * $.12 per minute approximately equals $7.55 ). This saves me a lot in the initial rate, meaning that not only can I talk longer, but I can make a lot of calls and pay the same rate, without the initial surcharge. The Calling Card plan is similar. If you are OUT-OF-STATE, and you place a Bell System Calling Card call to your home phone (after 10 PM, in the originating time zone), you DO NOT pay the initial surcharge, usually between $.20 and $.50. So I can call home, as many times as I want, and NEVER worry about the initial surcharge. (This is really good for people who live in the West and travel East. They can call, at the low 10PM rates from the East, and not pay the surcharge for calling back home.) In any case, the extra Calling Card Plan costs about $2 per month (in addition to the $7.55 per month for the main plan). This being the case, if one were in San Francisco, and called to his out-of-state home 6 times, he would save money. (In CA, there is a $.40 surcharge on Calling Card calls, so 6 *.40 is $2.40, which under the plan would be a savings of at LEAST $.40 per month. This of course depends on usage and the rates of calling card calls where the caller is calling from.) Also, I think the US Sprint rates for Calling Card calls are higher than an Bell/AT&T rates. In CT, the Calling Card surcharge is $.25; in CA, its $.40, in NY its $.47, in Mass its $.40 (I think). I have never seen a Bell surcharge greater than $.50, so on ANY call, the surcharge is at least $.05 lower than Sprint, probably more. Moreover, AT&T charges NOTHING extra for rotary service, while Sprint has the nerve to charge $1.05 for using a rotary phone when its not YOUR fault that there are no Touch Tone phones around!. Finally, it was mentioned that GTE Sprint got rid of the 9-digit service because kids were "hacking" them too often. Perhaps, but I think it has VERY LITTLE to do with that and more to do with the fact that they didn't want a "two-tier" system where older GTE Sprint Customers get free Fiber Network calls, and US Telecom and newer US Sprint customers have to pay for it. Since the company is under one name, and they want to unify billing and customer service (ha!) , it would be difficult to have BOTH systems. (IE, US Sprint would have to ask "Are you an old GTE customer, a new US Sprint Customer, or a US Telecom customer?"...pretty confusing, especially when their records are so out of date that they don't know whether a customer is from Telecom or GTE Sprint). If hackers were the problem, why would they assign me a *7* digit code instead of my *9* digit old travel code? 7 digits are easier to hack than 9, and although it is not a NATIONAL code like the 9 digit one used to be, the 7 digit one covers a lot of ground! Moreover, hackers don't really *cost* Sprint all that much... They are so far behind in my calls (about a year!) that a few hackers wont do much more harm. I think they just want to unify the system and in the process make more money (via travelcard surcharges). Instead of wasting money, time, and effort on 12 year olds who really pose no harm to Sprint, why not upgrade their customer service people so that it is not BUSY *EVERY* time I call, or so I don't have to be put on hold for 45 minutes! (I'm serious..I timed it!) Or why can't they take calls off my bill that didn't go through within a reasonable period of time, lets say 4 months? AT&T can...Southern New England Tel can, New York Tel, with more customers in NYC than Sprint has around the country can, why not Sprint? If they want to waste money catching kids talking on computers, fine. I don't have to pay for that, and that's why I am totally fed up with them an no longer use them, despite their fiber optics. If they DO go ahead with their ANI stuff like they are doing in LA now, where 950-0777 and 950-1033 calls show the originating number, its not going to catch any more hackers, since you have to find out WHO is making the call, not just what number it is coming from. This will cost them even more money, and dig their grave a little deeper. RIP. Sorry to be so opinionated, but I am just fed up with them! -Doug Reuben@Weslyn.Bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 87 08:55:22 MDT From: William G. Martin Subject: Re: Charges for "unlisting" This probably varies from BOC to BOC, but it is my current understanding that there is no difference in directory assistance/information charges regardless of the status of the inquired-about number. I, too, when they first started charging for this, expected that "frivolous" or unjustified DA calls would be charged for, but those inquiring about new (not yet in the printed listing) or unlisted numbers woud not be charged for. This would be logical and sensible, and could have been easily implemented by giving the DA operators a key to hit that would indicate to the billing equipment whether the call in progress should be free or charged-for. (I would expect the former, as "free" would be the exceptional case, while most calls would cost.) Of course, this wasn't done. I agree with you that Touch-Tone extra charges are unjustified. I don't agree that pulse should be charged for, since it was the telco's decision to use that equipment originally, and their decision to implement tone dialling. All this was done for their own benefit by themselves, so the customers shouldn't pay more for any of it. Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ From: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: England to United States collect: on payphones! Date: 23 Oct 87 15:17:45 GMT Reply-To: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) When I was in high school, a friend of mine and I tried placing collect calls to each other from (adjoining) phone booths just to see what would happen. What happened was I dialed 0-xxx-xxxx, the operator came on, I said "I'm calling collect", and then the line went dead. I assume that operators are on standing orders to just ignore such obvious prank calls and cut off the caller without bothering to argue. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ From: harvard!spdcc!m2c!applix!jim@RUTGERS.EDU (Jim Morton) Date: 22 Oct 87 21:54:17 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: applix!jim From: jim@applix.UUCP (Jim Morton) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: New Service...(actually recording) Message-ID: <613@applix.UUCP> Date: 22 Oct 87 21:54:16 GMT References: <1692@aramis.rutgers.edu> <2149@ihuxv.ATT.COM> <1073@gumby.wisc.edu> <774@tikal.Teltone.COM> Organization: APPLiX Inc., Westboro MA Lines: 6 Summary: phone tap devices That brings up an interesting question...Do those "Phone Tap Detectors" that you see a lot in the Sharper Image and the like catalogs really do anything? They appear to be just a voltage drop detector that screws on the handset in place of the normal cover. Anyone try one of these things? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 23-Oct-87 19:40:55-EDT,9394;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 23-Oct-87 19:09:27 Date: 23 Oct 87 19:09-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #16 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, October 23, 1987 7:09PM Volume 8, Issue 16 Today's Topics: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: cmcl2!phri!dasys1!ecorley@RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Corley) Date: 23 Oct 87 07:15:08 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: dasys1!ecorley From: ecorley@dasys1.UUCP (Eric Corley) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Touch Tone Fee Keywords: touch tones, fees, telco Message-ID: <1766@dasys1.UUCP> Date: 23 Oct 87 07:15:06 GMT Organization: The Big Electric Cat Lines: 108 Some folks were discussing what is actually done to your service when you choose not to pay for touch tones on your telephone line. I thought it might be interesting to put up a copy of the press release that was recently sent out by our magazine, 2600. It's generated quite a bit of interest because we are, in fact, revealing what many of us have known for years--the touch tone fee is a total rip-off. Already this has been featured on several radio programs and is currently being investigated by the New York Public Service Commission. Look for an article in the November issue of Popular Communications. And now here's the press release: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For quite a few years, New York Telephone has been charging customers for touch tone service. We find this to be a very misleading practice, one that not only is unfair to customers, but which threatens to hold back technological advances by actually discouraging the use of touch tones. We represent a very large community of telephone users. Our magazine, 2600, details the many uses and abuses of the common telephone. We have been instrumental in pointing out "bugs" and discrepancies in nearly all of the major long distance companies. Many experts and employees of telephone companies give us insight into current practices and technological advances. It is based upon these consultations that we reach the conclusion that the general public is being misled into paying for a feature that doesn't actually exist. The use of touch tones benefits the customer, but not nearly as much as it benefits the phone company. A standard long distance number that takes 18 seconds to dial on a rotary phone only takes 3 seconds on a typical touch tone phone. This eliminates 15 seconds of non-chargeable dialing time for the phone company. Calls are processed quicker and hence, more calls can be processed in a given time period. This, in turn, means more revenue for the company. (Both rotary pulses and touch tones must be converted to multi-frequency (MF) tones before the call can be processed. In some older locations, touch tones must be converted to pulse before they can be converted into MF tones. This slows down the process somewhat, but the end result is still more advantageous for the phone company--calls are processed quicker. In newer locations, that is, facilities that have been in place since the 1960's, no conversion to pulse is needed.) There are two types of telephone switching systems that are currently in use in most parts of the country. They are crossbar and electronic switching systems (ESS). The crossbar system uses a series of electromechanical switches to provide dial tones and route calls. It lacks the sophistication to distinguish who has paid for touch tone service and who hasn't. The result is that everybody is able to use touch tones and the phone company can do very little about it. In electronic switching systems, a new feature was introduced. The phone company was given the ability to 1) distinguish who had not paid the fee for touch tones and 2) have the central computer ignore any touch tones coming from these customers. So, in effect, the customer is not so much paying for a service as he is paying to avoid being inconvenienced. It is not uncommon for an area to upgrade to an electronic system and find that half their touch tone phones no longer work because of the above practice. This tactic has been very successful in getting customers to pay the extra fee. It should be noted that no extra equipment is needed for the phone company to accept touch tones from a customer. The only additional component is the touch tone phone itself, which the customer is now expected to provide. Every central office is equipped with touch tone readers to begin with; it's a very basic component. The only special treatment goes to those who haven't paid: their touch tones must be treated differently, i.e. ignored. That "service" does not justify a $2.21 monthly charge. And we certainly find the $10.55 "installation" fee to be equally absurd. As we've already pointed out, in crossbar systems, no installation is needed because individual installation isn't possible. And on electronic systems, the only "installation" that is performed is the changing of an "N" to a "Y" on the billing computer to signify yes instead of no. (In fact, most systems don't even require a "Y"--a yes response is assumed.) As we mentioned, all that this really accomplishes is to prevent the customer's touch tones from being shut off. No labor at all is used to keep a customer's touch tones operating. We find it abhorrent that so basic a service should be denied to those who are unwilling or unable to pay a fee for a feature that doesn't really exist. An elderly or handicapped person would find it so much easier to dial a number in an emergency using the touch tone pad rather than the rotary dial, which requires a good deal more coordination--not to mention the fact that the call would be placed up to five times faster. Yet so many are forced to deny themselves this necessity. Many customers are refusing to pay and are sticking to rotary dial phones. Who does this benefit? Not the customer and certainly not the phone company. The only result is slower service and less utilization of our technology. We call on customers of New York Telephone to speak out against this injustice by simply not opting for touch tone service. We ask those who already are paying to cancel their touch tones and, if necessary, use a rotary dial phone instead. We believe that public pressure will play a major role in the reversal of this unfair policy. The people simply will not tolerate having the wool pulled over their eyes any longer. -30- CONTACT: Eric Corley 2600 Magazine PO Box 99 Middle Island, NY 11953 (516) 751-2600 ecorley@dasys1.UUCP -- Eric Corley {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\ Big Electric Cat Public Unix {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!ecorley New York, NY, USA {sun}!hoptoad/ ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 87 14:45:24 EDT (Fri) From: root@hotps.att.com (Admin) To: mtune!rutgers!comp-dcom-telecom Path: hotps!homxb!homxc!sgard From: sgard@homxc.UUCP (S.GARDNER) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Recording calls Summary: If you are recording a call you'd better BEEP Message-ID: <1845@homxc.UUCP> Date: 23 Oct 87 13:28:27 GMT References: <8710211927.AA27985@csib.CSI.COM> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel Lines: 39 In article <8710211927.AA27985@csib.CSI.COM>, lgold@csib.UUCP (Lynn Gold) writes: > As long as ONE of the parties involved in the telephone conversation > knows that the call is being recorded, it's perfectly legal to record > the conversation. In other words, if I feel like taping you, it's okay > because *I* know I'm taping you. > WRONG.... Quoted directly from the New Jersey Bell Tel Book (under Consumer Responsibilities) Recorded calls require a beep tone. If you hear a short "beep" tone on your telephone about every 15 seconds, it means that the that the person with whom you are talking is recording your conversation. Use of a recorder for recording 2 way conversations is permitted only when the recorder is connected physically to the telephone line through recorder-connector equipment which contains the "beep" tone. End quote The rest of the statement basically says that you can request the person not to record the call, which will be confirmed by the removal of the beep tone on the line. Also, certain emergency reporting systems that record the calls (police and fire depts) do not have to have the beep tone. > Re: playing someone's voice over the air -- THEN you MUST have either > verbal or written consent (the former is often done by taping someone > saying it's okay to use their voice over the air) in order to do so. > And you don't have to have the beep tone on that call. The FCC allows calls to be played live and/or recorded for playback without the beep tone. (The tone generator in the recorder-connector is disconnected). > --Lynn Gold > Public Affairs Director > KFJC-FM Sanford Gardner AT&T Bell Labs ihnp4!homxc!sgard ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 24-Oct-87 17:22:43-EDT,10866;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sat 24 Oct 87 17:22:40-EDT Date: 24 Oct 87 16:02-EDT From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #17 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, October 24, 1987 4:02PM Volume 8, Issue 17 Today's Topics: noisy phone lines True Stories Re: England to United States collect: on payphones! Re: Recording calls Ignorant Telephone Company personnel [was Re: Spurious "}" on 1200..] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 23 Oct 87 23:44:23-EDT From: Ben Bishop Subject: noisy phone lines A few months ago (the end of July) after a severe rain storm my telephone line became impossible to use with my modem (a racal vadic 3451 [1200 baud]). I thought the problem would clear up in a couple of days (I thought that some wires got wet somewhere and a dry-spell would solve it), but it has not at all improved over the last 3 months. I have called NE Telephone (I live in Nahant, a town north of Boston), and they listen to the line and it is fine (and it is... for voice). They came out, tested the line; jiggled some wires; asked me to test it and shook their heads. If I did not have my father-in-law's phone available to prove that it wasn't MY equipment that was at fault, they would have just blamed it on me and left it at that. That was a month ago. I have been very busy commuting between New Haven CT and Nahant since then and have not really been able to do anything about this. Since one of my principle jobs is in New Haven, it is *very* important for me to be able to use my phone/modem. About the only idea that I have had is to possibly lug my computer/modem down to the 'network interface' box just to make absolutely sure that it is not related to the inside wiring for my phone... But what do I do then? What type of telecom-speak should I use on the Phone Co. to get them to find out why my line is garbage (for data only) and what recourse do I have if they cannot fix it? Ben Bishop t.sailor @ deep-thought.mit.edu bishop @ athena.mit.edu ------------------------------ From: langz@athena.mit.edu (Lang Zerner) Subject: True Stories Date: 24 Oct 87 04:37:00 GMT Reply-To: langz@athena.mit.edu (Lang Zerner) The following is copied with permission from Computer Update Magazine, a monthly publication of the Boston Computer Society, issue of November/December 1987. It is extracted from the "Off the Grapevine" column of rumors, editorials, and "true facts". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "A New Twist" During the past few months, the BCS's Telecommunications Group has been trying to develop a viable alternative to the FCC's proposal to impose a tariff on computer data networks. The group's work has received so much national attention that the congressional committee that oversees the FCC has asked the BCS to testify before Congress. The BCS is concerned, however, because our nonprofit, tax-exempt status limits our ability to engage in activities that might be considered political lobbying. If the IRS feels that we have stepped outside our educational mission, it could threaten to revoke the Society's charitable status. Thus, when the director of the BCS's Telecommunications Group was told a few days ago that an agent from the IRS had phoned and was waiting on hold to speak with him, he felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. "I'd like to speak with you about your work on the FCC proposal," the agent told our director. An ominous silence followed. "Yes," our director replied. "The IRS is the largest user of one of the leading data networks. If this proposal goes through, we're going to get hurt badly. We could really use the BCS's help." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just thought you all might get a kick out of this. --Lang Lang Zerner langz@athena.mit.edu ...ihnp4!mit-eddie!mit-athena!langz "No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the only misfortune is to do it solemnly" --Michel de Montaigne ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1987 14:08:46-GMT From: bct Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: touch-tone phones in London? Summary: Expires: References: <8710120352.AA04750@garp.mit.edu> Sender: Reply-To: bct@its63b.ed.ac.uk (B Tompsett) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Edinburgh University, U.K. Keywords: In article <8710120352.AA04750@garp.mit.edu> henry@garp.mit.EDU (Henry Mensch) writes: >I'm spending a few weeks in London and I'm curious to know whether or >not I'll be able to use "touch-tone" type phones there to pick up >messages on my answering machine. > No. UK uses pulse dialing. You'll need a dual system type phone. Brian -- > Brian Tompsett. Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, > JCMB, The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, EDINBURGH, EH9 3JZ, Scotland, U.K. > Telephone: +44 31 667 1081 x2711. > JANET: bct@uk.ac.ed.ecsvax ARPA: bct%ecsvax.ed.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk > USENET: bct@ecsvax.ed.ac.uk UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!ecsvax.ed.ac.uk!bct > BITNET: psuvax1!ecsvax.ed.ac.uk!bct or bct%ecsvax.ed.ac.uk@earn.rl.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: konstan@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Joe Konstan) Subject: Re: England to United States collect: on payphones! Date: 24 Oct 87 06:08:23 GMT Reply-To: ernie.Berkeley.EDU!konstan@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Joe Konstan) I remember another trick from my high school days, in NYC, which was since fixed. Back then, the pay phones (which were still a dime) were adapted to signal that money was dropped in using tones (2 for a dime, 5 for a quarter). As some people discovered, the system allowed two very easy ways to make "free" calls: 1) Dial long distance (if you want a local call, dial 1-212-telno)_ and wait for the message asking for money. 2a) Pick up the next phone, put it's receiver to the voice piece of the first, and deposit the money; then hang up the second phone and retrieve your cash. 2b) Record $XXX worth of "quarter droppings" on tape (this was when micro- cassettes just became popular and cheap) and use that to "pay" New York Tel wised up after about six months of this being popular and fixed the phones (and probably fixed the basic flaw for future ones). -- Joe Konstan konstan@ernie.Berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: umix!itivax!chinet!clif@RUTGERS.EDU (Clif Flynt) Subject: Re: Recording calls Date: 23 Oct 87 13:40:51 GMT Reply-To: umix!itivax!chinet!clif@RUTGERS.EDU (Clif Flynt) As an aside of sorts. If you are recording the conversation because you think you are being given the run-around by some shady outfit, that 15 second beep is very effective in putting the Fear-Of-Whatever into them. You may not get evidence of the malfeasance that you were suspecting them of, but it's more likely that they will do what they tell you they'll do this time. The shady types seem less inclined to doubletalk when they know it's being recorded. (They probably think the recorder is an agent of the Better Business Bureau, or the local Bunko Squad.) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ My Opinions are my own. I can't imagine why anyone else would want them. Clif Flynt ihnp4!chinet!clif ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 22 October 1987 17:54-MDT From: ihnp4!ihlpl!jhh@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (Haller) Subject: Ignorant Telephone Company personnel [was Re: Spurious "}" on 1200..] The last time someone fought the battle of the "}", it was discovered that there was a synchronization problem in digital facilities somewhere between the two end points. The 212 modem is particularly sensitive to phase shifts, causing bit errors. Normal voice communications are not sensitive to these shifts, nor are the typical tests run by telephone personnel. From the description of the DMS-100 problem, I would guess that the line interface circuit was missing or inserting extra samples. It is likely that synchronization problems will get worse rather than better, based on divestiture. Most of the following information is based on the publication Notes on the Network, 1980, AT&T, select code 500-029, Section 12. As digital trunks started to be deployed in the network, the need for a master clock to sychronize these systems was evident. AT&T built, and maintains a reference frequency which includes three cesium-beam frequency standards, accurate to within one part in 10^11. This clock is distributed in a strict hierarchy. This reference frequency is the strata 1 clock. It distributes this clock to strata 2 offices (for example, 4ESS (TM)). A 4ESS has a clock with a drift (in the absence of the strata 1 clock) of less than 1 part in 10^10 per day. During normal operations, the slip rate is zero (temperature fluctuations may cause occasional slips). During problems with connections to the strata 1 clock, the slip rate should be less than 1 in 10 hours. During a failure at the extreme design limit of sync problems, the number of slips should not exceed 255 per day, or about one "}" per 6 minutes. Note that this is considered a failure condition, not typical operating conditions. Now for the fun part. Where do telephone companies, such as MCI and Illinois Bell get their reference frequencies? Naturally, MCI does not wish to get their timing from AT&T. Illinois Bell typically would get its timing from its digital trunks to AT&T. The problem comes in when trying to enforce a timing hierarchy, even between local switches. It takes a considerable amount of engineering work to ensure this. The other problem is convincing someone that there is a problem in their network. One phrase that may help the telephone company isolating the problem is asking them to investigate the slip rate that the transmission equipment is reporting. It is unlikely that you can give this information to the person answering the repair phone, as in my experience, all they know about is that you will get charged if they find that the problem is in your wiring. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 26-Oct-87 19:45:17-EST,13365;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Mon 26 Oct 87 19:45:08-EST Date: 26 Oct 87 14:21-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #18 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, October 26, 1987 2:21PM Volume 8, Issue 18 Today's Topics: Re: recording telephone conversations Extra charges for tone service Re: Ignorant Telephone Company personnel [was Re: Spurious "}" on 1200..] Re: (none) In search of ... Re: Recording calls TelCo Time Standards Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #15 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: sdsu!crash.CTS.COM!news@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu From: sdsu!pnet01.cts.com!scotto@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Scott O'Connell) Subject: Re: recording telephone conversations Date: 24 Oct 87 18:56:08 GMT 'C-mon people -- get some facts before you jump to conclusions! Each of you claim the other is wrong in every message I read. Just because *you* think you're right doesn't mean the other person in wrong. Lynn Gold accurately described the laws of California regarding recording a telephone conversation. I'll take a guess that Sanford Gardner looked at his local phone book and said "wrong, wrong, wrong!!" and decided to tell us all that LYNN WAS WRONG, and I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. jsol ACCURATELY stated that the laws vary from state to state. Why shouldn't we have guessed this in the beginning? What other laws are *exactly* the same in all 50 states? I come here for information, normally this information is well researched, quality material that I can make decisions from. Not lately. Scott O'Connell - Datagram Corp. UUCP: {cbosgd hplabs!hp-sdd sdcsvax nosc}... 3297 Sweetwater Springs Blvd #8 ...!crash!pnet01!scotto San Diego, CA 92078-1477 ARPA: crash!pnet01!scotto@nosc.mil 800/235-5030 INET: scotto@pnet01.cts.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Oct 87 20:27:44 EDT From: "Michael A. Patton" Subject: Extra charges for tone service From your TELECOM message dated 23 Oct 1987: Status: O However, if you want a good example of a service that we shouldn't be charged extra for, try touch tone on for size. Touch tone calls are dialed faster, and therefore take up less of the central office's processing time. Perhaps back in the Stroger or crossbar days it made sense to charge extra to cover the cost of installing touch tone dialing equipment, but for ESS offices, people should really pay extra for *pulse*. This would have the additional benefit of hastening the demise of antiquated pulse equipment. Robert Lenoil In fact tone dialing was developed by Bell because it would save money and make it beneficial to replace older equipment. They (the technical types who developed it) proposed that, one CO at a time, the entire Bell System should convert from pulse-only to tone-only service (at NO COST to the subscriber!). This would lower costs, decrease equipment requirements, and other assorted benefits. They even did an economic analysis with the cost of buying everyone a new phone to replace their existing one (in those days they were all leased from Bell anyway), upgrading CO equipment, etc. They determined that the savings would pay for this. Unfortunately, the marketing people then got into the act and said to themselves, "Here is something that the subscriber will see as having a personal benefit, therefore we can get them to pay extra for it." The regulatory agencies, of course, would not let them FORCE people to get a more expensive service. Thus we have the current state of affairs. Mike Patton ------------------------------ From: kaufman@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Marc Kaufman) Subject: Re: Ignorant Telephone Company personnel [was Re: Spurious "}" on 1200..] Date: 25 Oct 87 03:18:11 GMT Reply-To: kaufman@Shasta.stanford.edu (Marc Kaufman) In article jhh@ihlpl.UUCP (Haller) writes: > ...give this information to the person answering the repair >phone, as in my experience, all they know about is that you will get >charged if they find that the problem is in your wiring. "It will be fixed tomorrow before 5 o'clock" My local office just cut over to ESS (from #5 crossbar). Evidently I can now buy a "data guaranteed" line for $$ extra per month. I have not been able to get a guarantee that if "I" have a data guaranteed line, and the other end (computer) has a data guaranteed line, ... that the central office trunks will preserve the data. I have just gone through a very long hassle with the local Telco over 48 InWATS lines that are used for data. The upshot is that "there is no data tariff for WATS", so they refuse to test for impulse noise and other forms of data degradation as long as the circuit can be used for voice. Thanks to deregulation, I discovered that if you get T1 service from the local toll office, you cannot get straight digital passthrough from the toll trunks. The lines are individually broken down to 2-wire analog circuits, sent through the nearest CO, and re-digitized for transmission to the customer! Fun, huh? Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Shasta.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ From: hpscda!hpscdl!hplabs!well!shibumi@seismo.CSS.GOV (Kenton A. Hoover) Subject: Re: (none) Date: 25 Oct 87 09:26:57 GMT Reply-To: hplabs!well!shibumi@seismo.CSS.GOV (Kenton A. Hoover) In article <8710231445.AA01049@hotps.ATT.COM> root@hotps.att.COM (Admin) writes: >In article <8710211927.AA27985@csib.CSI.COM>, lgold@csib.UUCP (Lynn Gold) writes: >> As long as ONE of the parties involved in the telephone conversation >> knows that the call is being recorded, it's perfectly legal to record >> the conversation. In other words, if I feel like taping you, it's okay >> because *I* know I'm taping you. >> > WRONG! OK, boys and girls, lets get this straight. To cite the contents of phone books is silly. Each state has rules for teh operation of the phone system in their state ("tariff") and these matters, whether it be wiretap, phone recording, rates, etc. will VARY WIDELY. Being in the same RBOC makes no difference (California and Nevada have a different set of regs). So, what is true in California may not be true in NY. Unless you are citing CFRs, it dont apply to me. -- ! Kenton A. Hoover {hoptoad,hplabs,lll-lcc,ptsfa}!well!shibumi ! ! SNAIL: 1748 Clement Street ! ! Prescriptive Technology San Francisco, CA 94121 ! ! "Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb!" ! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Oct 87 10:17:52 PST From: irwin.pa@Xerox.COM Subject: In search of ... Reply-to: Irwin.pa@Xerox.COM In doing some work with habitual and new users of audio-video links (especially Widcom + half duplex audio)*, I have come to wonder how people reacted when they first experienced telephones. Can you refer me to diaries, stories, descriptions, studies, news paper accounts, etc. of people's experience of the phone when it was first introduced (or as it has become available in third world countries)? Many thanks -- Susan Irwin *I am currently studying one particular link (at Xerox PARC) focusing on how people manage amazingly smooth and coordianted conversations/meetings given the somewhat limited audio and video capacity. People new to the link report more trouble (both technically and conversationally) using it then people who use it frequently. I am wondering if people new to the telephone had the same sort of experience. ------------------------------ From: ihnp4!homxc!sgard@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (S.GARDNER) Subject: Re: Recording calls Date: 23 Oct 87 13:28:27 GMT In article <8710211927.AA27985@csib.CSI.COM>, lgold@csib.UUCP (Lynn Gold) writes: > As long as ONE of the parties involved in the telephone conversation > knows that the call is being recorded, it's perfectly legal to record > the conversation. In other words, if I feel like taping you, it's okay > because *I* know I'm taping you. > WRONG.... Quoted directly from the New Jersey Bell Tel Book (under Consumer Responsibilities) Recorded calls require a beep tone. If you hear a short "beep" tone on your telephone about every 15 seconds, it means that the that the person with whom you are talking is recording your conversation. Use of a recorder for recording 2 way conversations is permitted only when the recorder is connected physically to the telephone line through recorder-connector equipment which contains the "beep" tone. End quote The rest of the statement basically says that you can request the person not to record the call, which will be confirmed by the removal of the beep tone on the line. Also, certain emergency reporting systems that record the calls (police and fire depts) do not have to have the beep tone. > Re: playing someone's voice over the air -- THEN you MUST have either > verbal or written consent (the former is often done by taping someone > saying it's okay to use their voice over the air) in order to do so. > And you don't have to have the beep tone on that call. The FCC allows calls to be played live and/or recorded for playback without the beep tone. (The tone generator in the recorder-connector is disconnected). > --Lynn Gold > Public Affairs Director > KFJC-FM Sanford Gardner AT&T Bell Labs ihnp4!homxc!sgard ------------------------------ From: "Kurt F. Sauer" Subject: TelCo Time Standards Date: 26 Oct 87 05:13:04 GMT Reply-To: "Kurt F. Sauer" Readers of Telecom: Cesium-based and other atomic timekeeping standards aren't prohibitively expensive today--although synchronization and phase-shift remain serious problems. Where, physically, are the time standards for the networks kept? For example, (though I have forgotten the name of the town for the moment) AT&T Communications, Inc. maintains a time standard in central Missouri. I have pictures of it--it's unimpressive...just a fancy clock with no direct indication of the time of day (sigh). If the other carriers have their own clocks, where are they? And does AT&T maintain other (backup or auxiliary) network clocks elsewhere? Net- works aren't like power grids in their ability to sink or swim instantly based on synchronization; it's a finer art. Kurt F. Sauer Tulsa, OK ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Oct 87 23:31:37 EST From: ssr@tumtum.cs.umd.edu (Dave Kucharczyk) Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #15 Phone tap detectors: Most of the phone tap detectors that are commercially sold are just voltage drop detectors and completly worthless since they won't even pick up a lineman's "butt-set". The only way to be reasonably sure a line isn't tapped is to disconnect both ends and put an signal generator on one end and an oscilliscope on the other end and check the signal loss at several frequencies and then store these values for the next time a sweep is done. One could also use a sweep generator and a spectrum analyzer for a more complete and accurate record, but none of these methods are fool proof because humidity, temperature and other outside conditions can cause impedance changes that would cause one to suspect that an 'addition' has been made to the line. The best way would be to terminate one end with a purely resistive 600 ohm impedance (ie a 600 ohm carbon resistor) and use a time- domain reflectometer. This device sends out short pulses of RF and then listens for reflections and shows them on a screen (ie reflected power vs. time). The 600 ohm termination on the end of the line shows up as the largest peak and any impedance changes along the line (ie terminal connections,cable splices taps) show up as smaller peaks between the start of the trace and the termination peak. This also gives one a relative distance to the suspected tap. The phone company has automated testing apparatus that will give a nice printout of line impedance, capacitance etc. (that's how they know how many phones you have on your line, since every ringer adds impedance to the line) but I wouldn't bother to try to pry such info from them. Even with all this if a tap is well designed it is almost impossible to find. A very high resistance input with low capacitance/inductance would go unnoticed by any of these methods. (ie a FET input transistor amp has about 10 Meg input resistance with 2-10 pf input capacitance and would be totaly hidden to all but the most sensitive instruments.) ssr ssr ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 28-Oct-87 22:31:25-EST,7233;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Wed 28 Oct 87 22:31:22-EST Date: 28 Oct 87 21:02-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #19 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, October 28, 1987 9:02PM Volume 8, Issue 19 Today's Topics: Re: Subscriber Line Interfaces (SLIC) characteristics ? dialling patterns Ringing Generators Re: Request for Information Marketing a little-known (to the average joe) "feature" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: decuac!aplcen!casemo!brian@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Brian Cuthie ) Subject: Re: Subscriber Line Interfaces (SLIC) characteristics ? Date: 26 Oct 87 22:56:02 GMT In article <159@vema.lamont.LDGO.Columbia.edu>, dale@lamont.UUCP (dale chayes) writes: > > I am (reluctantly) doing an interface between a PBX (probably a Mitel SX-20) > and a Magnavox MX-211 INMARSAT (ship earth station) and am in need of a (the) > reference that defines (electrikly) a Subscriber Line (SLIC?.) > > It seems to me that the 'thing to do' is to supply a current source (as if > there was a 'local office' in my 4 to 2 conversion box, and detect 'off hook' > by from the current flow. > > Comments, reccomendations, and a reference are welcome. Dale, you forgot to mention which side of the PBX you would like to interface to. If you want to interface on the instrument side (ie. where a phone would normally go) then you must make something that looks like a phone to the PBX. This really isn't too hard. You just need to have a two wire interface that has an impedance of about 600 ohms and a DC resistance of about 200 ohms or less. This is usually done best through a transformer. To my knowledge, Mitel uses their MH88500 SLIC as the interface on that end. (You can get the specs on that part from Mitel. They sell it in the open market and it's in their data book. I've used them in my own PBX and they're quite nice.) If, rather, you would like to connect to the trunk end of the PBX (the interface that usually connects to the phone company), then you need to build something that looks like a phone line. It should be a 2 or 4 wire interface (depending on the Mitel trunk interface) and it should be capable of supplying about 24 volts and 30 ma into a 200 ohm DC load. It should also have an impedance of 600 ohms. Depending on the requirements of the Mitel PBX you could actually use their MH88500 SLIC. Really, it would be best to get the Mitel data book and look at their SLIC. It will provide some useful information regardless of which interface you actually have to build. Hope this helps... Cheers, Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brian Cuthie CASE Communications Columbia, Md 21046 (301) 290 - 7443 ------------------------------ From: rochester!moscom!de@RUTGERS.EDU (Dave Esan) Subject: dialling patterns Date: 28 Oct 87 17:17:05 GMT Over on rec.arts.tv there has been on ongoing discussion of a telephone number that Denise Huxtable called on "A Different World". Strangely, to call Brooklyn she dialled, so some one claims, 01-212-nxx-xxxx. It has been noted that Brooklyn in is 718, and that 01 is the prefix to call internationally using the operator. However, the following message arrived recently: -- In Georgia, the state Denise's collage is located, you must dial -- 1-area code-telephone number, to call a long distance number, If -- you need operator assistance you must dial 01-area code-number. -- For internationl operator assistance you dial 00. Does anyone know if this is true? I had thought that the prefixes 1, 0, 011, 01, and 10, were universal in their usage, and now that DC has changed to require 1+ dialling, universal in their need. Furthermore, has anybody heard of dialling 0 for the intralata operator and 00 for the interlata operator? Thanks. -- rochester \ David Esan | moscom ! de ritcv/ ------------------------------ From: decuac!aplcen!casemo!brian@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Brian Cuthie ) Subject: Ringing Generators Date: 27 Oct 87 15:12:01 GMT I am looking for a source of about 6 old 1A2 key system power supplies. In particular, I am looking for ringing generators. These are usually in the 20 to 30 hz, 90 VAC, 50 ma. or more variety. They are almost always frequency dividers or filters. (sample weco #s 20B2, 118A, 118B etc.) HELP! I'm desperate ! These are for a home project and have nothing to do with my employer. If you have any source or leads, please give me a call or send email. Thanks ! Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brian Cuthie CASE Communications Columiba, Md 21046 (301) 290 - 7443 ------------------------------ From: decuac!aplcen!casemo!brian@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Brian Cuthie ) Subject: Re: Request for Information Date: 27 Oct 87 14:57:09 GMT In article <8710222215.AA13338@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, MJK2660@RITVM.BITNET (Mike Koziol) writes: > I work for the RIT Campus Safety Department and we are interested in > placing emergency telephones around the campus and in parking lots. > Our problem is that digging a trench to run a pair of wires to a phone > in the middle of a parking lot is prohibitively expensive. I'd like > to find a source of telephones that you sometimes see along the sides of > the road on interstates. I've called several suppliers and everyone has > heard of such a system but no one knows where to get one. I'd like a The easiest way to find out may just be to drive out and find one. Get out of your car and look to see who makes it. If it doesn't say, then call the State Highway Administration. They'll be able to tell you for sure (if you can talk to anyone but the front end loader driver :-) Cheers, Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brian Cuthie CASE Communications Columbia, Md 21046 (301) 290 - 7443 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Oct 87 16:13:12 EST From: henry@garp.mit.edu (Henry Mensch) Subject: Marketing a little-known (to the average joe) "feature" I got a letter recently from American Express offering a service called "Expressphone." It costs nothing to sign up, you fill out the slip (complete with AmEx account number), return it, and they send you a MCI charge card (whatevertheycallit) and a "five-digit code number" which you dial (when using your home phone) before your long distance number. This sounds suspiciously like a 10??? number. Anyone know if my suspicions are correct here? # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # {ames,cca,rochester,harvard,mit-eddie}!garp!henry ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 31-Oct-87 22:20:59-EST,11970;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sat 31 Oct 87 22:20:55-EST Date: 31 Oct 87 19:50-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #20 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, October 31, 1987 7:50PM Volume 8, Issue 20 Today's Topics: Re: Marketing a little-known (to the average joe) "feature" Submission for comp-dcom-telecom wireless call boxes phone co. does zipcode/phone-prefix correlation? Re: dialling patterns ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Oct 87 00:44:16 EST From: jsol@bu-it.bu.edu (Jon Solomon) Subject: Marketing a little-known (to the average joe) "feature" No, the numbers are different. You dial MCI's direct number (some 267-xxxx in Boston), and key in the 5 digits. If you get 10222 you've got a freak code and EVERYBODY WILL BE TRYING TO CRACK IT, so get in touch with MCI or AMEX Or whatever and get that code changed! --jsol ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Oct 87 04:06:04 EST From: USEREAFJ%mts.rpi.edu@itsgw.rpi.edu Bell Canada Calling Card Service - - Just an minor question (I think): On numerous trips to Toronto and Vancouver a few years ago, (1985/6), Ih noticed that all Calling Card Service is handled by the operator. IE, there is no automated Calling Card system to handle 0+ calls. Even in the most remote areas of the US there seems to be automated 0+ service , and even in some exchanges not equiped for Touch Tone service (like many areas in eastern Springfield, Mass) there is automated Calling Card service. (Pretty silly since an operator has to come on anyhow. I guess they did this for the Charge-A-Calls, which in these non-tone exchanged seem to have their Touch Tones converted to pulse in order to initially get to the automated Calling Card Service. Its really weird using a Charge-A-Call from a Crossbar, no 950 service, you have to dial 0-800 to make an 800 call, etc...!) In any event, it would seem if Bell (NE Tel) could do this for certain Springfield exchanges, then Bell Canada could certainly implemeny automated Calling Card service up in Toronto, where I suspect there is a greater demand for Calling Card and 0+ services than therer is in Chicopee, Mass (near Springfield). Doesn't the automated service save Bell some money? Seems as if it would free a lot of operator-assist time..... Secondly, speaking of Canada, I was looking through a Toronto book recently, and saw no reference made to Custom Calling Services, such as Call-Waiting, Call-Forwarding, Speed-Dial and Three-Way-Calling. (These are the 'standard' ones. Pac*Bell offers "Call-Hold" and "Call-Waiting-Block" , which is not that standard, yet....) Are these services available there? Or has Bell Canada been somewhat slow in implementing Custom Calling as well? Guess thats it...Any responses would be appreciated! Thanks, -Doug Reuben@Weslyn.Bitnet (please don't repsond to address in header...thanks!) ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Marketing a little-known (to the average joe) "feature" Date: Thu, 29 Oct 87 09:50:21 -0500 From: Daniel Long I subscribe to Expressphone so I can tell you a bit about it. In my exchange, which doesn't yet have equal-access, you get a local phone number to call and an account number to dial at the "second" dial tone before dialing your long distance number. The calls, which I gather go through MCI, show up on your monthly Amex card bill as yet another purchase (with full AT&T style billing detail). You also get a 950 and 1-800 number from which you can do AT&T calling-card type calls (the calling-card number is your home phone number plus a 4-digit extension that is different from the AT&T card's). It would seem a logical extension to Expressphone as I know it to convert those services to 10xxx calling (where available) but I don't have first-hand experience with that. Dan Long BBN Laboratories long@bbn.com (My only connection with Expressphone or Amex is that I send them money every month. They certainly don't send me money.) ------------------------------ From: im4u!ut-sally!ut-ngp!uniq!rjnoe@RUTGERS.EDU Date: 29 Oct 87 21:50:51 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: uniq!rjnoe From: rjnoe@uniq.UUCP (Roger J. Noe) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Marketing a little-known (to the average joe) "feature" Keywords: Expressphone (MCI) Message-ID: <334@uniq.UUCP> Date: 29 Oct 87 21:50:48 GMT References: <8710282113.AA00956@garp.mit.edu> Organization: Uniq Digital Technologies, Batavia, IL Lines: 28 In article <8710282113.AA00956@garp.mit.edu>, henry@GARP.MIT.EDU (Henry Mensch) writes: > I got a letter recently from American Express offering a service > called "Expressphone." It costs nothing to sign up, you fill > out the slip (complete with AmEx account number), return it, and > they send you a MCI charge card (whatevertheycallit) and a "five-digit > code number" which you dial (when using your home phone) before > your long distance number. > > This sounds suspiciously like a 10??? number. Anyone know if my > suspicions are correct here? I don't think so. I have Expressphone and the only thing like that I've seen is the authorization code you can use when traveling. The card (I think they called it Travelnet) is just something you can write your code on for a reminder. My MCI service is "1+" from my home, making it as convenient as any common carrier can be. The line quality is top-notch, often better than what I hear using that other phone company. The charges are itemized with my American Express bill. It's the smallest charge on there. I have no financial interest in MCI, American Express, or any of their parent or subsidiary corporations; I'm just a very satisfied MCI Expressphone customer. The views expressed in this article are entirely my own and should not be construed otherwise. -- Roger Noe {ihnp4|clyde}!uniq!rjnoe Uniq Digital Technologies +1 312 879 1566 Batavia, Illinois 60510 41:50:56 N. 88:18:35 W. ------------------------------ From: allyn@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Allyn Fratkin) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 87 18:46:43 PST Subject: wireless call boxes I was just reading in the UCSD student newspaper that the UCSD Police Department has just installed some new wireless call boxes on campus. they are made by Motorola, and cost $3300 each. Apparently these things are very revolutionary, because the article says that UCSD is the first university in California to install these boxes. I don't know anything else about them, but they are supposed to be very easy to install and use. For more information, you can call Al Jenkins at the UCSD Police Department, (619) 534-4361. The article mentions that many universities are interested in the boxes and that Jenkins gets a lot of calls about them. It also says that a few of the other UC campuses are going to install them. Allyn Fratkin allyn@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu EMU Project or U.C. San Diego {ucbvax, decvax, ihnp4}!sdcsvax!allyn ------------------------------ From: ssc-vax!clark@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Roger Clark Swann) Date: 29 Oct 87 18:10:51 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ssc-vax!clark From: clark@ssc-vax.UUCP (Roger Clark Swann) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: RE: Extra charges for tone service Keywords: dollars, rip-off Message-ID: <1490@ssc-vax.UUCP> Date: 29 Oct 87 18:10:50 GMT Distribution: na Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA Lines: 34 ************************************* I just read Mike Patton's note regarding the changes for tone service by the telcos. It got me to thinking about the dollars involved from the local phone company's point of view. Here is a short example: > approx. population of the State of Washington 20 million > the general residential tariff for tone service = $ .65 per month (businesses pay much more, and some locations/operating co are allowed to charge more, etc.) > assume that one third of the population has a tone line then -> one third of 20 million = 6.67 million tone lines 6.67M X $.65 = $4.33M per month $4.33M X 12 months = $52M per year That's $52M dollars per year to the various operating companies in Washington State with no extra expenses incurred.... I thinks we are getting ripped off !! > You should work out the numbers for your own state.... I would like to write the State Utilities Commission with the goal to get this silly tariff removed from the books once and for all ! If Mike could post the source reference of the Bell System study, on converting to tone sevice, he talked about in his article, it would be a good piece of ammunition to shoot down this tariff. Roger Swann uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!clark ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 87 9:50:40 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: phone co. does zipcode/phone-prefix correlation? Some phone books covering rural areas have a separate section for each phone prefix, with an occasional case of 2 prefixes in the same territory. Because the phone prefix won't necessarily match the mailing address, it is necessary to preface the white pages with a community list which says "for (community) see (exchange place name)". Some phone prefixes have place names which are nonpostal names, and when you get out along the rural delivery routes you may find your mail coming from one town and your phone line going to a town in the opposite direction. How much work goes into this? ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 87 04:03:23 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom From: mikel@flmis06.att.com (Mikel Manitius) Path: flmis06!mikel From: mikel@flmis06.att.com (Mikel Manitius) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Ignorant Telephone Company personnel Message-ID: <306@flmis06.att.com> Date: 30 Oct 87 04:03:22 GMT References: <2145@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> Organization: AT&T, Altamote Springs, FL Lines: 15 In article jhh@ihlpl.UUCP (Haller) writes: > ...give this information to the person answering the repair > phone, as in my experience, all they know about is that you will get > charged if they find that the problem is in your wiring. The "}" noise that you are receiving on a local call is caused by unsynchronized clocks on two ends on a digital trunk between two COs. Have fun getting them to fix it, especially if the two COs are not part of the same Operating Company. (ie: Bell South, and United "mickey mouse" Tel.) M -- Mikel Manitius @ AT&T mikel@codas.att.com ------------------------------ From: dave@cs.ucla.edu Subject: Re: dialling patterns Date: 30 Oct 87 08:17:47 GMT Reply-To: dave@cs.ucla.edu (David Shrader) It is common to see both 00 and 01 used in different areas to access a long distance carrier for either operator or direct calls. The 1+ dialling requirement you find in DC and a couple of years ago required in other states is so that you can start having local exchanges that look like area codes: 416, for example. The switching office can no longer look at the second digit dialled to see if it is 0/1 and determine long distance. Hence, the 1+. Dave Shrader dave@cs.ucla.edu ..!ucla-cs!dave ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 2-Nov-87 22:21:24-EST,1468;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Mon 2 Nov 87 22:21:22-EST Date: 2 Nov 87 21:11-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #21 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, November 2, 1987 9:11PM Volume 8, Issue 21 Today's Topics: AT&T Phone Model 7405 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 31 Oct 87 23:36:01 EDT From: Mike Koziol Subject: AT&T Phone Model 7405 This past year we had an AT&T system 85 switch installed on campus and an AT&T model 7405 (with display panel) telephone was installed in my office. I was told at the outside that the phone was capable of many options, and to never unplug it as it may not work when I plugged it in again. Since I'm basically a curious sort a friend and my self recently disassembled it and found two rather large circuit boards populated nicely with lots of chips and a couple of EPROMS. I have a few questions: what "processing" does this phone do, what is stored in memory, how volatile is the memory, what is the phone capable of, and finally why shouldn't I unplug it? Any ideas? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 8-Nov-87 13:37:38-EST,8884;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sun 8 Nov 87 13:37:35-EST Date: 8 Nov 87 12:09-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #22 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, November 8, 1987 12:09PM Volume 8, Issue 22 Today's Topics: telephone tap detection re: AT&T 7405 (and other digital) phones ULTRIX-X.25 Connectivity Re: Marketing a little-known (to the average joe) "feature" gte t212a 1200 baud modem Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Robert Lucky PEN (U.S. Postal Service) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 2 Nov 87 22:38:45 est From: mark@cbterra.mis.oh.att.com (Mark Horton) Subject: telephone tap detection I would appreciate a brief rundown on phone taps and how easy they are to detect. Specifically, Radio Shack sells two boxes, one of which plugs into the line in series and automatically records off the line when some phone downstream goes off hook; the other plugs in like an extension and detects anything on the line going off hook. Do these recorders have any electronic effect on the line? Could a garden variety "Telephone Tap Detector" ($49 list, with a red and green light) detect these, or do they only detect off-hook extensions? Would the equipment a good private detective has be able to detect them? Please respond by mail to mark@stargate.com, or if your mailer can't handle MX, to stargate.com!mark@rutgers.edu. Thanks, Mark ------------------------------ From: goldstein%delni.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) Date: 3 Nov 87 09:07 Subject: re: AT&T 7405 (and other digital) phones re: V8I21 question about the 7405, No, you shouldn't unplug it. The 7405, like its forebears the Rolm ETS, the SL-1set, the AT&T ECTS and other electronic sets, is electrically not much at all like a Plain Black Phone. There are two major differences. One, the 7405 (like other AT&T 74- and 75-series sets, but not the 71-, 72- and 73-series) uses digital transmission. There's a codec in the set which converts the analog microphone signal into a 64kbps stream, and vice versa to the earpiece. More important is the way all of these electronic sets do their signaling. They don't use conventional analog techniques (relays, HV ringers, etc.); instead, there's bandwidth muxed into the digital link which carries signaling messages. The 74-series uses AT&T's proprietary link format, the newer 75-series is an ISDN-based format (more standarized). In the 7405, when you pick up (or hang up) or press a button or whatever, a message is sent down the signaling channel. When the switch wants to signal you, it sends a message up the signaling channel which the set translates to mean things like "ring" and "display FWD 6399". Now even when the set is idle, there's a constant stream of bits on the wire. If you unplug the set, the PBX line card won't see the bits coming from your set, and will assume that something's wrong, sound an alarm (probablay write it to a maintenance log in memory) and possibly shut down your line card (I don't know if it actually does that but it might). And if it does shut down your line card, your set won't work when you plug it back in. Either way, the maintenance folks will be peeved. So the circuit cards in the set do voice digitization, message-oriented signaling (rather primitive actually), multiplexing and line driving of the digital link back to the switch. No wonder these cost more than 2500 sets. fred ------------------------------ From: geac!drmike@uunet.UU.NET (J. Michael Bennett) Subject: ULTRIX-X.25 Connectivity Date: 3 Nov 87 16:29:31 GMT We are running ULTRIX 2.0 and are interested in getting reliable X.25 access out to a PSDN (such as Datapac, the Canadian X.25 public carrier), from C application programs. We would appreciate hearing from anyone out there who has had good and/or bad experiences. The products we are considering include; 1) async PADs such as MICOM Box 2, Dynateck MonoPAD, Motorola 625. 2) board level solutions such as SSI/DEC and Software Kinetics 3) Ethernet gateways (TCP based) such as Scanet, CMC DRN3200 and DG Pleae let us know what you have experienced and if there are others out there that we have missed. We will post a summary to the net if the responses warrant it. Thanx a bunch in advance. ------------------------------ From: wb8foz@netsys.UUCP (David Lesher) Subject: Re: Marketing a little-known (to the average joe) "feature" Date: 4 Nov 87 02:23:54 GMT Reply-To: wb8foz@netsys.UUCP (David Lesher,Contributor) Amex/Expressphone/MCI offers several different services in one, if you request them properly. A) 10222 service from YOUR phone upon request. They of course only seem to mention the 1+ service. B) 950-1022 + 0 + AC + 7d + 14 digit code from other phones. A variation on this is the 800 access if your CO is 'dumb', but the charges are a lot higher. The desirable aspect of this is that within many metro areas inc DC/VA/MD, calls from any phone in YOUR area carry *no* surcharge. In other words, 950 calls cost the same as calls via 10222. Thus if you LOVE dialing, you can just get the latter service. What interests me is that when you go to sign up, the Expressphone operator has on-line access to your BOC records, including non-pubs. She knows your name and address from your #. BTW ever make a collect call via 10222? Seems as if there is no ANI, or readout for the ALD operator. Thus you dial, give her BOTH #s and wait. Mine got the two confused, and insisted my party was busy...... ------------------------------ From: fracus@bend.ling.ucsd.edu (Kurt Jensen BEND Operator Account) Subject: gte t212a 1200 baud modem Date: 4 Nov 87 09:10:29 GMT Reply-To: bend!fracus@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Kurt Jensen) I have a GTE T212A 1200 baud modem. Please! I have no clue what to send to this modem to get it to send, dial, or fart sideways. All I can do is get it to loopback. Can anyone send me a summary of the protocol to use it? Any information would be appreciated, even if you just tell me how rotten it is. Thanks. -Kurt (fracus%bend@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu or fracus@bend.uucp) (whatever works) ------------------------------ From: Guy Middleton Date: 4 Nov 87 20:26:44 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: watmath!gamiddleton From: gamiddleton@watmath.waterloo.edu (Guy Middleton) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: custom calling in Canada Message-ID: <15399@watmath.waterloo.edu> Date: 4 Nov 87 20:26:43 GMT Distribution: comp Organization: MFCF Lines: 10 Doug Reuben (I think) noticed that Custon Calling is not mentioned in the Toronto phone book, and wondered if we have it here. I checked in my book (for Waterloo-Guelph, just west of Toronto); it's not there either. I do have my most recent phone bill on my desk here. Included with it is an advertising insert, telling me how wonderful Custom Calling is and why I should get it now. We have call-waiting, call-forwarding, and speed-call, and have had them for years. -Guy Middleton, University of Waterloo Institute for Computer Research gamiddleton@math.waterloo.edu, watmath!gamiddleton ------------------------------ Subject: Robert Lucky Date: Thu, 05 Nov 87 14:34:46 -0500 From: M C Srivas Does anyone know where I could access papers published by Rob Lucky? His papers will most probably deal with limitations, etc. of the various optical networking technologies. Thanks. Srivas. ______________________________________________________________________________ Network: ARPA: srivas@udel.edu BITNET: srivas@udel.edu CSNET: srivas%udel.edu@relay.cs.net UUCP: ...!ihnp4!berkeley -\ ...!allegra!berkeley -->!srivas@udel.edu ...!harvard -/ ______________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Nov 87 16:39:54 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: PEN (U.S. Postal Service) In zipcode directory of Airport Mail Facilities, I see commercial telephone numbers followed by other numbers using PEN where the commercial area code would appear (as in the FTS). What does PEN stand for? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 21-Nov-87 13:45:42-EST,8002;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Sat 21 Nov 87 13:45:39-EST Date: 21 Nov 87 12:57-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #23 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, November 21, 1987 12:57PM Volume 8, Issue 23 Today's Topics: signature by wire Touch-tone to rotary conversion DIALING is the exception... no ringing on line Two extensions via three wires? Where can U.S. modems be used outside U.S? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Subject: signature by wire Date: 8 Nov 87 23:14:48 GMT I was in a store the other day and saw an interesting gizmo (not for sale; but as something they use). There is piece of paper (actually, a blank sales slip) in a holder, with a pen above it. The pen is attached to the rest of the box via two straight links, roughly at right angles to each other, attached near the tip, sort of like a pantograph. The other ends of the links disapear into the body of the box. The links are free to move as you move the pen. Coming out of the box was a wire, going to a 42A block and thence to what looks like a run of regular 4-conductor station wire. The box had a name on it, something like "Tele-Autograph". Obviously, the idea is that you sign your name with the pen and the box reads the movements of the pen and duplicates them, at the other end of the wire, where you signature can be recorded, or compared to a file copy. The first time I remember seeing one of these must have been 15 years ago. I remember playing with it; seems that when you put the pen back in the holder, the sales slip is ejected and some light flashes; this caused various store-manager types to come over and remove me from the vicinity of the machine. When I tried playing with the one I saw recently, nothing exciting happend; possibly it wasn't turned on? Does anybody know anything about these? Is there some standard for what the phone interface looks like? What happens at the other end of the wire? Does a mechanical pen follow your movements and duplicate your signature? Is the tracing stored digitally? Any and all info would be appreciated. Do they actually still use these things? Seems that with the advances in digiter-table technology, these mechanical boxes would be obsolete by now. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Nov 87 14:21:23 EST From: Jeffrey C Honig Subject: Touch-tone to rotary conversion Yesterday I signed a lease on an apartment in Newfield, NY, a couple of miles outside of Ithaca. I called today to arrange for phone service and was shocked to learn that the Newfield exchange does not support touch-tone service at all. None of my 4 or 5 phones supports pulse dialing, neither does my "Demon Dialer". New York Telephone claims that they target the end of 1988 for having all the exchanges in the area up to date but I don't know if I could stay sane for a year without touch-tone. I have been thinking that I could make good use of a device that I could put in the phone line after the demarcation point that would receive the touch-tone signals and convert them to pulses. Has anyone ever heard of such a device? Any leads on where I could purchase one? Any experience with such a device. Thanks much. Jeff ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 87 12:08 PST From: William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp Subject: DIALING is the exception... There are a couple of interesting definitions from the Webster' International Dictionary following: DIAL TELEPHONE: a telephone from which connnections may be automatically completed without the aid of an exchange operator by revolving a dial marked with nubmers and letters into positions corresponding to the units of the desired telephone number. DIAL: a disk usually with a knob or slot that may be turned to make electrical connections or to regulate the operation of a machine and typically with a series of makings around its border to serve as a guide for the operation. It has been bothering me that people still refer to dialing on a push button phone. How should we really refer to it? "I'll trying pushing your number!"? ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%cmsa.Berkeley.EDU@Berkeley.EDU Date: Tue, 10 Nov 87 15:22:32 PST Subject: no ringing on line MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 11/10/87 15:22:30 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Subject: no ringing on line To: comp-dcom-telecom@ucbvax I was calling another business today and got no action; no ringing, no fast or slow busy. I reported this to pac bell via 611 and got this puzzling comment from them: "Yes, we show this as a problem, probably on their switchboard. We will check it and if it's a problem in our lines we will fix it." Now this surprises me. It seems to mean that under current multi-company situations, the intra-lata carrier can encounter some end-user line situations which are blocked or dead, and not return any signal (ring, busy, recording, intercept) if it's the "fault" of customer equipment. Is this true, or is the repair operator jazzing me? ( Doug Mosher ) ( 257 Evans, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, 415/642-5823 ) j no ringing on line ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Nov 87 22:00:55 EST From: Chet Edelman Subject: Two extensions via three wires? Reply-To: Chet Edelman I have a situation where I want to have two extensions carried by three wires. I have a four-wire cable going between floors, with two of the wires shorted together. It would be much easier to use the existing cable than to rip it out and string a new one. Is it possible to make the two lines share a wire, is there a common ground? If it is possible, which should I make common. I know there is something called tip and ring, but how do I tell one from another? Please send mail directly to me, I'll summarize. Thanks. -- Chet Edelman "Here am I" Interleaf Inc. 10 Canal Park coe@umb.EDU (coe%umb.edu@relay.cs.NET) Cambridge Ma 02141 {sun!sunne!ileaf!io!hineni,harvard!umb}!coe (617)577-9813x3425 ------------------------------ Date: Wed 18 Nov 87 09:27:23-PST From: Ted Shapin Subject: Where can U.S. modems be used outside U.S? We are interested in dial-up communications with a number of locations outside the U.S. Do you know if Hayes compatible modems can legally be used to dial directly to the U.S. from any of these countries, or if not, what types of modems can be used to communicate over dial-up either to the U.S. or to local international carriers? Carolina, Puerto Rico Mexico City, Mexico High Wycombe, England Galaway, Ireland Glenrothes, Scotland Paris, France Birkerod, Denmark Mijdrecht, Holland Oslo, Norway Munich, Germany Stockholm, Sweden Vienna, Austria Milan, Italy Geneva, Switzerland Madrid, Spain Johannesburg, S. Africa Singapore Taiwan Hong Kong Tokyo, Japan Sydney, Australia ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 3-Dec-87 21:52:16-EST,8601;000000000000 Mail-From: DIXON created at 3-Dec-87 21:33:16 Date: 3 Dec 87 21:33-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #24 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, December 3, 1987 9:33PM Volume 8, Issue 24 Today's Topics: Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #23 ISDN Temporarily out of service Re: no ringing on line ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Nov 87 13:45:34 PST (Sunday) From: Thompson.PA@Xerox.COM Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #23 Roy- Tel-Autograph has been around forever. I remember first seeing them around 20 years ago and they were old then. My understanding is that they were all analog and that the pantograph arms controlled potentiometers in the transmitter. I don't know whether they just transmitted a variable DC voltage or if they varied a frequency. It was basically a remote handwriting scheme. When you finished you pushed the stylus/pen in the holder and it did a paper feed at each end. They were used fairly heavily in factory floor applications especially in nosiy enviroments like steel mills. I don't know whether they are sill around or whether they ever updated teh product to digital signalling. I seriously doubt if there was ever a "standard" for signalling since it was a propriatary product. Geoff Geoffrey O. Thompson Xerox Corporation 475 Oakmead Parkway Sunnyvale, CA 94086 U.S.A Telephone: (408) 737-4690 ARPA Mail: Thompson.OSBUNorth@Xerox.COM ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 23 November 1987 06:57-MST From: SNELSON@STL-HOST1.ARPA Subject: ISDN I WOULD LIKE TO START SOME DIALOG ON ISDN. MY FIRST PARTICULAR HANG UP IS WITH THE WIRING SCHEME. 6 OF THE 8 CONDUCTORS TO AN RJ45 TYPE JACK ARE ASSIGNED (B+D). I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE UNASSIGNED ASSIGNED AS POWER -12V TO +12V TO POWER EQUIPMENT. TO MANY OF THE NEW NETWORKING SCHEMES REQUIRE POWER OUTLETS TO MATCH COMM EQUIPMENT HANGING ON THE END OF THE WIRE. ANOTHER THING I THINK SHOULD BE LOOKED AT IN MORE DETAIL IS POWER AND ESPECIALLY GROUNDING. FIPS 94 IS POSSIBLY THE BEST DOCUMENT WRITTEN TO DATE ON THIS SUBJECT AND A LOT OF THINGS I SEE BEING TALKED ABOUT SEEM TO BE RELATED TO NOISE DUE TO IMPROPER GROUNDING TECHNIQUES, ESPECIALLY IN DIGITAL SWITCHING, BUT I HESITATE TO START THROWING STONES ABOUT THIS SINCE I WOULD NOT HAVE THE VAGUEST IDEA OF HOW SOMEONES PLANT WAS WIRED. REGARDS, STEVE ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Nov 87 09:02:34 EST From: Phil Bowman Subject: Temporarily out of service Does anyone out there know how to put a switch on a residential telco line (the red and green wire) to simulate a busy condition to incoming callers and to suppress the ring of the phone itself? Is there a way to add a neon light to show the line is off-hook (I think there are 90 volts on the line)? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Nov 87 21:39:50 PST From: To: ames!comp-dcom-telecom Path: ptsfa!perl From: perl@ptsfa.UUCP (R. Perlman) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Touch-tone to rotary conversion Message-ID: <3802@ptsfa.UUCP> Date: 22 Nov 87 05:36:27 GMT References: <8711211805.AA25693@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: perl@ptsfa.UUCP (Richard Perlman) Organization: Pacific Bell Marketing Lines: 23 In article <8711211805.AA25693@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> jch@omnigate.clarkson.EDU (Jeffrey C Honig) writes: >I have been thinking that I could make good use of a device that I could >put in the phone line after the demarcation point that would receive the >touch-tone signals and convert them to pulses. Has anyone ever heard of >such a device? Any leads on where I could purchase one? Any experience >with such a device. > I have on my desk at this moment such a device. Made by American Telecommunications Corp, El Monte CA, Part Number 200779 -- TonePulse Converter 204-02. It was designed for CO application on tone lines in a non-tone CO. Caveat: This is at least 10 years old and I don't think the company is still in business. Hope this is useful, perhaps someone on the net has one they can part with... NYtel probably is sending them out in the trash in NY City. -- "there's no success like failure and failure's no success at all" Bob Dylan Richard Perlman 1E300 2600 Camino Ramon, San Ramon, CA 94583 (415) 823-1398 uucp {ames,pyramid,ihnp4,lll-crg,dual}!ptsfa!perl || ceo rdperlman:8 ------------------------------ From: qubix!wjvax!fai!stevem@decwrl.dec.com (Steve Minneman) Subject: Re: no ringing on line Date: 23 Nov 87 21:15:51 GMT Reply-To: stevem@fai.UUCP (Steve Minneman) In article <8711140711.AA24080@jade.berkeley.edu> SPGDCM@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU writes: > > I was calling another business today and got no action; no ringing, no fast > or slow busy. > > I reported this to pac bell via 611 and got this puzzling comment from them: > > "Yes, we show this as a problem, probably on their switchboard. We will check > it and if it's a problem in our lines we will fix it." > > Now this surprises me. It seems to mean that under current multi-company > situations, the intra-lata carrier can encounter some end-user line > situations which are blocked or dead, and not return any signal (ring, busy, > recording, intercept) if it's the "fault" of customer equipment. Is this > true, or is the repair operator jazzing me? Yes, it's probably true. When Direct In Dial (D.I.D.) trunks are used, the last two, three, or four digits are passed to the PBX at the customer site to indicate which extension in the PBX should be rung. The PBX is then responsible for playing ringback tone or busy tone as appropriate, since the serving central office does not know the status of the desired extension. Apparently, the PBX is accepting the call, but then not routing it and is just playing silence. Most modern electronic central offices will take the D.I.D. trunk out of service once this happens several times in a row. After this happens, you will receive some kind of indication (I'm not sure what). -- Steven A. Minneman (Fujitsu America Inc, San Jose, Ca) !seismo!amdahl!fai!stevem The best government is no government at all. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 87 08:50:43 PDT From: Ian Merritt Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: no ringing on line References: <8711140711.AA24080@jade.berkeley.edu> Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt) Organization: The Frobboz Magic Dungeon Co., Inc. > From: Doug Mosher > Subject: no ringing on line > To: comp-dcom-telecom@ucbvax > I was calling another business today and got no action; no ringing, no fast or > slow busy. > > I reported this to pac bell via 611 and got this puzzling comment from them: > > "Yes, we show this as a problem, probably on their switchboard. We will check > it and if it's a problem in our lines we will fix it." > > Now this surprises me. It seems to mean that under current multi-company > situations, the intra-lata carrier can encounter some end-user line situations > which are blocked or dead, and not return any signal (ring, busy, recording, > intercept) if it's the "fault" of customer equipment. Is this true, or is the > repair operator jazzing me? Okaaaay. First of all, sorry if this doesn't arrive in reasonable time-- UUCP propagation, you know. It sounds as if you are describing what's called a DID (Direct Inward Dialing) installation. This is an arrangement whereby the Central Office equipment acts in effect as a tandem, directly signaling the subscriber's PBX to connect the call to one of its extensions. The PBX is responsible for returning call progress tones (i.e. busy, ring, etc.) If the Sub's machine is broken or not connected properly to the incoming line, it could result in the situation you describe. --i ------ US Snail: 2380 Rose Avenue; Oxnard, CA 93030 U.S.A. tel. 805-485-2700 USENET: ihnp4!nrcvax!ihm {hplabs,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!psivax!nrcvax!ihm ARPANET: ihnp4!nrcvax!ihm@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU nrcvax!ihm@TRWIND.TRW.COM ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 14-Dec-87 18:21:07-EST,12205;000000000000 Mail-From: DIXON created at 14-Dec-87 16:32:19 Date: 14 Dec 87 16:26-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #25 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, December 14, 1987 4:26PM Volume 8, Issue 25 Today's Topics: Temporarily out of service Picking locks on pay phones Re: DID (was no ringing) Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Area code 617 now dialable in part of future area 508 Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Risks of equal access 800 numbers Privacy in Long-Distance Re: ISDN Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #23 handwriting recognizer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Dec 87 23:11 EST From: Jeffrey Del Papa Subject: Temporarily out of service Reply-To: Jeffrey Del Papa Date: Tue, 24 Nov 87 09:02:34 EST From: Phil Bowman Does anyone out there know how to put a switch on a residential telco line (the red and green wire) to simulate a busy condition to incoming callers and to suppress the ring of the phone itself? Is there a way to add a neon light to show the line is off-hook (I think there are 90 volts on the line)? ring prevention is fairly easy - a pair of diacs in series across the pair will block ringing (a diac is a bistable 4 layer diode, below the threshold (40 volts typically) it is an open circut, above it, a short.) All subscriber loops have protective devices on them that shut down a voltage source if a short is detected. thus ring (90v) is put on the loop, the diacs conduct on the first half cycle, and the ring is removed from the loop. this doesn't count as call completion, so the other party will often hear ringing continue. diacs used to be available at rat shack, they may still be. ------------------------------ From: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Temporarily out of service Date: 4 Dec 87 15:57:00 GMT Reply-To: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Connecting a garden variety resistor in the 600-1000 ohm range between tip and ring (i.e. red and green, unless your line is wired funny) will give an off-hook condition. You probably want a fairly hefty (2 Watt) one just to be safe. Connecting a normal household 25 Watt light bulb across the line will get you light when the phone rings (although the phone company may not appreciate this; I have no idea what the ringer equivelance number of a light bulb is :-)). -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Dec 87 14:53:53 EST From: bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu (Barry Shein) Subject: Picking locks on pay phones Then again, there's always finesse. The method used by crooks in the NYC subways was to simply stuff a wad of paper up the coin return and just make rounds emptying the change that would get stuck. Perhaps not as profitable per phone, but you can cover a lot of phones quickly this way and NYC will even provide the transportation for a mere $1. -B ------------------------------ From: harvard!!netsys!wb8foz@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (David Lesher) Subject: Re: DID (was no ringing) Date: 5 Dec 87 00:29:28 GMT Reply-To: harvard!netsys!wb8foz@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (David Lesher,Contributor) >It sounds as if you are describing what's called a DID (Direct Inward >Dialing) installation. This is an arrangement whereby the Central >Office equipment acts in effect as a tandem, directly signaling the >subscriber's PBX to connect the call to one of its extensions. BTW is it still true that the BOC will only xmit that data to you via PULSE? (10pps) That was, I believe, the reason why it takes so long for DID calls to complete. Now, of course, if you are the BOC offering CENTREX, it might mean that you have an advantage..... -- Have you ever WATCHED cable TV, Judge Kennedy? decuac!netsys!wb8foz ------------------------------ From: The News service Date: 5 Dec 87 05:48:24 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: charon!hydra!cs3631ae >From: cs3631ae@hydra.unm.edu (B. Limary) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Practical 2400 Modem Message-ID: <2006@charon.unm.edu> Date: 5 Dec 87 05:48:24 GMT Sender: news@charon.unm.edu Reply-To: cs3631ae@hydra.UUCP (B. Limary) Distribution: na Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM Lines: 14 I came across a 2400-baud modem (Hayes compatible) from Practical Peripheral at the small local computer shop. It is brand new and priced at $199.00 which is pretty close to the mail-order price. I am planning to use this modem on the APPLE IIe at home and connect it to the university mainframe. I wonder if anyone in this newsgroup has used this product or has any informations about this modem. :) any info will be greatly appreciated. THANKS in advance. ------------------------------ From: cantor%delni.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Dave C., 226-7726, LKG1-3/A06) Date: 8 Dec 87 12:49 Subject: Area code 617 now dialable in part of future area 508 From my phone in North Reading, Mass. (617-664), I can now dial the area code Status: O 617 to reach exchanges which will remain in the 617 area, but not those which will become part of the new area 508 on 16-Jul-1988. 617-664 will become 508-664. The area code 508 is not yet accepted. David A. Cantor ------------------------------ From: moss!ablnc!jrs2@rutgers.edu Date: 8 Dec 87 16:33:49 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ablnc!jrs2 From: jrs2@ablnc.ATT.COM (J.R. Smithson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom,misc.wanted Subject: Phone Booths For Sale Message-ID: <379@ablnc.ATT.COM> Date: 8 Dec 87 16:33:48 GMT Organization: AT&T, Maitland, Florida Lines: 14 Keywords: Phone Booths For Sale I know someone with 50 used phonebooths for sale. These are the the standup stall type (not the old enclosed booths). They are heavy, maybe 80 pounds each. The phones are not included. Can anyone tell me what they are worth on the resale market? They are currently wharehoused in Orlando Florida. If you are interested or know someone interested in these booths please contact me. James R. Smithson {ihnp4}!ablnc!jrs2 (305)834-5439 home (305)660-6991 work #Disclaimer: This offer is in no way associated with AT&T ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Dec 87 22:06:25 EST From: think!johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) Subject: Risks of equal access 800 numbers One of the effects of the Bell System breakup is that 800 service is supposed to be equally available from all long distance carriers, as are other kinds of long distance service. At the time of the breakup, the sophisticated equipment that handles 800 calls went to AT&T rather than to the operating companies, so for quite a while you could get 800 service only from AT&T, because the operating companies didn't have the equipment to route individual 800 numbers to different carriers. The other carriers, particularly MCI, complained loudly enough that the government mandated an interim unequal access 800 service until the operating companies install updated switching equipment. The unequal access works by the simple hack of routing specific 800 prefixes to fixed carriers. MCI gets 800-444, 800-666, 800-950, and several others. Sprint gets 800-877 and a few others. AT&T still gets all of the rest. So far so good. Last month I was in a small town in West Virginia which was serviced by the local Bell company, C&P Telephone, and I dialed Sprint's access number for travel card calls, 800-877-8000. To my surprise, I got a recording from MCI telling me that they couldn't complete my call. Evidently when the local operating company reprogrammed their tandem exchanges they either made a mistake keying in the codes, or else were under the common misconception that MCI is a generic term for all non-AT&T carriers. Either way, MCI is getting calls intended for Sprint. In this case the misrouting is is relatively innocuous, but I wonder what other misroutings, strange loops, and other surprises lay in wait. The topology of the phone network has become considerably more complicated since the breakup, and although it is all coordinated by Bellcore, it's no longer under a single organization's control. It's not even clear to whom I complain to have this fixed. Will phone routing ever work correctly again? John Levine, johnl@ima.isc.com or ima!johnl or Levine@YALE.something ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 87 12:38:36 CST From: Paul Fuqua Subject: Privacy in Long-Distance Today I called ATT to clear up a problem with a third-number long-distance call that didn't belong to me. I live in Dallas; the call was from another Dallas number to Houston. (Most of my long-distance is to Chicago, and never third-number billed.) In the course of our conversation, the ATT person told me the name of the owner of the Dallas number, and that the Houston number was the one she most frequently called. While I was pleased that she could quickly clear up my problem, it bothers me that she would so casually reveal information about another person. Does it make anyone else uncomfortable, or is it just me? pf Paul Fuqua Texas Instruments Computer Science Center, Dallas, Texas CSNet: pf@csc.ti.com or pf@ti-csl UUCP: {smu, texsun, im4u, rice}!ti-csl!pf ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Dec 87 05:48:28 PST From: hoptoad.UUCP!gnu@cgl.ucsf.edu (John Gilmore) Subject: Re: ISDN I recently got some information on ISDN from a friend. This is from handwritten notes, so it may be somewhat garbled, and it's all preliminary and subject to change, but at least it's a starting point. Pacific Bell will eventually offer tariffed ISDN service, probably about 1990. They are proceeding with ISDN and also continuing their Project Victoria experiment, which they claim is more useful (e.g. it only gives 32Kb/sec to voice, since that's all that's needed with modern codecs). The ISDN service is expected to offer traditional 2B+D service (2x64Kb/sec and 1x16Kb/sec over a single pair of wires), at a rate about 25-30% above the basic monthly rate for voice phone service. It is not clear whether unmeasured service will be offered, or in what exchanges it will first be implemented. There are three classes of service contemplated: * digital voice (which can be routed through analog switches, e.g. to call normal telephones) * packet data, at about $.35/Kseg, where a segment is <= 128 bytes and might be able to move over either a B or D channel. * circuit switched data, at about $.05-.15/minute. From a very brief cost analysis I conclude that, at these rates, I Status: O probably won't want ISDN service. Telebit modems on regular voice lines will only run 18Kb/sec but compare favorably on cost/byte and talk to anybody anywhere who has one (as well as to 300/1200/2400 modems). And residence users can run them on unmeasured service for local calls. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #23 handwriting recognizer Reply-To: franklin@csv.rpi.edu Date: 05 Dec 87 17:38:34 EST (Sat) From: wrf%juliet@CSV.RPI.EDU IBM developed a device that recognizes a handwritten signature by looking at the velocity of the pen as well as the position of the writing. I don't know whether this is a commercial product. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 24-Dec-87 18:24:29-EST,11907;000000000000 Mail-From: DIXON created at 24-Dec-87 15:52:47 Date: 24 Dec 87 15:52-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #27 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, December 24, 1987 3:52PM Volume 8, Issue 27 Today's Topics: Area code 617 now dialable in part of future area 508 Re: converting touch-tone to pulse dialing ISDN in *your* life ..er.. *my* life anyway 1+areacode in own area (703, Va.) Temporary capabilities when new line installed Cross-system collect calls? Re: DID (was no ringing) Re: (none) Syncronization of micro/mainframe clocks on X.25 networks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1987 18:51 EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: Area code 617 now dialable in part of future area 508 I believe the due date for 508 will include a grace period, but they won't switch 508 into service until the EXACT date (Jul 8?). ------------------------------ Subject: Re: converting touch-tone to pulse dialing Date: Tue Dec 15 00:52:39 1987 From: gatech!vector!chip@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Chip Rosenthal) There was a question recently about converting touch tone to pulse dialing. Unfortunately, it expired before I could grab it. If I remember correctly, a module was suggested which would do this, but there was some question as whether the thing was available. An alternative might be a two part circuit: first convert the DTMF to binary, and then the binary to pulse coding. Pulse dialers are very easy to come by. Everybody has one. The tougher part is the DTMF decoder. I've only seen two: a hybrid module from Mitel and a monolithic IC from Silicon Systems. The SSI part (SSI957) might be a cheaper approach. The thing is that you will need a 3.58MHz crystal (the decoder is a switched-C filter), and an op-amp (a 741 is shown in their datasheet) on the front end. I've never worked with this part first-hand, but it looks like a pretty good solution. This isn't quite a one-module solution to the conversion problem, but it might be better than stringing together seven notch filters and decoders. SSI is at (714) 731-7110. I am not associated with any of these companies. In fact, I'm a competitor. But we don't make dialers or DTMF decoders, so you can buy theirs. :-) --- Chip Rosenthal chip@vector.UUCP | But if you want to sing the Dallas Semiconductor (214) 450-0400 | blues, then boy you better {texsun,codas,ihnp4}!killer!vector!chip | learn how to lose. ------------------------------ From: David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack Subject: ISDN in *your* life ..er.. *my* life anyway Date: 15 Dec 87 19:21:57 GMT There's a rumor my roomate heard (er.. he heard this directly from one of the comm managers of the local telco while he was talking to the communications manager guy for the University) that this city would be able to upgrade to ISDN service within the next few months or a year. Apparently the local equipment had been scheduled for major replacement/repair a year or two ago, and the telco (GTE) thought ahead enough to install equipment capable of doing ISDN. I don't know any details about the local equipment ... other than that the wire leading to the appartment is normal looking twisted pair copper ... out on the phone pole is a little box (maybe 1.5 ft long) which is copper colored which the wire runs in to -- and is shared amongst our neighbors. I'm curious about what sort of equipment I/we'll need to take advantage of this ISDN. Obviously I can't just hook the phone cable up to a serial port on my computer. But also just as obviously, since the signals shouldn't ever be analog then we can't call the box which hooks my computer to the "phone line" a "modem". What is involved with this box-that-is-not-a-modem but which does-similar-things-to-what-modems-do? Who makes 'em? etc. I had a taste of what can be a couple of weeks ago when I was evaluating the Telebit modem ... I can't wait! -- <---- David Herron -- The E-Mail guy <---- or: {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <---- <---- Winter health warning: Remember, don't eat the yellow snow! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Dec 87 9:29:01 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 1+areacode in own area (703, Va.) I have just returned from travel across part of Virginia. I am seeing (in 703 area beyond DC area--refers to Winchester, Front Royal, etc.) instructions on pay phones for use of areacode on all 1+ and 0+ calls within 703; on C&P phones, I am even seeing the same cards that were posted recently in Maryland! I don't know what the dialing instructions are in Va.'s other area, 804. (I had heard that, prompted by 201 area's needing NXX prefixes, new dialing requirements there were also implemented in 609 for statewide uniformity in New Jersey.) ------------------------------ From: rabbit1!robert@RUTGERS.EDU (Robert Oliver) Subject: Temporary capabilities when new line installed Date: 15 Dec 87 19:29:39 GMT I recently moved to a new home, and experienced something odd, that I recall happening the last time I moved. Certain services seem to have been enabled for the first few days at the new address, then they magically disappeared. Specifically: 1) RING-BACK doesn't normally work in my area, but when I moved, it started working. I could make my phones ring to verify that they worked. Just in case the info might give you a clue as to the CO equipment, in my area, ring-back is done thusly: o dial 579-[last four digits of phone #] o wait for dial-tone o press switch-hook o wait for buzz-tone o hang up 2) TOUCH TONE(tm)!! Though I do own a Touch Tone(tm) phone or two (for use with computerized services) I refuse to pay for Touch Tone(tm). And I usually can't dial using tones. However, when I first moved in, I COULD dial using tones. Is this normal practice? Are there any other things enabled during this time? If I HADN'T tried to dial with tones during this period, is there a chance that they might have left Touch Tone(tm) capability enabled by accident (for free!)? Is there any way I can get ring-back now, since I have a phone with a broken bell that I'm trying to repair? Answers greatly appreciated. -- Robert Oliver Rabbit Software Corp. (215) 647-0440 7 Great Valley Parkway East ...!ihnp4!{cbmvax,cuuxb}!hutch!robert Malvern, PA 19355 ...!psuvax!burdvax!hutch!robert ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Dec 87 10:17:27 CST From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI Subject: Cross-system collect calls? Just thought of this question yesterday when making a collect call on AT&T long distance, and don't recall it having been discussed on the list: How is the billing for collect calls handled when one party is serviced by a different LD carrier than the other party? In my case, I have AT&T LD service, so I got an AT&T operator when I dialed 0-AC-number, and told her it was a collect call. I don't know what LD service the called party has. Suppose they have MCI. Does this call to them somehow show up on their bill from MCI, and the two companies handle a funds transfer between them? Or do they get a separate bill from AT&T for this call (and any other collect calls they got that month)? Regards, Will Martin wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (on USENET try ...!seismo!wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA ) [I've been told that "...!uunet!almsa-1.arpa!wmartin" may be better now but I can't test it...] ------------------------------ From: "T. Pryjma" Subject: Re: DID (was no ringing) Date: 18 Dec 87 17:24:20 GMT Reply-To: "T. Pryjma" In article <1764@netsys.UUCP> harvard!netsys!wb8foz@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (David Lesher,Contributor) writes: # # >It sounds as if you are describing what's called a DID (Direct Inward # >Dialing) installation. This is an arrangement whereby the Central # >Office equipment acts in effect as a tandem, directly signaling the # >subscriber's PBX to connect the call to one of its extensions. # # BTW is it still true that the BOC will only xmit that data to you via # PULSE? (10pps) That was, I believe, the reason why it takes so long for # DID calls to complete. Now, of course, if you are the BOC # offering CENTREX, it might mean that you have an advantage..... # Well, Bell Canada does presently have customers who are connected to the outside with T1 lines from their PBX to the CO. Some PBX's are signalled by tone, there is no real reason that the CO should insist upon digipulse signalling, except age of equipment. BTW, CENTREX is not a PBX service. It is a PBX lookalike service that is run on the CO exchange and run very tightly by the local telephone company. Infact, in previous postings people have posted articles on residential CENTREX groups of two phones or more that are available in some areas. Why you would want to put 2 phones on CENTREX is beyond me however:-). -- Taras Pryjma uucp: taras@gpu.utcs bitnet: tpryjma@utoronto Bell: +1 (416) 536-2821 Fear is never boring. hmmm. hmmmm. YEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn those trap doors! Yup. Fear is never boring. ------------------------------ From: kddlab!ndsuvax!CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU!BIGCU@uunet.UU.NET (Bill Gruber) Subject: Re: (none) Date: 13 Dec 87 05:12:42 GMT Looks like D.I.D. lines cause other problems as well - our ROLM system is set up like that (last 3 digits passed to the PBX, PBX handles ringing and busy tones) and several times, when calling in from a pay phone, I was charged even for a busy line or a no-answer. Looks like after around 20 seconds the CO equipment says you're paying since apparently our system at least has no way of supervising. ------- Bill Gruber City University of New York Computer Center ------------------------------ From: iuvax!ndmath!milo@RUTGERS.EDU (Greg Corson) Subject: Syncronization of micro/mainframe clocks on X.25 networks Date: 20 Dec 87 22:44:38 GMT Ok, here's the problem...Say you have a program running on a mainframe "host" on an X.25 network like telenet. Attached to this program are the communications circuits going out to several microcomputers belonging do people who have dialed up the mainframe host. Given that the microcomputers have clocks accurate to 1/60 of a second and the mainframe has a clock accurate to 1 second...can you think of a reasonable way to get the micros and the mainframe's clocks in sync? The problem here is, because there is a lot of communications hardware in the way, you don't know how long a delay there is from the time you send some information till the time the micro receives it. You also don't know if the delay will remain constant as system load goes up and down. I suppose you could have the micro echo time packets back and forth to the mainframe till you had a good estimate of the average delay time. But there must be a better way than that. Any ideas? Greg Corson 19141 Summers Drive South Bend, IN 46637 (219) 277-5306 (weekdays till 6 PM eastern) {pur-ee,rutgers,uunet}!iuvax!ndmath!milo ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 24-Dec-87 19:06:43-EST,10452;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with TCP/SMTP; Thu 24 Dec 87 19:06:39-EST Date: 24 Dec 87 15:50-EST From: The Moderator (Jim Dixon) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #26 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, December 24, 1987 3:50PM Volume 8, Issue 26 Today's Topics: People Link Customer Service own areacode + 555-1212 Re: Temporarily out of service Calling card charges Cynex call diverter (help request) Submission for comp-dcom-telecom FCC Proposal 11-digit dialing in DC/Md/Va add this to previous message ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ccoprrd@pyr.gatech.edu (Richard Dervan) Subject: People Link Customer Service Date: 21 Dec 87 06:39:17 GMT Could someone please mail me the Customer Service number for People/Link? For those of you who do not know, it is a service similar to Compu$erve, but costs much less and is more of a social interaction service, although they do offer much useful stuff. -Richard -- Richard B Dervan - Office of Computing Services | Go you fuzzy | Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 | Bees | uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!ccoprrd ARPA: ccoprrd@pyr.gatech.edu rbd@{vslab,briggs,chase}.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Dec 87 14:12:40 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: own areacode + 555-1212 I was calling from a York (Pa.) area pay phone (717-741) trying to get directory assistance for a number in Scranton, also in 717 area. The instruction card said only: 1 555 1212 local 1 areacode 555 1212 outside this area code I dialed 1-555-1212 and was told to dial 1-717-555-1212 to get help for Scranton! (I did.) ------------------------------ From: umix!umich!eecs.umich.edu!mibte!jbh@uunet.UU.NET (James Harvey) Subject: Re: Temporarily out of service Date: 21 Dec 87 18:18:53 GMT In article <871203231158.1.DP@BANFF.PALLADIAN.COM>, dp@JASPER.PALLADIAN.COM (Jeffrey Del Papa) writes: > > Date: Tue, 24 Nov 87 09:02:34 EST > From: Phil Bowman > > > Does anyone out there know how to put a switch on a residential telco line > (the red and green wire) to simulate a busy condition to incoming callers > and to suppress the ring of the phone itself? Is there a way to add a > neon light to show the line is off-hook (I think there are 90 volts on the > line)? > > > ring prevention is fairly easy - a pair of diacs in series across the pair will > block ringing (a diac is a bistable 4 layer diode, below the threshold (40 volts > typically) it is an open circut, above it, a short.) > All subscriber loops have protective devices on them that shut down a voltage > source if a short is detected. thus ring (90v) is put on the loop, the diacs > conduct on the first half cycle, and the ring is removed from the loop. this > doesn't count as call completion, so the other party will often hear ringing > continue. diacs used to be available at rat shack, they may still be. > > Radio Schlock used to sell (think they still do) a device to suppress the ring. I think it's under ten bucks. It is popular with owners of the Commodore 1670 Modem which defaults to auto-answer every time you reset the computer. A resistor will busy out the phone but after a while the switching machine thinks there is trouble on the line and will disconnect it. It may be a while before you can get dial tone again after you remove the resistor. You might try simply ringing up some local recording and laying the receiver down on the table. -- Jim Harvey | "Ask not for whom the bell Michigan Bell Telephone | tolls and you will only pay 29777 Telegraph | Station-to-Station rates." Southfield, Mich. 48034 | ihnp4!mibte!jbh or try ulysses!gamma!mibte!jbh ------------------------------ From: pc@wind.bellcore.com (Peter Clitherow) Subject: Calling card charges Date: 22 Dec 87 23:31:00 GMT Reply-To: pc@wind.bellcore.com (Peter Clitherow) Recently i travelled to California, where i made a couple of phone calls (using my AT&T calling card) from area code 415 to area code 408 - both in california. My most recent phone bill itemises these calls and records them under the heading NJ Bell itemised calls. Because these were intrastate calls (presumably carried by PacBell) is there some reciprocal arrangement amongst the RBOCs to forward such funds, or is the whole thing treated rather like international mail, where the originating country collects funds, and everyone hopes things balence out? I must admit i can't see an easy alternative, given that ATT doesn't get to carry "domestic" calls in Ca... pc ------------------------------ From: well!rshuford@lll-crg.llnl.gov (Richard S. Shuford) Subject: Cynex call diverter (help request) Date: 22 Dec 87 14:56:24 GMT Greetings, netlanders. A local nonprofit organization recently solicited my help in getting a certain telephone accessory to function properly. The device is a "Remote Control Call Diverter", model CD-202, labeled as being made by Cynex Manufacturing Corporation 28 Sager Pl. Hillside, NJ 07205 It was purchased by mail order through H&E Computronics. This little gray box with a DTMF pad on top has inputs for two telephone lines. It is supposed to act as follows: When an incoming ring signal is detected on line B, it dials a preprogrammed forwarding number through line A. Then the box connects line B to line A and someone who answers the number dialed on A can talk to the original calling party. (It is not clear to me whether the diverter can be counted on to detect answer supervision on line A.) Conversely, calls coming in on line A are forwarded out through line B. It has a remote-programming mode. To use this, you place a call from a remote location (with a DTMF-equipped phone) to line A. You let it ring once, then hang up. Then, within 30 seconds, you place a second call to line A. The diverter answers line A, beeps and waits for a prearranged DTMF security code. Upon receiving the proper code, it goes into remote-programming mode. In this mode you can place the unit on standby, change it from standby to active mode, or change the number to which calls are forwarded. Well, that's all very nice, once you have figured it out from the rather poor documentation. And the procedure for remotely programming the thing is rather tedious, but you can get used to it. But the staff of the organization complains that the diverter unpredictably goes into catatonia, placing BOTH lines off hook and not forwarding. Or it simply fails to forward, even when seemingly properly set up. Does anyone have experience or advice concerning this or similar devices? .....Richard S. Shuford Siecor Corp. RD&E, Hickory, NC 28603-0489 {ptsfa, hplabs}!well!rshuford BIX: richard ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 87 05:59:18 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom From: mikel@codas.att.com (Mikel Manitius) Path: codas!mikel From: mikel@codas.att.com (Mikel Manitius) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Florida's Area Code 305 Is Splitting Message-ID: <1447@codas.att.com> Date: 22 Dec 87 05:59:18 GMT Organization: AT&T, Altamonte Springs, FL Lines: 25 FLORIDA'S AREA CODE 305 IS SPLITTING ------------------------------------ Please note that Florida's area code 305 will be split as of April 16, 1988. Area code 407 has been created, and will service the area presently served by 305 from the West Palm Beach county north. Areas in Broward county and south will remain in area code 305. If you communicate with numbers in the affected 305 zone, please change them now to use 407. The new area code is already operational. Affected areas North of the Broward/West Palm Beach county line include Orlando, Winter Park, Melbourne, Kennedy Space Center, and West Palm Beach. Mikel Manitius mikel@codas.att.com +1 407 869-2462 -- Mikel Manitius @ AT&T mikel@codas.att.com ------------------------------ From: rochester!kodak!ektools!bruce@RUTGERS.EDU (Bruce D. Nelson ) Subject: FCC Proposal Date: 24 Dec 87 14:55:02 GMT Did the FCC actually pass that $5.00/hour fee we heard so much about? After all those postings asking us to write everybody in Washington, I haven't heard diddly about the results of our letters. Did they, or didn't they pass it? Bruce D. Nelson | UUCP: ...!rutgers!rochester!kodak!ektools!bruce Eastman Kodak Company | Voice: 716-726-7890 901 Elmgrove Road | Company Mail: Dept 420 Technical Support Services Rochester, NY 14650 | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Dec 87 13:24:25 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 11-digit dialing in DC/Md/Va Washington (DC) Post, 6 Aug. 1987, page E1, announced 11 digit long distance dialing effective Nov. 1 throughout Md., DC, Va. (I found no specific reference to 804, although an earlier message by me to Telecom noted 11-digit dialing in 703 area beyond Washington suburbs). The article only noted adding 1+ in DC and suburbs (previously dialed areacode + tel.no.), and the change in Baltimore from 1+ (within Md.) to 1+301+. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Dec 87 13:26:32 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: add this to previous message Oops! A quote from that 6 Aug 1987 Washington Post article says that the 11-digit requirement is "designed to accomodate fast growth around the nation's capital". ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* APPARENTLY THERE WERE NO ISSUES OF THE DIGEST BETWEEN 12/24/87 AND 2/18/88. JIM DIXON FUNCTIONED AS TEMPORARY MODERATOR FOR THE LAST PART OF 1987. J SOL RETURNED AS OF MID-FEBRUARY, 1988. P.TOWNSON 18-Feb-88 21:57:31-EST,15184;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 18-Feb-88 21:38:27 Date: 18 Feb 88 21:33-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #30 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, February 18, 1988 9:33PM Volume 8, Issue 30 Today's Topics: *** Correct area code split dates *** DID, ISDN and all that jazz answer to question on comp.dcom.telecom Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Enterprise Numbers Enterprise Numbers Enterprise Numbers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (John R. Covert) Date: 29 Dec 87 09:57 Subject: *** Correct area code split dates *** Area Code Date of Split End of permissive dialing 303/719 5 March 88 4 April 88 305/407 16 April 88 18 June 88 617/508 16 July 88 15 Oct 88 312/708 11 Nov 89 9 Feb 90 In Telecom Digest V8 #26, mikel@codas.att.com writes "If you communicate with numbers in the affected 305 zone, please change them now to use 407. The new area code is already operational." This is not true. It certainly does not work in most AT&T machines yet. Do not expect the new area codes to work on any sort of consistent basis until the actual split dates. The old area codes will operate until the end of the permissive dialling period. The correct dates for the splits are above. /john ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Dec 87 07:19:34 PST From: goldstein%aim.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Fred's usually home at DELNI::) Subject: DID, ISDN and all that jazz Re V8I27's continuing dialogue about DID service and why it's pulse in some areas, AT&T upgraded the software on the #1AESS a few years ago to support tone outpulsing, but it's extra hardware (DTMF generators) so some local telcos haven't done it. It's also viewed as a security risk due to the way DID (analog) works. DID trunks outpulse digits and the PBX sends the tones back to the caller. The PBX is supposed to run a one-way transmission path (outgoing only) so the caller hears tone but the PBX can't hear the caller; when the call picks up, supervision pulse is returned to the CO and billing begins. At that point it's okay to open a two-way path. Before "registration" in the late 1970s, the coupling devices used hybrids to split the path and physically block the transmission of audio inbound before supervision was returned. Thus touch-tone (no longer a trademark) couldn't be used. Apparently some PBXs are rumored to "cheat", too. When a DID trunk doesn't get accepted by the PBX (i.e., the line is bad or the PBX is down), the CO shuts it off and returns fast busy. Getting it back on can be a pain of telco isn't on the ball... Now ISDN changes that all. It uses a packet signaling channel which can send the digits in a SETUP message. So DID no longer requires any special hackery; the CO just allocates >1 number to a given trunk group and passes the number along. And for good measure, ISDN does provide full answer supervision all the way on all calls, unless of course you "interwork" with an analog network which doesn't support it right... To use ISDN for your PC, btw, you use a "terminal adapter" -- that's the equivalent of a modem. Who'll make it? Well, Hayes was showing one off at Telecom '87! Logical, eh? Modem makers will adapt or die. The switching vendors also have them. Until the standards are done (some are, some aren't) they will be different for each type of CO. In a couple years, when ISDN is a commercial reality in a few places, there'll be a competitive market for TA's just like for modems. Expect the price curve to follow... fred ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 28 December 1987 18:58-MST From: portal!cup.portal.com!David_W_Tamkin@UUNET.UU.NET Subject: answer to question on comp.dcom.telecom Please accept my regrets for posting this here. As Patrick Townson has already noted, it is impossible to post on comp.dcom.telecom from Portal. I attempted to send email to Richard Dervan to answer his question, but the address on his post on comp.dcom.telecom was accepted at the time yet the letter was returned as undeliverable on the next business day. Then I tried to post to comp.dcom.telecom, but I got the message that it was a moderated newsgroup and the moderator is unknown, leaving me stymied. So, Mr. Dervan, I hope you are reading this: People/Link's voice lines for customer service are 1-800-524-0100 and 1-312-670-2666. David Tamkin ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 02:39:24 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom From: tmsoft!uucp@uunet.UU.NET Path: tmsoft!utgpu!taras From: taras@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (T. Pryjma) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: ISDN in *your* life ..er.. *my* life anyway Message-ID: <1987Dec30.201338.16917@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Date: 31 Dec 87 01:13:38 GMT References: <7862@g.ms.uky.edu> Reply-To: taras@gpu.utcs.UUCP (T. Pryjma) Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Lines: 30 Checksum: 15096 In article <7862@g.ms.uky.edu> david@E.MS.UKY.EDU (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) writes: # I'm curious about what sort of equipment I/we'll need to # take advantage of this ISDN. Obviously I can't just hook # the phone cable up to a serial port on my computer. But # also just as obviously, since the signals shouldn't ever # be analog then we can't call the box which hooks my computer # to the "phone line" a "modem". # Any new CO switch being shipped by any of the mojor manufacturers is currently capable of ISDN. Basically any equipment that is not capable of ISDN is very expensive to run. # I had a taste of what can be a couple of weeks ago when I # was evaluating the Telebit modem ... I can't wait! I think that you are refering to the fact that ISDN is fast, but I wonder if you will change your tune when you find out how much you have to pay for ISDN. Each phone company is different, but if you rates that PacTel was charging for Project Victoria I am sure that you might still end up thinking that the Telebit modem was still the better deal. -- Taras Pryjma uucp: taras@gpu.utcs bitnet: tpryjma@utoronto Bell: +1 (416) 536-2821 Fear is never boring. hmmm. hmmmm. YEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn those trap doors! Yup. Fear is never boring. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 16:59:39 PST From: imagen!atari!daisy!david@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (David Schachter) To: comp-dcom-telecom Path: daisy!david From: daisy!david (David Schachter) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Syncronization of micro/mainframe clocks on X.25 networks Message-Id: <778@daisy.UUCP> Date: 27 Dec 87 22:06:10 GMT References: <546@ndmath.UUCP> Reply-To: daisy!david (David Schachter) Organization: none Lines: 14 This note is in reply to Greg Corson's query of December 20, 1987. He asks how to synchronize a bunch of micros and a mainframe. His application is complicated by the presence of X.25 links. The answer is: Yes, you can syn- chronize nodes in a wide-area network, to within about ten milliseconds. A company for which I used to work, Precision Standard Time, Inc., of Fremont California, makes radio-controlled clocks which synchronize to the radio broadcasts from the U.S. National Bureau of Standards radio time stations WWV and WWVH. The interface between the clock and your computer is a simple RS-232 protocol. The clocks cost between $600 and $1500, depending on the model and whether you want software (VAX VMS or MS-DOS) or wish to roll your own. The phone number is (415) 656-4447 and the address is 105 Fourier Ave., Fremont, CA, 94539. Incidentally, Greg's idea of bouncing packets between two machines to measure the average delay is, as he probably realizes, an unreliable solution in a packet-switched environment. The delay can change substantially as the net- work reconfigures itself around failed nodes and congestion. I am biased: I have stock in PSTI. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 1 January 1988 09:09-MST From: portal!cup.portal.com!Ken@UUNET.UU.NET Subject: Enterprise Numbers The other day, I picked up a airplane ticket. On the back was a list of all the reservation numbers for this airline, including one that was an Enterprise number. I vaguely recall that Enterprise numbers were a predecessor to WATs numbers, but thought they had been phased out long ago. Can someone explain exactly what they were (are), and how they work? What is their advantage over WATS? Thanks, Ken ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 2 January 1988 18:20-MST From: decvax!sunybcs!kitty!larry@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (Larry Lippman) Subject: Enterprise Numbers Enterprise Number service is almost extinct. An Enterprise Number call is an operator-assisted call; the number cannot be dialed directly by the calling party. When an operator receives a request for such a call, (s)he looks up the number in a small reference directory, and merely dials the number for the calling party as a collect, operator-assisted call, but without requesting called-party acceptance. The business with the Enterprise Number pays the collect, operator-assisted rate. There is no relation to WATS (Wide Area Telephone Service). There is no economic advantage in a business using Enterprise Numbers unless their incoming calling volume is SO low that it cannot justify the basic monthly line charges for incoming WATS service. Many customers are loathe to explicitly place a collect call - even if the business so states in its advertising; Enterprise Numbers overcome this "problem". <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|ames|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|utzoo|uunet}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 2 January 1988 10:43-MST From: portal!cup.portal.com!Patrick_A_Townson@UUNET.UU.NET Subject: Enterprise Numbers Enterprise numbers (also known in some telcos years ago as "Zenith") were mostly phased out years ago in favor of 1-800 lines. All calls to Enterprise numbers went through the operator, and they were automatically billed collect to the person with the number. When you placed a call, you would ask the operator for (let's say) "Enterprise 1234". The operator would check -- unless the Enterprise number was commonly known -- with the Rate and Routing operator to find out what actual number was keyed to Enterprise 1234. She would be advised it was really the same as (let's say) 311-555-2368. The operator would then place the call to 311-555-2368 and automatically reverse the charges . As 800 service began phasing in all over the USA nearly 15 years ago Enterprise service was phased out for new customers and grandfathered to existing users. The toll-free 800 numbers today are simply an automated form of the old Enterprise service, or would you say it the other way around? Just as 800 numbers can be restricted to a community, a state, or a portion of the USA or the entire country as desired by the subscriber, likewise the Enterprise (Zenith) numbers were restricted. Typically, the nature of the restriction, if any, was listed in the phone book as part of the subscriber's entry. Joe's Carpet Cleaning Service might have listed an Enterprise number, to encourage callers just as the 1-800 service is used now. But the directory would note, "Calls from the Chicago exchange only". Elsewhere in the country, a caller asking for the Enterprise number would get an operator who attempted to locate the key, only to be told by Routing that it was inapplicable from the calling exchange. On the other hand, for many years the Federal Bureau of Investigation had an Enterprise number national in scope which citizens could use to report criminals on a wanted list. (This was back in the 1930's). The difference between Enterprise and Zenith was only in name. Canadian phone companies tended to use Zenith, while here it was Enterprise. In some communities already automated for dialing at the time Enterprise service was started (late twenties, early thirties?) there might have already been a "valid" exchange serving the downtown area called ENTerprise, and to avoid confusion and/or renumbering problems the telcos in those communities also opted for Zenith, many times for the sole reason there is no letter /Z/ on the phone dial and a subscriber could not attempt to dial it in error. Zenith also tended to be used in lieu of Enterprise when the recipient of the collect call was a government agency, such as a sheriff serving a remote area where calls for emergency help (like our present 911) would be a toll charge to the caller otherwise. In the early seventies, 800 service made it all a moot point. OTHER MORE OR LESS STANDARDIZED PHONE NUMBERS IN THE 1930'S - 1950'S: The telephone company business office was always "9411". In manual exchanges you asked either for "the business office" or 9411, as you pleased. After automation, some prefix went in front, but their number was still xxx-9411, virtually everywhere. In Chicago the metamorphosis went from 9411 to Official-9411 to OFFicial-9411 (when dialed) to now, 727-9411. Western Union message takers were always "4321" in every community, adding a prefix to it when automation started. Police were always 2121 and Fire was always 2131 in most communities; in some others they were 1313 and 1414. The phone company always reserved the numbers 9900-9999 for its own internal use; they still do in many places. 9900 got you the Chief Operator; 9902 got you the Information Supervisor; 9904 got you the Wire Chief (repair supervisor) in the community. Coin phones always began with a 9, as in 9xxx. This was universally recognized in order that an operator in a distant community would not process a collect call to a distant payphone in error without collecting money from someone along the way. If you did ask to call collect to a payphone in the other city, the operator had to call "inward" in that community and ask for assistance in collecting the coins, as her equipment could not handle it. The idea behind payphones beginning with a 9 in the last four digits was so the operators everywhere would be tipped off to it and not be decieved by a customer answering on the other end and "accepting the charges". ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 18-Feb-88 22:59:46-EST,8477;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 18-Feb-88 22:46:30 Date: 18 Feb 88 22:46-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #34 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, February 18, 1988 10:46PM Volume 8, Issue 34 Today's Topics: Forwarded (FINALLY!!) Mail ... Status of Telecom & Info-Terms European (primarily Germany) modem standards [patth@dasys1.UUCP: US Sprint Rebuttal (from Usenet)] Pittsburgh oddity Pittsburgh oddity, continued ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Jan 88 16:58:51 GMT From: Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS Subject: Forwarded (FINALLY!!) Mail ... ***** 2559 3 Date: Sun, 24 Jan 88 4:10:46 GMT From: Root at Walker-EMH Subject: Undeliverable mail To: hicks@walker-emh.arpa Mail addressed to host bu-it.bu.edu could not be sent for the following reason: 550 ... User unknown ------- Unsent message is below ------- Date: Sat, 23 Jan 88 4:14:38 GMT From: Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS Subject: Forwarded messages To: telcom-request@bu-it.bu.edu Cc: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu ----BEGINNING OF FORWARDED MESSAGES---- Date: Fri, 22 Jan 88 18:58:49 GMT From: Root at Walker-EMH Subject: Undeliverable mail To: hicks@walker-emh.arpa Mail addressed to host bu-it.bu.edu could not be sent for the following reason: 550 ... User unknown ------- Unsent message is below ------- Date: Fri, 22 Jan 88 18:53:43 GMT From: Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS Subject: Long Distance Calls ... To: telcom@bu-it.bu.edu Cc: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu ----BEGINNING OF FORWARDED MESSAGES---- Received: from RUTGERS.EDU by WALKER-EMH.ARPA ; 22 Jan 88 18:37:48 GMT Received: by rutgers.edu (5.54/1.15) id AA00514; Fri, 22 Jan 88 13:40:31 EST Received: by topaz.rutgers.edu (5.54/1.15) id AA22253; Fri, 22 Jan 88 10:47:09 EST To: comp-sys-ibm-pc-digest@rutgers.edu Path: topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith From: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest Subject: Unlimited Long Distance in a non-PC Pursuitable area Message-Id: <17537@topaz.rutgers.edu> Date: 22 Jan 88 15:47:07 GMT Reply-To: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) Distribution: usa Organization: M. R. Smith Consulting, New Brunswick, NJ Lines: 13 I need to work over a phone line from a New brunswick NJ (201) 249- number on a computer in Englewood Cliffs, NJ (201) 567-. I will be on at least 40 hours per month, but this can be at night (5pm-1am). PC Pursuit doesn't cover the Englewood, NJ area (only local to Newark). Can anyone think of a way to do this without an unbelievable phone bill? Mark -- Mark Smith (alias Smitty) "Be careful when looking into the distance, RPO 1604, CN 5063 that you do not miss what is right under your nose." New Brunswick, NJ 08903 {backbone}!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu {backbone}!rutgers!unirot!msmith ----END OF FORWARDED MESSAGES---- Forwarded to you because I don't believe it's appropriate to include in the Info-IBMPC Digest. Publish as you see fit. ----END OF FORWARDED MESSAGES---- ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 26 January 1988 10:53-MST From: ukma!uflorida!codas!killer!chip@NRL-CMF.ARPA (Chip Rosenthal) Subject: Status of Telecom & Info-Terms In the referenced article WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA (William G. Martin) writes: >There hasn't been any traffic on either the Telecom or the Info-Terms >mailing lists for some time now... >Is anyone on Info-Modems aware of anything about either of these lists... All I know is that I've twice submitted messages to comp.dcom.telecom, and both times they ended up in a black hole. Is there a news feed problem here, or has the telecom group really disappeared? (I'd really like to see this group going.) -- Chip Rosenthal chip@vector.UUCP | But if you want to sing the Dallas Semiconductor (214) 450-0400 | blues, then boy you better {texsun,codas,ihnp4}!killer!vector!chip | learn how to lose. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jan 88 22:35:37 PST From: august%VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV@bu-it.BU.EDU (R.B.August: HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL) Subject: European (primarily Germany) modem standards From: JPLLSI::AUGUST "R.B.August: HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL" 28-JAN-1988 08:47 To: ST%"info-modems@simtel20.arpa",AUGUST Subj: European (primarily Germany) modem standards Would someone be kind enough to point me to the past digests, and any other information available on the "standards" used in Europe for analog modem data communication. I am aware that there is some difference between the European requirements for signaling and those used here (CONUS). If anyone has information that has not been sent to the net and is archived on some FTP accessable machine on the net, please send it to me. Thanks. Richard B. August august@vlsi.jpl.nasa.gov or the return address on this message ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 88 20:00:45 EST From: henry@GARP.MIT.EDU (Henry Mensch) Subject: [patth@dasys1.UUCP: US Sprint Rebuttal (from Usenet)] Path: mit-amt!bloom-beacon!husc6!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!patth From: patth@dasys1.UUCP (Patt Haring) Newsgroups: misc.consumers Subject: Re: US Sprint rebuttal Summary: one New York bank will NOT deal with US SPRINT Message-ID: <2992@dasys1.UUCP> Date: 16 Feb 88 14:54:01 GMT References: <588@morningdew.BBN.COM> <7058@ihlpa.ATT.COM> <2622@ihlpe.ATT.COM> Distribution: na Organization: The Big Electric Cat Lines: 48 I received this *NOTICE* from Manufacturers Hanover's Excel Customer Service Manager: February 5, 1988 From: EXCEL Customer Service Dear EXCEL Customer: Our records indicate that US SPRINT is included as a payee on your EXCEL account. We have been experiencing major bill payment problems with this company over the past year. Despite repeated efforts on our part, US SPRINT has been unable to process payments in a timely fashion. In addition, they have been unable to investigate and adjust unposted payments in an acceptable time frame. The problems within US SPRINT are widely known throughout the business community and have been reported in several major national publications. As US SPRINT has failed to successfully address its internal operating problems over an extended period, we have no choice but to delete them as an EXCEL merchant effective March 1st. Any payments to US SPRINT scheduled after February 29, 1988, will not be processed. Please review your Pending Payments records and make note of this cut-off date. Please be assured that our policy will continue to be to provide bill payment ability to the widest market possible. Should conditions at US SPRINT improve, we will consider reinstating them as an EXCEL merchant at a future date. Very truly yours, [Bad eough *I* don't want to deal with US SPRINT - now my bank doesn't want to deal with them either!] -- Patt Haring {sun!hoptoad,cmcl2!phri}!dasys1!patth Big Electric Cat Public Access Unix (212) 879-9031 - System Operator Three aspects of wisdom: intelligence, justice & kindness. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 88 13:58:13 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Pittsburgh oddity I had already identified (most of?) down Pittsburgh (Pa.) phone prefixes and a downtown zipcode: 15219. Recently, I noticed that such prefixes and zipcode pick up a little area SOUTH of the Monongahela River, in the Station Square area (the old P&LE railroad station). Just south of Station Square area is Mount Washington, and to the east along Carson Street is zipcode 15203 (South Side area). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 88 13:58:45 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Pittsburgh oddity, continued First occurrence of "down" should have been "downtown". ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 18-Feb-88 23:56:24-EST,12044;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Thu 18 Feb 88 23:56:21-EST Date: 18 Feb 88 22:45-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #33 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, February 18, 1988 10:45PM Volume 8, Issue 33 Today's Topics: Need help in filling in the gaps Books on Telephony sync of micro/mainframe clocks VME Muxs What network am I on? Voice-mail boards for PC's. Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #23 Sophisticated modems and Call Waiting ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 88 10:55:39 P From: Hank Nussbacher Subject: Need help in filling in the gaps Reply-To: Hank Nussbacher I am trying to compile comparative rate tables for - the cost of 64kb digital service in various countries - the cost of a 56/64kb link to the USA or a T1 line to the USA If you can help me fill in the gaps or have information about a country I have not included, please send it to me. Once I have finished the work, I will repost the final result. Please reply directly to me and not to the list. Thanks, Hank Cost comparison of 64kb digital service in various countries ======================================= Country 5km 10km 200km 500km ----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ Austria | 683.8 | 1025.6 | 4346.2 | 6141 | Belgium | 372.5 | 683 | 1652 | 3304 | Denmark | 174.6 | 293.9 | 1770.5 | 2139.8 | France | 614 | 828.8 | 5241.8 | 6838.6 | Germany | 795.2 | 1337.3 | 8385.5 | 11638.6 | Norway | 242.2 | 242.2 | 602.5 | 869.6 | Spain | 1507.9 | 2356.5 | 4996.9 | 6713.1 | Sweden | 332.2 | 387.6 | 2214.8 | 2380.9 | Switzerland | 758.8 | 1523.5 | 6604.4 | 8810.3 | United Kingdom | 412.6 | 515.3 | 824.3 | 1128.5 | ----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ Average | 589.4 | 919.4 | 3663.9 | 4996.4 | ----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ Israel 1823 2136 14011 32761 (<50 lines) Israel 1077 1077 1077 1077 (>50 lines) Notes: 1) Rates are in dollars per month. 2) Sources: a) Report #219, "Tariff Analysis - National Digital Services at 64kb and 2Mb, Claude Laurens, La Gaude, France, December 14th, 1987 b) Israeli prices based on Sifranet and leased line price sheets, Bezek, August 15th, 1987 International rates for high speed links to the USA =================================================== Country 56/64kb 1.544M ----------------+---------+---------+ UK - MCI | 4654 | 40540 | UK - BTI | 5943 | 45045 | France | 6017 | 49557 | Netherlands | | | Germany | 9939 | 86746 | Belgium |11500 | 115008 | Norway | | | Sweden | | | Denmark | | | Japan | | | Spain | | | Switerland | 8823 | | Ireland | | | Israel |13548 | | Notes: 1) All rates are rates for connecting to the east coast in the USA. 2) The rates only reflect half of the cost. The other half is the rate for the link from the United States to the stated country 3) All rates are cost per month in US dollars ------------------------------ From: rochester!moscom!de%rutgers.edu@bu-it.BU.EDU (Dave Esan) Subject: Books on Telephony Date: 28 Jan 88 18:25:54 GMT I was recently sitting through a sales meeting listening to people discuss T1 or E5 ESS (or some such). I also head that there are Universities that offer courses in telecommunications. My question is twofold: 1. Which universities? 2. Does anyone have books that they can recommend on the subject? I have been working on Telephone Cost Management Systems for 4 1/2 years, but find the lack of knowledge about the telephone system capabilities frightening. Thanks. -- rochester \ David Esan | moscom ! de ritcv/ ------------------------------ Subject: sync of micro/mainframe clocks From: NETS%eni.prime.com@bu-it.BU.EDU Date: 27 Jan 88 21:52:16 EST ) on the "mainframe"; with a 60hz (presumably line) clock on the micro. If you are connected over TELENET, the delay will typically by much less than 1 second. At the moment, I am logged in to a PRIME system from a TELENET PAD, and I have apparently-real-time command execution. I.e. less than 200 milliseconds. I suggest that the micro request time from the host mainframe, and then subtract (about) 0.4 seconds. This will certainly give results at least as accurate as the (postulated) 1 second mainframe clock. Robert Ullmann Postmaster@en-c06.Prime.com (Ariel@en-c06.Prime.com) ------------------------------ From: cantrell%Alliant.COM@bu-it.BU.EDU (Paul Cantrell) Subject: VME Muxs Date: 29 Jan 88 16:18:58 GMT I'm trying to compile a list of available VME RS232 multiplexors and would appreciate hearing of peoples experiences including whether the mux performed as the manufacturer stated, what kind of I/O throughput you have measured, and whether you think the mux supported most of the desirable features. I'd also like to hear from people who had a significant amount of trouble porting a particular mux... PC ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Jan 88 10:58:21 PST From: dmr@russell.stanford.edu (Daniel M. Rosenberg) Subject: What network am I on? Reply-To: dmr@russell.stanford.edu (Daniel M. Rosenberg) What is the 800 number one calls to find out what long distance network is being used? (E.g., I dial 1-800-xxx-xxxx and get a recording like: "Welcome to AT&T.") Thanks for any pointers, -- ## Daniel M. Rosenberg '91 CSLI/Stanford University 1-415-323-0389 ## dmr@russell.stanford.edu or ihnp4!decwrl!labrea!russell!dmr ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Feb 88 11:35:59 GMT From: Brian J Haughey Subject: Voice-mail boards for PC's. Hi all : I'm trying to get some information together on manufactuers of VOICE-MAIL boards for PC's. (Essentially these are boards which, when you plug your PC into a PBX, will allow you to leave a voice mesage for someone, storing it in APCM format on a disk for later retrieval). If you know of any companies working in this (or related) areas, please send any details to me at the address below. Thanks ! Arpanet : HAUGHD88%IRLEARN.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Bitnet/Earn : HAUGHD88 at IRLEARN ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 21:22:04 EST From: CAPEK%YKTVMZ.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU One of my colleagues asks if there's either a commercial device or an easily buildable circuit which acts as an amplifier for the phones in a house on one line. The problem is that when Grandma calls, everyone wants to be on the line. But the CO isn't able to power 3 phones off-hook simultaneously. Seems like it would be a common need, but I've never heard of anything like that. And, of course, there's no real spec that's honored by the local operating company about how many phones can be driven simultaneously. Peter Capek IBM Research -- Yorktown Heights, NY ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Nov 87 20:46:12 EST From: enger@sccgate.scc.com (Robert M. Enger) Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #23 Doug Mosher recently wrote concerning "no ringing on the line". I do not know the specifics of the case in question, so many explanations are possible!! Given the information provided, it sounds like the number being dialed was part of a Direct Inwards Dialing (DID) number group, and that there was some difficulty with the DID trunks, amps, or pbx DID trunk cards. Briefly DID service provides a PBX with direct to the station dialing by repeating the last X digits dialed by the caller into the pbx, over one of the pbx's DID trunks, usually using ROTARY PULSE signaling (which is why DID usually has a longer delay before ringing is heard). (Touchtone signaling from the CO to the PBX is available in some areas, and speeds things up dramatically! Check with your local telco). After the addressing has been passed to the pbx, the co cuts the voice path through to the DID trunk, and the audible tones heard by the caller are actually generated by the PBX. I have seen cases where a PBX talk path has failed, but the control signals and the functioning of the supervisory signaling of the pbx's DID trunk circuit still work. The result is that the co thinks the trunk is ok, the pbx and co handshake the new call coming in, but the caller does not get to hear any audible indications. I have also seen cases where the trunk amplifier/equilizer units in the CO (MFTs, I think they're called??) have gone bad: they still pass line status handshaking info, but not voice frequency, the result again, no talk path (as long as the addressing is passed to the pbx with rotary pulse. I assume things would fail if TT signaling were used through a bad MFT). Should the trunk status handshaking fail (pbx powered down, trunks disconnected, etc), the CO will declare the trunks in trouble, and they will be taken out of service at the CO. Under this circumstance, a caller will hear some form of audible indication from the CO itself, probably one of the busy tones. In this day of high technology, wouldn't it be nice if the CO gave out more definitive information when it could not complete a DID call into a customer PBX? How about a nice simple voice recording for starters. Then we could get fancy and actually identify the trunk group by number! (A DID trunk group number is unrelated to the telephone numbers it services for the PBX.) Some suggestions: All direct dial Circuits into the customer PBX are in use. Please try again later. Trunk group . The direct dial circuits into the customer PBX are not working. Please try again later. Trunk group . Bob Enger CONTEL Federal Systems enger@bluto.scc.com ------------------------------ Date: Sunday, 27 December 1987 21:48-MST From: portal!cup.portal.com!Patrick_A_Townson@UUNET.UU.NET Subject: Sophisticated modems and Call Waiting Jay Maynard notes residential hunting may soon be no longer offered. I hope not, but take comfort in knowing Illinois Bell's policy is generally to grandfather anyone with a service feature at the time it is otherwise discontinued to NEW subscribers. He also says, "maybe this should be moved to Telecom..." and I again heartily agree....but a problem exists...where I call from (Portal System) the Telecom category will not take postings. It says "group is moderated" and that the moderator is unknown....alota good that does me! I'd LOVE to get an active telecom discussion started, if any of you know the moderator and can get a regular feed to us here (and posting rights). Thanks, and happy new year to all! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 19-Feb-88 23:09:11-EST,2404;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Fri 19 Feb 88 23:09:10-EST Date: 19 Feb 88 21:01-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #35 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, February 19, 1988 9:01PM Volume 8, Issue 35 Today's Topics: a useful service ESS could provide good phone system book / finding your LD carrier USENET readers please read ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Feb 88 10:00:23 PDT From: king@kestrel.ARPA (Dick King) Subject: a useful service ESS could provide It could allow the user to prefix any dialing with DD*, where DD is two digits, and the number would appear on the phone bill. Useful for remembering what calls were business calls or for separating calls made by roommates. Not secure, of course, but there are many applications for which this is okay. Information would not need to be communited to most LD carriers, since they tend to contract their billing to the local carrier anyway. Comments? -dk ------------------------------ Subject: good phone system book / finding your LD carrier Date: Fri, 19 Feb 88 13:15:20 -0500 From: Steve Elias a good phone system book: Engineering and Operations in the Bell System library of congress card # 83-72956 ATT select code 500-478 ------------------- to determine your long distance carrier, dial 1 700 555 2121 ------------------------------ Date: Fri 19 Feb 88 18:04:30-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: USENET readers please read The TELECOM USENET gateway at ucbvax is rejecting articles that I am posting to TELECOM. If anyone knows how to fix that problem, let me know. I was told that the articles were rejected because either they were too old or I didn't have permission to post (seems silly). If you want reliable access to TELECOM digest, then send me a reliable mail path and I will forward you digests (or individual messages) directly. There's nothing I can do, I'm not in control of ucbvax. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 20-Feb-88 18:01:57-EST,6013;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Sat 20 Feb 88 18:01:55-EST Date: 20 Feb 88 16:41-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #36 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, February 20, 1988 4:41PM Volume 8, Issue 36 Today's Topics: Reducing your toll charges Re: looking for alarm dialer RE: Useful service that ESS could provide Re: Books on Telephony missing digests ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Feb 88 21:59:00 EST From: Subject: Reducing your toll charges M.R. Smith recently wrote asking how to lower his toll charges when calling between two calling areas in N.J. If the distances are appropriate, perhaps some arrangement of one or more Remote Call Forwarding set-ups (in tandem) could be employed. With this setup, Mr. Smith would call his RCF number, which would forward his call either to the destination, or to another RCF, which would (eventually) forward his call to the destination number. Since RCFs are implemented entirely within the CO the line quality is usually pretty good. If you want to get really fancy, try to locate the RCFs in intervening COs that have digital talk paths. The principal idea here is to put one or more RCFs between you and the destination, such that each phone call made (you to 1st RCF, and each hop there after) is a local call. I believe I read somewhere that NJ tarrifs allow a subscriber to pay an additional charge to expand his/her "free" calling area. If this recollection is accurate, you may be able to use this alone, or in combination with the RCFs (perhaps also so priviledged) to achieve a "toll-free" talk path. Foreign exchange service may be another option for you, again depending on the distances involved. (I don't have a map of NJ handy, sorry). Best Wishes, Bob Enger CONTEL Federal Systems enger@bluto.scc.com ------------------------------ From: jpederse@encad.Wichita.NCR.COM (John Pedersen) Subject: Re: looking for alarm dialer Date: 19 Feb 88 22:50:02 GMT Reply-To: encad!jpederse@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (John Pedersen) In article <3122@phri.UUCP> roy%phri@UUNET.UU.NET (Roy Smith) writes: $ $ I'm trying to set up a remote alarm system which will place a phone $call when an alarm goes off. I can activate the dialer with a NO or NC The first place to check is the one sold by Radio Shack. Although it does not meet all your specifications is does do much of it. For example it does Dial on eith a NO or NC contact Can dial up to 4 numbers continiously for x minutes (x=30?) Message is synthesized, does not recognize voice just dials waits x seconds (x is programmable) gives its message describing problem, tells you to call it back to confirm receipt of alarm, and then hangs up. It then waits about 30 seconds for a callback and begins dialing the second number in its list. It is battery backed up. In fact 1 of the messages that may or may not be set to be alarmed is power outage. It also has audio input for monitoring ambients of the alarm area. Like I said, it doesn't meet all your specs but is a $99 start. (sometimes on sale for $79) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 88 08:00:36 EST From: simsong@westend.columbia.edu (Simson L. Garfinkel) Subject: RE: Useful service that ESS could provide --text follows this line-- Date: Fri, 19 Feb 88 10:00:23 PDT From: king@kestrel.ARPA (Dick King) Subject: a useful service ESS could provide It could allow the user to prefix any dialing with DD*, where DD is two digits, and the number would appear on the phone bill. Useful for remembering what calls were business calls or for separating calls made by roommates. Not secure, of course, but there are many applications for which this is okay. Both Sprint and Centrex allow you to do this. Except that with Centrex the account codes can be any lenght, and your phone bill is sorted first by account codes, second by date, third by number. You can also get your bill in machine-readable form. MIT Does this for long distance phone calls billed to MIT account numbers. ------------------------------ From: netsys!wb8foz@ames.arc.nasa.gov (David Lesher) Subject: Re: Books on Telephony Date: 20 Feb 88 01:34:49 GMT Reply-To: netsys!wb8foz@ames.arc.nasa.gov (David Lesher) > Article <1120@moscom.UUCP> From: rochester!moscom!de@RUTGERS.EDU (Dave Esan) # # 2. Does anyone have books that they can recommend on the subject? Believe it or not... Radio's Hack sells book called 'Understanding Telephone Electronics' or such. In my many years involved on the fringes of the field, I had never seen a book that described telephones so an EE could understand them. This one does. No: swinging trouble, reverse battery or open pairs It talks in ordinary, everyday electronics terms that the *real* world uses everyday. For $3.95, it cannot be beat. -- Fetch the Holy hand grenade decuac!netsys!wb8foz ------------------------------ Date: Sat 20 Feb 88 16:37:34-EST From: Jon Solomon Subject: missing digests Did you miss digests 30-32? I have issue 30 but would appreciate it if someone could remail me back issues 31 and 32. In the flurry to get mail out, I must have done something wrong and flushed the digests. Another explanation is that I cancelled the batch job twice with a problem I had to correct and those may have been the two digests we are missing. In any event I'm sorry for the confusion. --jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 22-Feb-88 21:37:26-EST,13834;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Mon 22 Feb 88 21:37:24-EST Date: 22 Feb 88 19:57-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #37 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, February 22, 1988 7:57PM Volume 8, Issue 37 Today's Topics: Today's topics 2/19 Re: What network am I on? Area Codes in North America How big is a cell? Re: a useful service ESS could provide Re: Reducing your toll charges Re: Books on Telephony Re: a useful service ESS could provide Reducing your toll charges: Only if you're close enough! Re: Reducing your toll charges: Only if you're close enough! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patrick_A_Townson@cup.portal.com Subject: Today's topics 2/19 Date: Sat Feb 20 11:28:19 1988 Dick King (king@kestrel.arpa) suggests that a two digit billing code be added to how we dial numbers, in order to identify -- in a multiple dwelling, for example, made a given call. Not a bad idea, and in fact is being used by the OCC's now, but in a little different format. I assume the use of DD on the front would be voluntary. That is, if someone using a phone thus equipped chose to simply dial the ten digit number, there would be no restriction. Or would there? What Sprint does now on request is require a two digit ID code on the end of the number. If the system administrator requires this, then the call will not be processed without it. In our office, my two digit ID is "48", and my long distance calls are placed: 65 (to get WATS) ACC-PPP-NNNN48. Without it, a recording advises me to use my billing code, or ask the system administrator for assistance. If this were implemented everywhere, I'd prefer to see it on the end of the number. Of course, we have a form of that now. Calls which require special billing can always be placed on your (name of telco here) Calling Card. The format seems to be standard nationally. You dial zero, the area code and number, then wait for the zip tone. Then, enter the ten digits of the phone to be billed and the four digit personal ID number. You can get more than one personal ID per line I am told, but this method does require dialing quite a few more digits. Very curiously, I happen to have an Illinois Bell Calling Card, an AT&T Calling Card and an MCI Credit Card. The first two have the identical data on them including the PIN. The MCI card differs only in one respect; the PIN is different (by a couple digits!). Apparently AT&T assigns all the PIN's and other details on these, regardless of which OCC (or themself) has the account. What I would REALLY like to see under ESS though, is the addition of an eighth digit to the local phone number which would serve as a 'check digit' to help prevent wrong numbers. It (8th digit) would be calculated mathematically from the other seven (or ten) and virtually eliminate wrong numbers unless it 'matched up' correctly to the other seven (or ten). Many credit card processing companies use a variation on this now, to prevent errors by clerks who punch in the account number, etc. Typically, accidental reversal of the digits will result in 'no such number' rather than an incorrect number being charged or credited. Why not to help prevent wrong numbers also? Patrick_A_Townson@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 88 14:59:07 PST From: hoptoad.UUCP!pozar@cgl.ucsf.edu (Tim Pozar) Subject: Re: What network am I on? dmr@RUSSELL.STANFORD.EDU (Daniel M. Rosenberg) wrote: > What is the 800 number one calls to find out what long distance > network is being used? > > (E.g., I dial 1-800-xxx-xxxx and get a recording like: "Welcome to AT&T.") > 800-555-4141... [I just checked and the number is 1-700-555-4141. There is (to the best of my knowledge) no 800 number that will do the same thing. --jsol] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 88 23:08:02 EST From: mgrant@cos.com (Michael Grant) Subject: Area Codes in North America For those of you who don't have this list, it could come in handy. It's a numeric list of Area codes in Northa America. 3 new area codes were assigned this year, 407 (Florida), 508, (Massachusetts), and 719, (Colorado). Notice that only 706, 708, 908, 909, and 917 are unassigned. Also notice that Mexico, (903 and 905), is also accessible by the international country code 52. Does anyone know if 903 and 905 completely overlap the country code 52? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 201 New Jersey 202 District of Columbia 203 Connecticut 204 Manitoba 205 Alabama 206 Washington 207 Maine 208 Idaho 209 California 212 New York 213 California 214 Texas 215 Pennsylvania 216 Ohio 217 Illinois 218 Minnesota 219 Indiana 301 Maryland 302 Delaware 303 Colorado 304 West Virginia 305 Florida 306 Saskatchewan 307 Wyoming 308 Nebraska 309 Illinois 312 Illinois 313 Michigan 314 Missouri 315 New York 316 Kansas 317 Indiana 318 Louisiana 319 Iowa 401 Rhode Island 402 Nebraska 403 Alberta, Yukon, and N.W. Territory 404 Georgia 405 Oklahoma 406 Montana 407 Flordia (as of April 16, 1988) 408 California 409 Texas 412 Pennsylvania 413 Massachusetts 414 Wisconsin 415 California 416 Ontario 417 Missouri 418 Quebec 419 Ohio 501 Arkansas 502 Kentucky 503 Oregon 504 Louisiana 505 New Mexico 506 New Brunswick 507 Minnesota 508 Massachusetts (as of July 16, 1988) 509 Washington 512 Texas 513 Ohio 514 Quebec 515 Iowa 516 New York 517 Michigan 518 New York 519 Ontario 601 Mississippi 602 Arizona 603 New Hampshire 604 British Columbia 605 South Dakota 606 Kentucky 607 New York 608 Wisconsin 609 New Jersey 612 Minnesota 613 Ontario 614 Ohio 615 Tennessee 616 Michigan 617 Massachusetts 618 Illinois 619 California 701 North Dakota 702 Nevada 703 Virginia 704 North Carolina 705 Ontario 706 *Unnassigned* 707 California 708 *Unnassigned* 709 Newfoundland and Labrador 712 Iowa 713 Texas 714 California 715 Wisconsin 716 New York 717 Pennsylvania 718 New York 719 Colorado (as of March 5, 1988) 801 Utah 802 Vermont 803 South Carolina 804 Virginia 805 California 806 Texas 807 Ontario 808 Hawaii 809 Puerto Rico 812 Indiana 813 Florida 814 Pennsylvania 815 Illinois 816 Missouri 817 Texas 818 California 819 Quebec 901 Tennessee 902 Prince Edwards Island and Nova Scotia 903 Mexico (parts also accessible by country code 52) 904 Florida 905 Mexico (parts also accessible by country code 52) 906 Michigan 907 Alaska 908 *Unassigned* 909 *Unassigned* 912 Georgia 913 Kansas 914 New York 915 Texas 916 California 917 *Unassigned* 918 Oklahoma 919 North Carolina ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 88 17:49:52 EST From: think!johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) Subject: How big is a cell? Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) When I first learned about cellular telephony, my impression what that they intended a typical cell to be a mile or two across. But it seems in many cases that cells near the edge of a service area are far bigger. How big can a cell be? [A cell is limited only by transmitter and antenna characteristic.] On a slightly related point, if you pick up your cellular phone near a point where two separate cellular systems meet (e.g., in centeral New Jersey between New York and Philadelphia) how do the two systems decide who gives you your dial tone? For that matter, can calls be handed off from one system to another, or only within one cellular exchange? [You get an arbitrary cellular system, and if you're really lucky you get switched back and forth. In most systems the call can't be transferred across cellphone companies, so you are disconnected from the call and you have to place the call again. --JSol] John Levine, ima!johnl or Levine@Yale.edu ------------------------------ From: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: a useful service ESS could provide Date: 20 Feb 88 21:55:22 GMT Reply-To: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) In article <8802191800.AA22595@kestrel> king@KESTREL.ARPA (Dick King) writes: > It could allow the user to prefix any dialing with DD*, where DD is > two digits, and the number would appear on the phone bill. Our PBX at work (An AT&T System 25, I think) has a similar feature. I forget the exact sequence of what you need to "dial", but you can force any call to be logged as originating from any extension. The intent is to allow you to make a call from somebody else's phone and have it charged to yours, but of course, there is nothing to keep you from doing it the other way around. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 88 10:49:12 EST From: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) Subject: Re: Reducing your toll charges Good idea, but it would be too many jumps, too expensive. The Optional Toll plan doesn't reach far enough. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 88 14:39:01 -0500 (EST) From: Marvin Sirbu Subject: Re: Books on Telephony There are a number of good recent books on Telephony. For a business school course I am using "BUSINESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS" published by Irwin. See also "Understanding Modern Telecommunications" published by McGraw Hill and Telecommunications for Managemetn also by McGraw Hill "Data Communication Fundamentals and Applications" is also not bad, published by Merrill. Marvin Sirbu CMU ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 88 14:44:25 -0500 (EST) From: Marvin Sirbu Subject: Re: a useful service ESS could provide As a way of keeping track of my business calls from my home phone, I simply route them over an LD carrier other than the default (using 10XXX). Typically they show up on my local phone bill listed separately by carrier. Marvin Sirbu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 88 11:48:03 CST From: To: Path: obdient!blair From: blair@obdient.UUCP (Doug Blair) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: What network am I on? Summary: 700-555-1212 Message-ID: <376@obdient.UUCP> Date: 21 Feb 88 17:49:04 GMT References: <8802191059.AA14710@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: Obedient Software Corp, Wheaton, IL Lines: 18 In article <8802191059.AA14710@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, dmr@RUSSELL.STANFORD.EDU (Daniel M. Rosenberg) writes: > What is the 800 number one calls to find out what long distance > network is being used? > It's not an 800 number, it's (I think the only) 700 number, and I haven't the faintest idea if kit's toll free or not. To learn your long distance company call: 1-700-555-1212 Doug Blair -- =============================================================================== | Doug Blair ... ihnp4!laidbak!obdient!blair | | "I'm not a Consultant, but I play one on TV." | | Obedient Software Corporation, 1007 Naperville Road, Wheaton, IL 60187 | =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 88 22:13:00 EST From: Subject: Reducing your toll charges: Only if you're close enough! Mark: As I said, I didn't have a map of N.J. to consult. Sorry to have gone off in the wrong direction. To cover larger distances will probably entail paying some form of time or traffic based charge, which I assumed you would like to avoid. If the destination you wish to reach is accessable from any data network, you might wish to see if there is an access point into the network close to you, and whether you would actually save any money that way (you will probably have to pay some traffic based charges). The other avenue which occurs to me is the use of WATS line services. A number of vendors now provide them. Unfortunately, WATS service will entail time based charges, but this may be unavoidable if the distance is as great as you suggest. If you wish, you could investigate leasing either analog or digital private line data service between your location, and your destination. If you're willing to tollerate 9600 baud or below, you should be able to get away with ordering an unconditioned "3002" series analog circuit. Use of this alternative will require you to buy modems which will operate on a leased line, and you will have to have permission from your destination to have your circuit terminated their premesis, etc. While the cost of this service will probably be pretty great (if your distance is great), it does have the advantage of being usage insensitive. Good Luck, Bob ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 88 22:37:59 EST From: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) Subject: Re: Reducing your toll charges: Only if you're close enough! I looked into these options, and they cost more than my salary. Thanks for the suggestion. Mark ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 25-Feb-88 22:16:54-EST,8081;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Thu 25 Feb 88 22:16:53-EST Date: 25 Feb 88 20:14-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #39 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, February 25, 1988 8:14PM Volume 8, Issue 39 Today's Topics: telephone types Your Long Distance Carrier? Area codes 903/905 and Mexico rates Re: Calling card numbers Re: What network am I on? Numbers Correction to NPA list posted by Michael Grant ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: smb@research.att.com Date: Mon, 22 Feb 88 23:16:48 EST Subject: telephone types What is a ``2500MMGB'' set? More precisely, what does the ``MMGB'' suffix indicate? --Steve Bellovin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Feb 88 09:35:56 EST From: Barry Nelson Subject: Your Long Distance Carrier? Okay, so we think it's 1 700 555 2121 or 4141 or 1212. Well, I tried a few random combinations and it appears that 1 700 555 xxxx will get me a recording thanking me for selecting a particular carrier (where x is any digit 0-9). -barry ------------------------------ Date: Tue 23 Feb 88 12:24:57-CST From: Clive Dawson Subject: Area codes 903/905 and Mexico rates The Mexico area codes definitely do not overlap all of country code 52. Area code 905 is used for Mexico City, (52-5-nnn-nnnn), and area code 903 is used for certain areas of northern Mexico, but I'm not sure of the exact mapping. Clive P.S. While on the subject, does anybody know whether any non-ATT carriers have lines into Mexico? The last time I checked, the highest price per mile for a phone call from the U.S. was for calls to Mexico. In fact, calls to Mexico were the most expensive overall, regardless of the distance. Does anybody who has checked more recently have any counterexamples? (When comparing rates, I normally use the "per each additional minute" charge during the most discounted time period. E.G. Austin, TX to Mexico City is 97 cents; Austin to Hong Kong is 81 cents.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Feb 88 15:59:39 EST From: think!johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Calling card numbers Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) In article <8802230101.AA05346@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Patrick_A_Townson@cup.portal.COM writes: >Very curiously, I happen to have an Illinois Bell Calling Card, an AT&T >Calling Card and an MCI Credit Card. The first two have the identical >data on them including the PIN. The MCI card differs only in one respect; >the PIN is different (by a couple digits!). Apparently AT&T assigns all the >PIN's and other details on these, regardless of which OCC (or themself) has >the account. No, actually the local operating company assigns your calling card number, and provides it to AT&T. (This info from my cousin who runs a small telco in Vermont and finds making up the calling card numbers to be a minor pain. The RBOCs provide the info directly, the small companies via a trade group that maintains their data base.) It appears that the various OCCs invent card numbers by themselves, using a scheme which resembles the original, i.e. your 10-digit phone number followed by 4 extra digits except when toll fraud is a problem in which case they make up all 14 digits. If the various long distance companies are really all equally at arms' length from the local telcos, I see no reason why the OCCs couldn't get their calling card numbers from the telcos, so that you would have one calling card number that would work no matther what long distance company a phone exchange happened to route your call to, making life much easier for us who use pay phones in airports. -- John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Rome fell, Babylon fell, Scarsdale will have its turn. -G. B. Shaw ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Feb 88 16:07:32 EST From: think!johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: What network am I on? Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) In article <8802202259.AA08346@hop.toad.com> pozar@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Pozar) writes: >dmr@RUSSELL.STANFORD.EDU (Daniel M. Rosenberg) wrote: >> What is the 800 number one calls to find out what long distance >> network is being used? >> (E.g., I dial 1-800-xxx-xxxx and get a recording like: "Welcome to AT&T.") >[I just checked and the number is 1-700-555-4141. There is (to the best >of my knowledge) no 800 number that will do the same thing. --jsol] It's unlikely you could find such an 800 number, since the routing rules for 800 calls are entirely different from those for regular calls. For 800 numbers, the routing is currently by prefix, e.g. 800-950 and several others go to MCI, 800-877 goes to Sprint, and all the rest go to AT&T or the local operating company. The problem is that at the time of the Bell breakup, AT&T got all of the routing equipment that handles the translation of 800 numbers, even though the BOCs are supposed to provide equal access 800 service with the 800 numbers being assigned, I suppose, by Bellcore. It's taking a long time for the BOCs to install their 800 equipment, MCI squawked at the delay, and so the government mandated the current hack of routing by prefix in the interim. For all I know, in most places the 800 numbers are still handled by AT&T under contract to the BOCs just as all long distance directory assistance is still handled by AT&T under contract to the various OCCs. Expect lots of excitement when they try to cut over to the new system and all 800 service stops working. -- John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Rome fell, Babylon fell, Scarsdale will have its turn. -G. B. Shaw ------------------------------ Date: Tue 23 Feb 88 16:02:42-PST From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: Numbers Actually....... (700) 555-XXXX will tell you who your carrier is. For some reason unclear to me, they sometimes say XXXX is 1212, 2121 or 4141. Makes no diff. POPCORN (Time in the Bay Area is the same, POP-XXXX is just as good. (905) (903) and (706) are what I guess can be called pseudo-area codes. (706) Northwest Mexico and (905) Mexico City are listed as dialing arrangements for AREAS NOT EQUIPPED FOR INTERNATIONAL DIALING. In fact, they list them 90+5 (the city code) and 70+(two or three digits beginning with 6). I assume (903) is the same type of arrangement. (700) is one of AT&T's "reserved" ACs. Besides the carrier ID, they also use it for Alliance Teleconferencing Service. ------------------------------ From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (John R. Covert) Date: 23 Feb 88 22:46 Subject: Correction to NPA list posted by Michael Grant If you are planning on keeping a copy of the area code list provided by Michael Grant, you should make the following corrections: 903 is unassigned 706 is Northwestern Mexico 708 is assigned to Illinois effective next year (312/708 split) To answer Michael's question about how much of Mexico is covered by 905 and 706: 905 is Mexico city only (equivalent to +52 5 XXX XXXX); 706 is Northwestern Mexico only (equivalent to +52 6X XXX XXX). These are special codes for North American use only to support calling from exchanges which cannot dial 011+ yet. Other countries must dial with +52. /john ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 25-Feb-88 23:59:04-EST,10902;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Thu 25 Feb 88 23:59:00-EST Date: 25 Feb 88 20:18-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #40 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, February 25, 1988 8:18PM Volume 8, Issue 40 Today's Topics: How cellular phones pick the cell to talk to areacode list with corrections Watson II / Telco wiring PADS and Characters ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (John R. Covert) Date: 23 Feb 88 23:01 Subject: How cellular phones pick the cell to talk to In V8#37, John Levine asks how a cellular phone picks which system you talk to when you're near the boundary between two systems. Although it may appear that an arbitrary system is selected, there are some rather straightforward rules which determine what happens. First a little bit of background. In any cellular service area, there will usually be two (never more) licensed operators. One will be known as the non-wireline or "A" carrier and will have an odd-numbered system ID; the other will be known as the wireline or "B" carrier and will have an even-numbered system ID. "A" carriers use channels 1-333; "B" carriers use channels 334-666. (Additional channels have been allocated; I don't know how they are assigned.) Each cell constantly transmits the system ID on the paging channel; each cellular telephone constantly scans the paging channels to see if it can adequately receive and parse the system ID. Telephones generally have the following minimum discrimination capability: (A) Scan "A" frequencies only, (B) Scan "B" frequencies only, (S) Scan both "A" and "B" frequencies and prefer a "home-type" carrier but accept a carrier of the opposite parity if no home type carrier can be found. When a cellular telephone scans, it will lock onto the strongest cell it can hear (in accordance with the scanning option chosen) and listen to only that one paging channel until it does a rescan. Rescans are done fairly frequently (every few seconds). While a call is in progress, there are no rescans; a telephone will only switch cells if it is told to do so by the cell it is currently connected to. A telephone which has only the minimum capability above will, when idle, switch somewhat aimlessly back and forth between the two systems as the received signal strength varies. This can be annoying if you're waiting for an incoming call, and the two systems are not "networked" together to provide multi-system paging. Networking between systems not owned by the same company is still quite rare, but is being done by the two "A" carriers in the NYC / Connecticut area (as of this January), by the two "B" carriers in the Green Bay / Appleton area, and by the two "B" carriers in the Oklahoma City / Shawnee area. More systems will be networked as service areas start bumping into each other. In the case of systems owned by the Baby Bells, Judge Greene has to sign waivers to permit them to network with adjacent systems. The long-term goal is for nationwide networking. In Canada, where the regulatory environment is somewhat different, there are some *very* large systems. Both Cantel and Bell Cellular operate systems which stretch continuously from Windsor (next to Detroit) all the way to Quebec City -- a distance of about 700 miles. Some telephones allow more control than the minimum above. Additional options I have seen are (1) "reverse preference" which causes the phone to prefer a non-home type system but accept a home-type, (2) home system-ID only which causes the set to ignore anything but the home system ID, (3) specific system-ID only which allows you to enter the system ID you want to talk to, and (4) ignore system ID which allows you to enter a list of system IDs which you will ignore while otherwise operating in one of the basic modes mentioned earlier. With these extra options you can arrange to pick up a more distant system if you want. For example, before Contel Cellular turned on the new Manchester/Nashua system in New Hampshire, it used to be possible to use NYNEX as far north as the Merrimack toll booth. This is more than fifteen miles from the nearest NYNEX cell and could be done with a 1/2 watt portable unit. (Car units are 3 watts.) Using one of the options which allow specification of system ID could make that still possible. The legality of using a distant system when you are in an area licensed to another company is somewhat hazy. Although we all know that you can't make radio waves stop at a state line, some cellular operators have been known to make nasty noises when adjacent systems are "stealing" their revenue, and have demanded that these systems put up highly directional antennas. I think this is a crock; the systems should just network with each other and provide the best possible service to customers of both systems. /john P.S.: The largest single cell I know of is CCT Boatphone in Road Town, Tortola. They claim coverage over roughly 8000 square miles (a circle with a diameter of over 100 miles). Coastel, in the Gulf of Mexico, has cells with diameters of about 65 miles, but they tend to overlap. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Feb 88 10:34:38 EST From: mgrant@cos.com (Michael Grant) Subject: areacode list with corrections Thanx to all of you who sent me corrections on my previous posting. I've integrated the changes people have sent me, and here it is again. I got this info out of the Dillon Colorado phone book originally. Now, could someone please type in all the prefixes for each of these area codes :) For those of you who don't have this list, it could come in handy. It's a numeric list of Area codes in Northa America. 3 new area codes were assigned this year, 407 (Florida), 508, (Massachusetts), and 719, (Colorado). Notice that only 706, 708, 908, 909, and 917 are unassigned. Also notice that Mexico, (903 and 905), is also accessible by the international country code 52. Does anyone know if 903 and 905 completely overlap the country code 52? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 201 New Jersey 202 District of Columbia 203 Connecticut 204 Manitoba 205 Alabama 206 Washington 207 Maine 208 Idaho 209 California 212 New York 213 California 214 Texas 215 Pennsylvania 216 Ohio 217 Illinois 218 Minnesota 219 Indiana 301 Maryland 302 Delaware 303 Colorado 304 West Virginia 305 Florida 306 Saskatchewan 307 Wyoming 308 Nebraska 309 Illinois 312 Illinois 313 Michigan 314 Missouri 315 New York 316 Kansas 317 Indiana 318 Louisiana 319 Iowa 401 Rhode Island 402 Nebraska 403 Alberta, Yukon, and N.W. Territory 404 Georgia 405 Oklahoma 406 Montana 407 Flordia (as of April 16, 1988) 408 California 409 Texas 412 Pennsylvania 413 Massachusetts 414 Wisconsin 415 California 416 Ontario 417 Missouri 418 Quebec 419 Ohio 501 Arkansas 502 Kentucky 503 Oregon 504 Louisiana 505 New Mexico 506 New Brunswick 507 Minnesota 508 Massachusetts (as of July 16, 1988) 509 Washington 512 Texas 513 Ohio 514 Quebec 515 Iowa 516 New York 517 Michigan 518 New York 519 Ontario 601 Mississippi 602 Arizona 603 New Hampshire 604 British Columbia 605 South Dakota 606 Kentucky 607 New York 608 Wisconsin 609 New Jersey 612 Minnesota 613 Ontario 614 Ohio 615 Tennessee 616 Michigan 617 Massachusetts 618 Illinois 619 California 701 North Dakota 702 Nevada 703 Virginia 704 North Carolina 705 Ontario 706 Mexico (equivalent to +52 6X XXX XXX) 707 California 708 Illinois (as of November 11, 1989) 709 Newfoundland and Labrador 712 Iowa 713 Texas 714 California 715 Wisconsin 716 New York 717 Pennsylvania 718 New York 719 Colorado (as of March 5, 1988) 801 Utah 802 Vermont 803 South Carolina 804 Virginia 805 California 806 Texas 807 Ontario 808 Hawaii 809 Puerto Rico 812 Indiana 813 Florida 814 Pennsylvania 815 Illinois 816 Missouri 817 Texas 818 California 819 Quebec 901 Tennessee 902 Prince Edwards Island and Nova Scotia 903 *Unassigned* 904 Florida 905 Mexico (equivalent to +52 6X XXX XXX) 906 Michigan 907 Alaska 908 *Unassigned* 909 *Unassigned* 912 Georgia 913 Kansas 914 New York 915 Texas 916 California 917 *Unassigned* 918 Oklahoma 919 North Carolina ------------------------------ From: hp-sdd!tjfs@otter.hple.hp.com (Tim Steele) Subject: Watson II / Telco wiring Date: 24 Feb 88 16:04:05 GMT Just got a Watson II card for my PC, but can't figure out how to connect it up to the UK telephone system. Any info on how your US Telco jacks are wired would be appreciated! Thanks Tim ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Feb 88 07:59:57 est From: thinder@nswc-wo.ARPA Subject: PADS and Characters We use X.25 PADS/Switches made by both Dynapac and Memotec to provide multiple connections via dry circuits here at NSWC. Recently we had a requirement to provide connectivity for some Honeywell equipment. We, or rather I, was surprised to discover that these PADS will not, at first glance work. The reason seems to be that the Honeywell uses a non-ASCII character format called ASPI. If asked up front I would have "assumed" that these PADS would be "protocol transparent" - something similar to "user friendly" in the software world. My questions about all of this are as follows: 1. Are we doing something fundamentally wrong, should these PADS pass the ASPI data. 2. Are PADS in general "character format" sensitive, and if so, why. 3. Any options, other PAD/SWITCH manufacturers we should be looking into. 4. Any one else out there using the Memotec/Dynapac gear and run into a similar situation. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thomas Hinders Telecommunications group Naval Surface Warfare Center thinder@nswc-wo.arpa or thinder@nswc-oas.arpa if you insist: Autovon 290 4225 Comm (301) 394 4225 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 26-Feb-88 22:05:05-EST,4283;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Fri 26 Feb 88 22:05:04-EST Date: 26 Feb 88 21:13-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #41 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, February 26, 1988 9:13PM Volume 8, Issue 41 Today's Topics: Re: looking for alarm dialer Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: felix!dennisg@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Dennis Griesser) Subject: Re: looking for alarm dialer Date: 26 Feb 88 03:38:36 GMT Reply-To: dennisg@felix.UUCP (Dennis Griesser) In article <3122@phri.UUCP> roy%phri@UUNET.UU.NET (Roy Smith) writes: > I'm trying to set up a remote alarm system which will place a phone >call when an alarm goes off. Black and Decker makes an autodialer now that hooks into their home security system. I've seen them at several hardware stores. The dialer is inexpensive (<$99), but doesn't do too much. I think that it calls a special response center (that you subscribe to for about $25/month) and sends the computer there some pertinent info. That's what I gleaned from a quick look at the box. Perhaps it can do more. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Feb 88 00:11:47 PST From: ole@csli.stanford.edu (Ole Jacobsen) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Reply-To: ole@csli.UUCP (Ole Jacobsen) The 700-555-xxxx works if you prefix it with 10xxx too, that is try ALL your available Equal Access carriers and hear ALL the different recordings. If you've got AT&T as your default, you can get the MCI recording by dialling 10222 700-555-4141, for instance. There was some speculation that when the "Choose-your-default-carrier" wars died down, we would see a lot of ads for "try us on a case-by-case basis" using 10xxx. I don't see much evidence of this happening. The 10xxx is still a little known feature, billing is real strange (often delayed by months on your BOC bill), and the carriers are confused. The other day I got a call from a curious carrier who had noticed that I was using them on and off, informing me that I could sign up and stop "testing" their service. When I explained that I was not "testing" their service he appeared quite perplexed. I've found that 10xxx is wonderful when certain prefixes block or you can't get through using the default carrier. "America, The Land of CHOICE, everything from the type of bread in your sandwich to your long distance carrier...." Ole "Med Televerket inn i fremtiden" ------------------------------ From: jpederse@encad.Wichita.NCR.COM (John Pedersen) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 26 Feb 88 13:43:18 GMT Reply-To: encad!jpederse@ucsd.edu (John Pedersen) In article <8802260130.AA09450@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> bnelson@CCB.BBN.COM (Barry Nelson) writes: I just tried a few of these numbers on our companys long distance carrier and got a recording that said "Your call can not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or call your customer service representative at 1-800-444-4444. Z3??" I think we are using MCI but can't tell for sure -- John.Pedersen@Wichita.NCR.COM NCR Engineering & Manufacturing EMC Engineering Wichita KS 318-688-8837 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Feb 88 07:46:04 PST From: To: ames!comp-dcom-telecom Path: pbhyc!jdf From: jdf@pbhyc.UUCP (Jack Fine) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: snider interface--what is it? Message-ID: <962@pbhyc.UUCP> Date: 26 Feb 88 15:45:59 GMT Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Lines: 9 I was recently asked to explain "snider" interface to someone and frankly I have never heard of it. They said it was a rs232c type of interface or at least was a way to connect to rs232c. Anyone out there ever heard of it or am I on a snipe hunt? Thanks Jack ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 28-Feb-88 21:11:03-EST,2501;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Sun 28 Feb 88 21:11:01-EST Date: 28 Feb 88 19:00-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #42 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, February 28, 1988 7:00PM Volume 8, Issue 42 Today's Topics: 10xxx codes -- list? "What line is this?" feature on AT&T System 25 list of 10xxx numbers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Feb 88 11:36:46 PST From: super@Csa5.LBL.Gov (Michael Helm) Subject: 10xxx codes -- list? Anyone have a cross-reference of what 10xxx code stands for what long-distance carrier? Thanks, Michael Helm (M_Helm@lbl.gov) Lawrence Berkeley Lab ------------------------------ From: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Subject: "What line is this?" feature on AT&T System 25 Date: 28 Feb 88 04:41:56 GMT In many areas, there is a magic number you can call to get a computer voice telling you what number you have called from. Does anybody know if an AT&T System 25 PBX has a similar feature to tell you what extention you are calling from? Many times when hooking up phones around the lab, I come accross an unused jack with dial tone in it and no way to find out what extention it is other than to guess and try calling it to see if it rings. I've tried picking the AT&T installers' brains; either such a feature doesn't exist or they won't tell me what it is. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ Date: Sunday, 28 Feb 88 13:03:59 EST From: Michael Smith Subject: list of 10xxx numbers Anyone know where I can find a list of lond distance carrier numbers (10xxx numbers)? Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Smith Bitnet: MNSMITH@UMAECS AIDSNEWS Why: 413-586-6414 155 Main Street CSnet: MNSMITH@ECS.UMASS.EDU Northampton, MA 01060 Arpa: MSMITH@CS-UMASS.ARPA ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 1-Mar-88 22:44:58-EST,12217;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Tue 1 Mar 88 22:44:56-EST Date: 1 Mar 88 21:14-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #43 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, March 1, 1988 9:14PM Volume 8, Issue 43 Today's Topics: Re: How big is a cell? Call Waiting and Trailblazer here are the equal access codes 10XXX Codes Re: "What line is this?" feature on AT& PLANTRONICS Phonebeam ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mikel@codas.att.com (Mikel Manitius) Subject: Re: How big is a cell? Date: 26 Feb 88 06:18:24 GMT Re: size Here in Orlando, the service area spans a good 100 miles from north to south. There are only 5 cells in the Orlando systems. Re: two neighboring systems Another example: Orlando and Melbourne are two seperate systems, however one will hand calls off to the other. Also, calls made from the Melbourne system to local numbers in Orlando, are treated as local calls, while Bell South charges INTRA-LATA for non cellular calls between the same points. -- Mikel Manitius mikel@codas.att.com ------------------------------ From: km@emory.UUCP (Ken Mandelberg) Subject: Call Waiting and Trailblazer Date: 29 Feb 88 04:49:42 GMT I have just made the unpleasant (to me) discovery that when Trailblazer modems are in PEP mode they are very resistant to carrier drops. Everyone else may think this is great, but its a problem for me. I only have one phone line at home and it has call waiting on it. For years I have taken advantage of the fact that when I am on line with a modem and a call came in, the carrier would be broken long enough by the call waiting signal that the modem would drop and I would get my call. It looks to me like the Trailblazer just fights through the noise and tells me nothing about it. The S10 register which normally controls the "carrier loss to disconnect time" is only effective in "slow mode" (ie 2400 baud or slower, no PEP). Any suggestions? -- Ken Mandelberg | {decvax,sun!sunatl,gatech}!emory!km UUCP Emory University | km@emory BITNET Dept of Math and CS | km@emory.ARPA ARPA,CSNET Atlanta, GA 30322 | Phone: (404) 727-7963 ------------------------------ Subject: here are the equal access codes Date: Mon, 29 Feb 88 09:12:27 -0500 From: Steve Elias (these were posted in this group 8 months ago. some carriers may have disappeared by now. many are available on a regional basis only.) >originally From: sun!texsun!pollux!john@SEISMO.CSS.GOV (John Reece) The following is a list of long distance carrier access numbers of the form 10XXX. An asterisk indicates that the number is used but the name of the company is not available. 001 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 002 AmeriCall LDC 003 RCI Corporation 004 * 005 * 006 * 007 Tel America 009 * 010 * 011 Metromedia Long Distance 012 Charter Corporation (Tri-J) 013 Access Services 014 * 015 * 018 * 020 * 021 Mercury 022 MCI Telecommunications 023 Texnet 024 Petricca Communications Systems 028 Texnet 030 Valu-Line of Wichita Falls 031 Teltec Saving Communications 033 US Sprint 035 * 036 Long Distance Savers 039 Electronic Office Centers of America (EO/Tech) 040 * 042 First Phone 044 Allnet Communication Services (LDX, Lexitel) 050 * 051 * 053 American Network (Starnet) 054 * 055 * 056 American Satellite 057 Long Distance Satellite 058 * 059 COMNET 060 Valu-Line of West Texas 061 * 062 * 063 COMNET 065 * 066 * 069 V/COM 070 National Telephone Exchange 072 * 077 * 080 AMTEL Systems 081 * 082 * 084 Long Distance Service (LDS) 085 WesTel 086 * 087 * 088 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 089 Telephone Systems 090 WesTel 092 * 093 Rainbow Communications 095 Southwest Communications 098 * 099 AmeriCall 120 * 121 * 122 RCA Global Communications 123 * 124 * 131 * 133 * 137 All America Cables and Radio (ITT) 142 First Phone 146 ARGO Communications 170 * 177 * 188 Satellite Business Systems 200 * 201 PhoneNet 202 ExecuLines 203 Cypress Telecommunications (Cytel) 204 United Telephone Long Distance 205 * 206 United Telephone Long Distance 210 * 211 RCI 212 Call US 213 Long Distance Telephone Savers 214 Tyler Telecom 215 Star Tel of Abilene 216 * 217 Call US 218 * 219 Call USA 220 Western Union Telegraph 221 * 222 MCI Telecommunications (SBS) 223 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 224 American Communications 225 * 226 * 227 ATH Communications (Call America) 228 * 229 Bay Communications 230 * 231 * 232 Superior Telecom 233 Delta Communications 234 AC Teleconnect (Alternative Communication) 235 * 236 * 237 Inter-Comm Telephone 238 * 239 Woof Communications (ACT) 240 * 241 American Long Lines 242 Choice Information Systems 243 * 244 Automated Communications 245 Taconic Long Distance Service 246 * 247 * 248 * 249 * 250 Dial-Net 251 * 252 Long Distance/USA 253 Litel Telecommunications 255 All-State Communications 256 American Sharecom 258 * 260 Advanced Communications Systems 263 Com Systems (Sun Dial Communications) 264 * 265 * 266 * 267 * 268 Compute-A-Call 269 * 270 * 271 * 272 * 275 * 276 CP National (American Network, Starnet) 277 * 278 * 280 * 282 * 283 * 284 American Telenet 285 * 286 Clark Telecommunications 287 ATS Communications 288 AT&T Communications 295 * 298 Thriftline 299 * 300 * 301 * 302 Austin Bestline 303 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 304 * 307 * 310 * 311 SaveNet (American Network, Starnet) 312 * 313 * 314 * 318 Long Distance Savers 321 Southland Systems 322 American Sharecom 323 * 324 First Communication 326 * 330 * 331 Texustel 332 * 333 US Sprint 335 * 336 Florida Digital Network 337 * 338 Midco Communications 339 Communication Cable Laying 341 * 342 * 343 Communication Cable Laying 345 AC Teleconnect (Alternative Communication) 348 * 350 Dial-Net 353 * 355 US Link 357 Manitowoc Long Distance Service 358 * 362 Electronic Office Centers of America (EO/Tech) 363 Tel-Toll (Econ-O-Dial of Bishop) 366 * 369 American Satellite 370 * 372 * 373 Econo-Line Waco 375 Wertern Union Telegraph 379 * 382 * 385 The Switchboard 390 * 393 Execulines of Florida 399 * 400 American Sharecom 401 * 404 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 405 * 411 * 412 Penn Telecom 414 * 415 * 421 * 422 * 424 * 426 * 428 Inter-Comm Telephone 432 Lightcall 435 Call-USA 436 Indiana Switch 440 Tex-Net 441 Escondido Telephone 442 First Phone 443 * 444 Allnet Communication Services (LDX, Lexitel) 445 * 450 * 452 * 455 Telecom Long Distance 456 ARGO Communications 457 * 458 * 462 American Network Services 464 Houston Network 465 Intelco 466 International Office Networks 468 * 469 GMW 470 * 472 Hal-Rad Communications 475 * 480 Chico Telecom (Call America) 482 * 484 * 486 * 488 United States Transmission Systems (ITT) 497 * 500 * 505 San Marcos Long Distance 511 * 512 * 515 Burlington Telephone 523 * 529 Southern Oregon Long Distance 532 Long Distance America 533 Long Distance Discount 535 * 536 Long Distance Management 537 * 538 * 539 * 543 * 547 * 550 Valu-Line of Alexandria 551 Pittsburg Communication Systems 552 First Phone 555 TeleSphere Networks 556 * 565 * 566 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 567 Advanced Marketing Services (Dial Anywhere) 579 Lintel System (Lincoln Telephone LD) 580 * 584 * 585 * 587 * 588 * 590 Wisconsin Telecommunications Tech 599 Texas Long Distance Conroe 600 * 601 Discount Communications Services 602 * 606 Biz Tel Long Distance Telephone 607 * 610 * 616 * 622 Metro America Communications 626 * 627 * 628 * 634 Econo-Line Midland 638 * 646 Contact America 647 * 652 * 654 Cincinnati Bell Long Distance 655 Ken-Tel Service 658 * 660 Tex-Net 661 * 666 Southwest Communications 669 * 675 Network Services 678 * 680 Midwest Telephone Service 682 Ashland Call America 684 Nacogdoches Telecommunications 685 * 687 NTS Communications 688 * 689 * 698 * 700 Tel-America 704 Inter-Exchange Communications 707 Telvue 709 Tel-America 711 * 717 Pass Word 722 * 723 * 724 * 726 Procom 727 Conroe-Comtel 728 * 729 * 733 * 734 * 735 Marinette-Menominee Lds 736 * 737 National Telecommunications 738 * 741 ClayDesta 742 Phone America of Carolina 743 Peninsula Long Distance Service 747 Standard Informations Services 753 * 755 Sears Communication 757 Pace Long Distance Service 759 Telenet Communication (US Sprint) 760 American Satellite 765 * 766 Yavapai Telephone Exchange 767 * 770 * 771 Telesystems 774 * 776 * 777 US Sprint 778 * 782 * 785 Olympia Telecom 786 Shared Use Network Service 787 Star Tel of Abilene 788 ASCI's Telepone Express Network 789 Microtel 792 Southwest Communications 800 Satelco 801 MidAmerican LD (Republic) 805 * 808 * 818 * 821 * 822 * 823 * 824 * 825 * 826 * 827 TCS Network Services 833 Business Telecom 834 * 835 * 836 * 837 * 838 * 839 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 847 VIP Connections 850 TK Communications 852 Telecommunicatons Systems 853 * 855 * 857 * 859 Valu-Line of Longview 862 * 864 * 866 Alascom 868 * 870 * 872 Telecommunications Services 874 Tri-Tel Communications 876 * 878 * 879 Thriftycall (Lintel Systems) 880 * 881 Coastal Telephone 882 Tuck Data Communications 883 TTI Midland-Odessa 884 TTI Midland-Odessa 885 The CommuniGroup 887 * 888 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 889 * 895 Texas on Line 897 Leslie Hammond (Phone America) 898 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 899 * 900 * 909 * 910 Montgomery Telamarketing Communication 911 * 915 Tele Tech 919 * 927 * 933 North American Communications 936 Rainbow Commuinications 937 Access Long Distance 938 Access Long Distance 945 * 950 * 951 Transamerica Telecommunications 955 United Communications 957 * 958 * 960 Access Plus 963 Tenex Communications 969 Dial-Net 977 * 983 * 985 America Calling 986 MCI Telecommunications (SBS) 987 ClayDesta Communications 988 Western Union Telegraph 991 Access Long Distance 992 * 995 * 996 * 999 * ------------------------------ Date: Mon 29 Feb 88 10:54:29-PST From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: 10XXX Codes or Carrier Identification Code Assignments which consist of both the 10XXX Feature Group D and the 950-0XXX and 950-1XXX Feature Group B codes are listed in Bellcore Technical Reference TR-EOP-000093, Telephone Area Code Directory (TACD). This is also the *detailed* AC directory listing the correct AC for small towns never found in the maps or abbreviated versions. No attendant should be without it. This is one of the things that fell through the cracks with the breakup, it took me over two years to run down who was keeping it. They sell for some nominal cost. Sorry, but the list is much too long for my typings skill. ------------------------------ From: berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu Subject: Re: "What line is this?" feature on AT& Date: 29 Feb 88 19:06:00 GMT Our Northern Telecom switch at Univ. of Il. has such a feature, but our local AT&T switch doesn't. Mike Berger Department of Statistics Science, Technology, and Society University of Illinois berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu {ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!berger ------------------------------ Date: 1 Mar 88 08:10 PST From: William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp Subject: PLANTRONICS Phonebeam Is there a way to connect this to my standard home phone line? Thanks, --Bi(( ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 2-Mar-88 21:21:07-EST,8098;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Wed 2 Mar 88 21:21:05-EST Date: 2 Mar 88 19:56-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #44 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, March 2, 1988 7:56PM Volume 8, Issue 44 Today's Topics: Telco problem Re: 10xxx codes -- list? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Telco problem Date: Wed, 02 Mar 88 08:27:32 -0500 From: Daniel Long My upstairs neighbor and I are experiencing the same, intermittent problem with our phones: occasionally, when people call us, the phone keeps ringing even after we pick up the handset. We can (barely) hear the party at the other end (in between rings). Having them call back usually solves the problem. This has been going on for several weeks now but only occasionally (and possibly only with certain LD callers). The Telco office in Arlington, MA is not an ESS (i.e. we don't yet have any calling features such as call-waiting, speed-calling, equal-access, etc). I plan to give Telco a call but I was hoping someone could arm me with the right jargon (or even a diagnosis) to get through the process more easily. Thanks, Dan ------------------------------ From: rochester!moscom!de@rutgers.edu (Dave Esan) Subject: Re: 10xxx codes -- list? Date: 1 Mar 88 21:21:12 GMT Reply-To: rochester!moscom!de@rutgers.edu (Dave Esan) In article <880227113646.2480a904@Csa5.LBL.Gov> super@CSA5.LBL.GOV (Michael Helm) writes: > >Anyone have a cross-reference of what 10xxx code stands for what >long-distance carrier? > I got this from the ongoing anti-Sprint discussion in misc.consumers. I offer no guarentees of reliability or accuracy. 001 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 002 AmeriCall LDC 003 RCI Corporation 007 Tel America 011 Metromedia Long Distance 012 Charter Corporation (Tri-J) 013 Access Services 021 Mercury 022 MCI Telecommunications 023 Texnet 024 Petricca Communications Systems 028 Texnet 030 Valu-Line of Wichita Falls 031 Teltec Saving Communications 033 US Sprint 036 Long Distance Savers 039 Electronic Office Centers of America (EO/Tech) 042 First Phone 044 Allnet Communication Services (LDX, Lexitel) 053 American Network (Starnet) 056 American Satellite 057 Long Distance Satellite 059 COMNET 060 Valu-Line of West Texas 063 COMNET 069 V/COM 070 National Telephone Exchange 080 AMTEL Systems 084 Long Distance Service (LDS) 085 WesTel 088 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 089 Telephone Systems 090 WesTel 093 Rainbow Communications 095 Southwest Communications 099 AmeriCall 122 RCA Global Communications 137 All America Cables and Radio (ITT) 142 First Phone 146 ARGO Communications 188 Satellite Business Systems 201 PhoneNet 202 ExecuLines 203 Cypress Telecommunications (Cytel) 204 United Telephone Long Distance 206 United Telephone Long Distance 211 RCI 212 Call US 213 Long Distance Telephone Savers 214 Tyler Telecom 215 Star Tel of Abilene 217 Call US 219 Call USA 220 Western Union Telegraph 222 MCI Telecommunications (SBS) 223 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 224 American Communications 227 ATH Communications (Call America) 229 Bay Communications 232 Superior Telecom 233 Delta Communications 234 AC Teleconnect (Alternative Communication) 237 Inter-Comm Telephone 239 Woof Communications (ACT) 241 American Long Lines 242 Choice Information Systems 244 Automated Communications 245 Taconic Long Distance Service 250 Dial-Net 252 Long Distance/USA 253 Litel Telecommunications 255 All-State Communications 256 American Sharecom 260 Advanced Communications Systems 263 Com Systems (Sun Dial Communications) 268 Compute-A-Call 276 CP National (American Network, Starnet) 284 American Telenet 286 Clark Telecommunications 287 ATS Communications 288 AT&T Communications 298 Thriftline 302 Austin Bestline 303 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 311 SaveNet (American Network, Starnet) 318 Long Distance Savers 321 Southland Systems 322 American Sharecom 324 First Communication 331 Texustel 333 US Sprint 336 Florida Digital Network 338 Midco Communications 339 Communication Cable Laying 343 Communication Cable Laying 345 AC Teleconnect (Alternative Communication) 350 Dial-Net 355 US Link 357 Manitowoc Long Distance Service 362 Electronic Office Centers of America (EO/Tech) 363 Tel-Toll (Econ-O-Dial of Bishop) 369 American Satellite 373 Econo-Line Waco 375 Wertern Union Telegraph 385 The Switchboard 393 Execulines of Florida 400 American Sharecom 404 MidAmerican LD (Republic Telecom) 412 Penn Telecom 428 Inter-Comm Telephone 432 Lightcall 435 Call-USA 436 Indiana Switch 440 Tex-Net 441 Escondido Telephone 442 First Phone 444 Allnet Communication Services (LDX, Lexitel) 455 Telecom Long Distance 456 ARGO Communications 462 American Network Services 464 Houston Network 465 Intelco 466 International Office Networks 469 GMW 472 Hal-Rad Communications 480 Chico Telecom (Call America) 488 United States Transmission Systems (ITT) 505 San Marcos Long Distance 515 Burlington Telephone 529 Southern Oregon Long Distance 532 Long Distance America 533 Long Distance Discount 536 Long Distance Management 550 Valu-Line of Alexandria 551 Pittsburg Communication Systems 552 First Phone 555 TeleSphere Networks 566 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 567 Advanced Marketing Services (Dial Anywhere) 579 Lintel System (Lincoln Telephone LD) 590 Wisconsin Telecommunications Tech 599 Texas Long Distance Conroe 601 Discount Communications Services 606 Biz Tel Long Distance Telephone 622 Metro America Communications 634 Econo-Line Midland 646 Contact America 654 Cincinnati Bell Long Distance 655 Ken-Tel Service 660 Tex-Net 666 Southwest Communications 675 Network Services 680 Midwest Telephone Service 682 Ashland Call America 684 Nacogdoches Telecommunications 687 NTS Communications 700 Tel-America 704 Inter-Exchange Communications 707 Telvue 709 Tel-America 717 Pass Word 726 Procom 727 Conroe-Comtel 735 Marinette-Menominee Lds 737 National Telecommunications 741 ClayDesta 742 Phone America of Carolina 743 Peninsula Long Distance Service 747 Standard Informations Services 755 Sears Communication 757 Pace Long Distance Service 759 Telenet Communication (US Sprint) 760 American Satellite 766 Yavapai Telephone Exchange 771 Telesystems 777 US Sprint 785 Olympia Telecom 786 Shared Use Network Service 787 Star Tel of Abilene 788 ASCI's Telepone Express Network 789 Microtel 792 Southwest Communications 800 Satelco 801 MidAmerican LD (Republic) 827 TCS Network Services 833 Business Telecom 839 Cable & Wireless Communication (TDX) 847 VIP Connections 850 TK Communications 852 Telecommunicatons Systems 859 Valu-Line of Longview 866 Alascom 872 Telecommunications Services 874 Tri-Tel Communications 879 Thriftycall (Lintel Systems) 881 Coastal Telephone 882 Tuck Data Communications 883 TTI Midland-Odessa 884 TTI Midland-Odessa 885 The CommuniGroup 888 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 895 Texas on Line 897 Leslie Hammond (Phone America) 898 Satellite Business Systems (MCI) 910 Montgomery Telamarketing Communication 915 Tele Tech 933 North American Communications 936 Rainbow Commuinications 937 Access Long Distance 938 Access Long Distance 951 Transamerica Telecommunications 955 United Communications 960 Access Plus 963 Tenex Communications 969 Dial-Net 985 America Calling 986 MCI Telecommunications (SBS) 987 ClayDesta Communications 988 Western Union Telegraph 991 Access Long Distance -- rochester \ David Esan | moscom ! de ritcv/ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 6-Mar-88 13:14:01-EST,7449;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Sun 6 Mar 88 13:13:59-EST Date: 6 Mar 88 11:55-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #45 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, March 6, 1988 11:55AM Volume 8, Issue 45 Today's Topics: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Mitsubishi Cellular Phone Re: PLANTRONICS Phonebeam Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? 700-555-1212 10988 LD Access code and modem carrier ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: py21%sdcc12@ucsd.edu (Akkana) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 3 Mar 88 22:14:55 GMT In article <8802281957.AA17753@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, ole@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Ole Jacobsen) writes: > happening. The 10xxx is still a little known feature, billing is real > strange (often delayed by months on your BOC bill), and the carriers Interesting -- I didn't have any trouble getting this info from PacBell when I signed up for service here in San Diego (surprising after dealing with ConTel in New Mexico, who said "Equal Access? What's that? You must mean three-way calling, here's a brochure describing that feature"). When I said I wasn't sure what carrier I wanted (not having had experience with any but Sprint and AT&T, both of whom I was pretty sure I didn't want), she told me that I could put off specifying the carrier and use 10xxx dialing in the meantime. A list of carriers arrived in the mail two days later. I haven't noticed any delay on 10xxx billing here, either (at least on the MCI calls). > are confused. The other day I got a call from a curious carrier who > had noticed that I was using them on and off, informing me that I > could sign up and stop "testing" their service. When I explained that > I was not "testing" their service he appeared quite perplexed. There do seem to be billing problems -- someone from Allnet keeps calling my number asking why we've been using their service without subscribing and apparently wanting to tell us to stop (I think, but they haven't managed to catch me at home yet). Perhaps all they want to do is solicit my subscription to get me to stop "testing". I may subscribe service anyway, since it's the only one I've found so far which has decent line quality (Sprint used to be really good before equal access, but now I can't even understand voices on it -- I hear other people on the line more loudly than I do the person who is supposed to be calling me on Sprint). -- ...Akkana LaboratoryForBiologicalDynamicsAndTheoreticalMedicine, UCSD akkana%brain@ucsd.edu ihnp4!lanl!brain.ucsd.edu!akkana "I think I'll take a walk. Hmm, wonder where this wire goes?" -- Max Headroom ------------------------------ From: ccoprrd@pyr.gatech.edu (Richard Dervan) Subject: Mitsubishi Cellular Phone Date: 4 Mar 88 19:50:21 GMT Has anyone had any experience with Mitsubishi Cellular phones? I got a flyer from Amex today offering me one for $95/month for 24 months. This is the phone and portable pack. They also do the initial start-up with Bell South Mobility. Any info on these phones is appreciated. -Richard -- _________________________________________________________________________ | Richard B Dervan BitNet: ccoprrd@gitvm1 | | Office of Computing Services ARPA : ccoprrd@pyr.gatech.edu | | Georgia Institute of Technology CIS : 70365,1012 | | Atlanta, Ga 30332 MCI : RDERVAN | | uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!gatech!gitpyr!ccoprrd | |__________________"We don't fit the mold...we build it"__________________| ------------------------------ From: psuvax1!vu-vlsi!dsinc!syd@rutgers.edu (Syd Weinstein) Subject: Re: PLANTRONICS Phonebeam Date: 4 Mar 88 00:51:22 GMT Reply-To: psuvax1!vu-vlsi!dsinc!syd@rutgers.edu (Syd Weinstein) In article WBD.MDC@OFFICE-8.ARPA (William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp) writes: >Is there a way to connect this to my standard home phone line? Thanks, --Bi(( Sure there is, it depends on the model. Plantronics makes three models of the phonebeam. We use them and I love mine. One model is a 25 pair type that requires a speakerphone block adapter to hook up. Those adapters are available from supply houses and come with wiring instructions you need to be a telco engineer to use. Phonebeam also makes a model that has a plain old RJ11 jack on the end. Those are easy, just plug them in to a wall jack and away you go. A third model is made to hook into the old Key system amphinol connector and work that way. Those also require a speakerphone block adapter. You didnt state which type you have, so I guess its not the easy one. Check with North Supply or some other phone supply house for the adapter, Plantronics can give you the type needed. They even have an 800 number, but I dont have it available here at home. -- ===================================================================== Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900 {allegra,bellcore,bpa,vu-vlsi}!dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235 ------------------------------ From: rabbit1!tom@uunet.UU.NET (Tom Donohue) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 4 Mar 88 18:10:22 GMT In article <8802281957.AA17753@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, ole@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Ole Jacobsen) writes: > There was some speculation that when the "Choose-your-default-carrier" > wars died down, we would see a lot of ads for "try us on a > case-by-case basis" using 10xxx. I live in the Philadelphia 'burbs. Bell of PA enclosed a flyer in my most recent bill urging me to prefix my calls to nearby Southern New Jersey towns with 10BPA to save $$ compared to AT&T rates. (I never call South Jersey, so I assume my neighbors received this flyer too). -- -- tom ...!{allegra,caip,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax!hutch!tom ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 88 13:26:16 EST From: ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) Subject: 700-555-1212 If I dial that with a 10xxx prefix here I am warned that it is not necessary to dial a long distance carrier prefix when making this call. -Ron ------------------------------ From: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) Subject: 10988 LD Access code and modem carrier Date: 5 Mar 88 20:11:09 GMT Reply-To: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) I dialed 10988+1700 555 1414 and got a a modem carrier. So , I hooked up the computer, dialed in at 1200 baud and used 7bit No Parity and 1 stop. I got an: ID: prompt. Does anybody know what this is? Mark -- Mark Smith (alias Smitty) "Be careful when looking into the distance, RPO 1604, CN 5063 that you do not miss what is right under your nose." New Brunswick, NJ 08903 {backbone}!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu msmith%topaz.rutgers.edu@CUNYVM.BITNET ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 7-Mar-88 23:22:34-EST,8705;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Mon 7 Mar 88 23:22:32-EST Date: 7 Mar 88 22:04-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #46 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, March 7, 1988 10:04PM Volume 8, Issue 46 Today's Topics: Re: 10988 LD Access code and modem carrier Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Please post on comp.dcom.telecom Private Pay Phones Plaguing Public ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: 10988 LD Access code and modem carrier Date: Sun, 06 Mar 88 14:42:38 -0500 From: Steve Elias Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom In-Reply-To: <18551@topaz.rutgers.edu> Organization: BBN Communications Corp., Cambridge, MA Cc: Bcc: In article <18551@topaz.rutgers.edu> Smitty writes: ?I dialed 10988+1700 555 1414 and got a a modem carrier. So , I hooked ?up the computer, dialed in at 1200 baud and used 7bit No Parity and 1 ?stop. ?I got an: ?ID: ?prompt. ?Does anybody know what this is? 988 routes calls to western union -- it will be interesting to see if you ever get a bill. do other 700 calls generate tolls ? if you were a legitimate western union outlet, you could probably make all sorts of transactions... ------------------------------ From: dzoey@umd5.umd.edu (Joe Herman) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 6 Mar 88 21:42:22 GMT From article <982@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU>, by py21%sdcc12@UCSD.EDU (Akkana): Status: O > > In article <8802281957.AA17753@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, ole@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Ole Jacobsen) writes: >> happening. The 10xxx is still a little known feature, billing is real >> strange (often delayed by months on your BOC bill), and the carriers > > Interesting -- I didn't have any trouble getting this info from PacBell > when I signed up for service here in San Diego.... 10XXX dialing still seems to be an unknown feature to many BOC personnel. When I moved into my new appartment, I called C & P customer service and asked them for a list of long distance companies and their access codes. When I asked about 10XXX dialing, I was told that I could have a list of long distance companies and their custom service numbers, but I would have to call each company and get the access number from them. I have a feeling that they want you to call the companies so that you can set up a billing account. They also told me there is a $5 dollar surcharge to switch default long distance companies. Well, since I thought that 10XXX was public information, I called the Maryland Public Service Commision. They were absolutely no help. They had never heard of 10XXX numbers. At least before the breakup, Ma Bell was consistant. JoeH. dzoey@terminus.umd.edu P.S. Thank you to whoever reposted the 10XXX list. -- "Everything is wonderful until you know something about it." ------------------------------ From: rabbit1!tom@rutgers.edu (Tom Donohue) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 4 Mar 88 18:10:22 GMT In article <8802281957.AA17753@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, ole@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Ole Jacobsen) writes: > There was some speculation that when the "Choose-your-default-carrier" > wars died down, we would see a lot of ads for "try us on a > case-by-case basis" using 10xxx. I live in the Philadelphia 'burbs. Bell of PA enclosed a flyer in my most recent bill urging me to prefix my calls to nearby Southern New Jersey towns with 10BPA to save $$ compared to AT&T rates. (I never call South Jersey, so I assume my neighbors received this flyer too). -- -- tom ...!{allegra,caip,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax!hutch!tom ------------------------------ From: r-michael@cup.portal.com Subject: Please post on comp.dcom.telecom Date: Sun Mar 6 17:17:59 1988 >In article <8802260130.AA09450@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> bnelson@CCB.BBN.COM (Barry N >lson) writes: > >I just tried a few of these numbers on our companys long distance carrier and >got a recording that said "Your call can not be completed as dialed. Please >check the number and try again or call your customer service representative >at 1-800-444-4444. Z3??" > >I think we are using MCI but can't tell for sure > > >-- >John.Pedersen@Wichita.NCR.COM That is an MCI number for Calling Card service. (for those of you who want to know, its point of call routing to wherever you are at the time). "Z3" probably should be 2ZZ, which is a switch id (it's a generic sw i.d., it really does'nt exist.). Yes, you are on MCI if you got that recording. Other MCI recordings are (CCAD)..."or call 1-800-888-1800, 2??" (our 800 switch recording), "Thank you for choosing MCI as your long distance carrier...." our 700-555-4141 test recording. r-michael@cup.portal.com MCI Trouble Reporting Center/via the Portal System San Francisco, Calif. ------------------------------ From: Patrick_A_Townson@cup.portal.com Subject: Private Pay Phones Plaguing Public Date: Sun Mar 6 19:49:44 1988 Credit card users who make calls on privately owned pay phones are usually in for a shock when the bill arrives, according to Datapro Research Corp. The New Jersey telecommunications information service said consumers using private phone service, called Alternate Operator Service, frequently face unexpected charges of 10 times the amount charged by AT&T. The Alternate Operator business, which came into existence following the breakup of the Bell System, was used primarily by hotels and motels in the beginning. Alternate Operator firms pay large commissions to those who install their phones. Although Illinois Bell provides billing services for three Alternate Operator Service companies, they warn that anyone using an unfamiliar pay phone must be cautious. Richard Hill, a spokesman for Illinois Bell suggested that callers should find a phone plainly marked "Illinois Bell", or xxxx-Bell in other parts of the country. Likewise a phone with a seal saying it is operated by General Telephone or Centel is safe to use said Hill, who added that these phones are regulated by various state regulatory agencies such as the Illinois Commerce Commission. The rates are well known and published. Hill said the various Bell Operating Companies provide the best value for the service. Al Talbott, chief telephone engineer for the Illinois Commerce Commission said Alternate Operator Service operations require only certification by the commission. The AOS' are not regulated by the ICC, nor are they in most states. Talbott said they were particularly excluded, but he does not know how or why that came about. Although the original intention was to allow Alternate Operator Services rates to compete with other telephone services, no one anticipated their rates would be so high. The problem is, they catch unsuspecting customers by suprise and shock according to Talbott. Many of their coin telephone instruments look 'just like' phones provided by Bell. Talbott said there have been enough complaints about these pay phones that the commission is planning to take a new look at them and their operations, but for now those phones are legal. Talbott suggested consumers should ask for the name of the service placing their call when calling from 'suspect phones', such as those at airports and hotels. Ask specifically what the call is going to cost when calling through a hotel switchboard. When using private pay phones which accept credit cards for billing, find out from someone at the company how much will be billed to your credit card. And like Hill, he suggested that when a choice of payphones is available in a location, you may wish to look for one with a tag saying "xxx-Bell". In some areas, he noted, the tag may say 'genuine Bell' or 'Telephone Company Coin Phone' or words to that effect. +++++++++++++++++++++++ And in the Action Line column the day before, a business man complained of being charged for a one minute call -- in the evening -- from Chicago to New York City. Action Line was able to retrieve his money for him. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 9-Mar-88 21:54:59-EST,6525;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 9-Mar-88 21:06:52 Date: 9 Mar 88 21:06-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #47 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, March 9, 1988 9:06PM Volume 8, Issue 47 Today's Topics: Nationwide paging Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? 301-328 moved Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Re: dcom show Submission for comp-dcom-telecom the number you dialed.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 8 Mar 88 13:40:54 est From: Brendan Reilly Subject: Nationwide paging Has anyone had success using a nationwide paging service. My experience so far has been that this industry is just starting up, and that bugs need to be worked out. Is anybody out in front of the pack with a working system? ------------------------------ From: shs@vanhalen.rutgers.edu (S. H. Schwartz) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 9 Mar 88 14:45:03 GMT Reply-To: shs@vanhalen.rutgers.edu (S. H. Schwartz) In article <435@rabbit1.UUCP> tom@rabbit1.UUCP (Tom Donohue) writes: > >I live in the Philadelphia 'burbs. Bell of PA enclosed a >flyer in my most recent bill urging me to prefix my calls >to nearby Southern New Jersey towns with 10BPA to save $$ >compared to AT&T rates. (I never call South Jersey, so I >assume my neighbors received this flyer too). New Jersey Bell (local carrier) has converse service from SW NJ to Phillie and NE NJ to NYC: prefix with 10NJB. -- *** QUESTION AUTHORITIES *** Rashi, Rif, Maharal... S. H. Schwartz (201) 846-9185 shs@paul.rutgers.edu (201) 932-4714 ...rutgers!paul.rutgers.edu!shs ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Mar 88 12:54:58 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 301-328 moved 301-328 was formerly Woodstock, Maryland but is now in Baltimore city. I don't know what happened to people who had phones on 301-328 (and I haven't been in Woodstock yet), but I notice some Woodstock area listings on neighboring Ellicott City exchange (and this now picks up the Woodstock post office). ------------------------------ From: dupuy@westend.columbia.edu (Alexander Dupuy) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 9 Mar 88 18:10:36 GMT Reply-To: dupuy@westend.columbia.edu (Alexander Dupuy) In article <435@rabbit1.UUCP> tom@rabbit1.UUCP (Tom Donohue) writes: > >I live in the Philadelphia 'burbs. Bell of PA enclosed a >flyer in my most recent bill urging me to prefix my calls >to nearby Southern New Jersey towns with 10BPA to save $$ >compared to AT&T rates. New Jersey Bell has a similar campaign ("Dial 10-NJB") here in NYC, encouraging people making calls to Jersey to save over AT&T rates. If we only had equal access, my roommates (whose parents live in Trenton and Princeton) would probably give it a try. @alex inet: dupuy@columbia.edu uucp: ...!rutgers!columbia!dupuy ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Mar 88 12:25:32 EST From: hplabs!sun!sundc!mgrant%cos.com@rutgers.edu (Michael Grant) Subject: Re: dcom show I believe it's Connect '88 going on this week, march 7-10 at the Javitt's Convention Center in NYC, USA. -Mike ------------------------------ From: rja Date: 7 Mar 88 14:20:27 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: edison!rja From: rja@edison.GE.COM (rja) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 10xxx access Keywords: Long Distance Carriers Message-ID: <1368@edison.GE.COM> Date: 7 Mar 88 14:20:24 GMT References: <8802260130.AA09450@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <982@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU> Organization: GE-Fanuc North America Lines: 22 In Virginia, CENTEL's 12/87 telephone book lists every 10xxx access code for carriers who expect to provide "egual access" service when we get cut over later this month. The book points out that one MUST "make arrangements" with the long-distance carrier BEFORE using their LD service. This is because most LD carriers have no way to bill users unless the user gives them a customer name and billing address to send the bill to each month. If you use them without "signing up" you get the use of their service (in effect) for free because they have no means to bill. This is why they are calling you at home and asking why you haven't signed up. "Try out" periods are not necessarily legal if you haven't signed up with that carrier or at least have their permission. C&P Telephone's phone book of 8/87 for Hampton Raods, VA isn't nearly as explicit as CENTEL, but does talk about the 10xxx codes and the procedures for using alternative LD carriers. It sounds like your local telco isn't completely on top of things. I suspect that intentionally using a carrier that you haven't signed up with could well leave you open to a lawsuit from the LD carrier for using the service without the intent to pay, but I'm not a lawyer. For my own part, I found that AT&T is cheapest for in-state calls within Virginia from my area to No.VA and Hampton Roads, so I've signed up with them. Their lines always work cleanly and I don't usually call out of state. rja@edison.GE.COM ------------------------------ From: Patrick_A_Townson@cup.portal.com Subject: the number you dialed.... Date: Mon Mar 7 23:04:07 1988 Reading about the fellow who dialed 10988-1-700-1-555-1414 and getting a carrier made me want to try -- From my default carrier, 1-700-555-1414 gets me a message 'you have reached Status: O the AT&T Long Distance Service. Thank you for choosing AT&T'. When I dial 10988-1-700-555-1414 I recieve a message saying 'the number you dialed cannot be reached with the carrier access code you have chosen. Please check the access code and dial your call again, or ask your long distance service representative for assistance. This is a recording 312-1B.' Apparently we don't get Western Union access up here, because 10988-anything failed to go through, returning the aforementioned intercept message instead. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 10-Mar-88 19:43:36-EST,4534;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Thu 10 Mar 88 19:43:35-EST Date: 10 Mar 88 17:45-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #48 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, March 10, 1988 5:45PM Volume 8, Issue 48 Today's Topics: Re: Mitsubishi Cellular Phone Calling 10xxx without signing up first Re: 10988 LD Access code and modem carrier 10XXX info ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dalesys%lamont.Columbia.edu@lamont (dale chayes) Subject: Re: Mitsubishi Cellular Phone Date: 10 Mar 88 00:12:31 GMT In article <5132@pyr.gatech.EDU>, ccoprrd@PYR.GATECH.EDU (Richard Dervan) writes: > > Has anyone had any experience with Mitsubishi Cellular phones? I got a > flyer from Amex today offering me one for $95/month for 24 months. I have no personal experience with the Mitsubishi, but we have a Panasonic portable that we have been using since the middle of the summer with no complaints. Ignoring the interest, you are going to pay about $2,300 to ammex. We paid about $1,700 for the Panasonic which included registration and all that. Beware that the real cost is in the monthly bills. Check out the different options before you decide on the type of service (rate) you sign up for. If you are on the road all day, and make lots of 9-5 calls, you can buy a block of time per month deal. If you live on your boat, you can get a cheaper after 7pm to 7am deal. It is a relatively fluid market: THE BUYER HAD BEST BEWARE. -- Dale Chayes Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University usmail: Route 9W, Palisades, N.Y. 10964 voice: (914) 359-2900 extension 434 fax: (914) 359-6817 usnet: ...philabs!lamont!dale ------------------------------ From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (John R. Covert) Date: 10 Mar 88 08:12 Subject: Calling 10xxx without signing up first > I suspect that intentionally using a carrier that you haven't signed up with >could well leave you open to a lawsuit from the LD carrier for using the >service without the intent to pay, but I'm not a lawyer. Bologna. Dialing 10xxx without signing up does not imply lack of intent to pay. The carrier gets your phone number when you dial the call. The carrier has access to your name and address (your local telco must provide it on request). If a carrier doesn't want you using their service without signing up, the carrier should not process the call if you're not in the database. Unless you fail to pay when the bill arrives, it's perfectly legal to use the services of any carrier you can reach with 10xxx. /john ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Mar 88 10:37:15 PST From: Jeff Woolsey Subject: Re: 10988 LD Access code and modem carrier Reply-To: nsc!woolsey@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Jeff Woolsey) I get a modem carrier when I try to place any call using 10375 as the prefix. It answers as EASYLINK ID? The CIC list posted earlier identifies it as Western Union. -- -- I wish people would stop running into my car! Jeff Woolsey National Semiconductor woolsey@nsc.NSC.COM -or- woolsey@umn-cs.cs.umn.EDU ------------------------------ From: gast@cs.ucla.edu Subject: 10XXX info Date: 10 Mar 88 20:34:54 GMT Reply-To: gast@cs.ucla.edu () When I signed up for my long distance service with Allnet, they gave me their 5 digit code so I could begin calling before the local phone company switched everything together. They also gave me the 5 digit codes of a couple of other carriers when I asked. I noticed that the white pages has the following comment: Long Distance Companies participating in Easy Access (1+ dialing) will also have a unique five-digit Company Code. By dialing the Company Code plus the Area Code and the telephone number, your call will be routed over that company's lines. This service is called Company Code Dialing which may be used in addition to Easy Access. (You may have to make arrangements with some companies before using their codes.) [The unnecessarily capitalized words are in the original]. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 12-Mar-88 01:56:57-EST,3323;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Sat 12 Mar 88 01:56:56-EST Date: 12 Mar 88 01:14-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #49 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, March 12, 1988 1:14AM Volume 8, Issue 49 Today's Topics: Re: Private Pay Phones Plaguing Public Re: 10988 LD Access code and modem carrier ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) Subject: Re: Private Pay Phones Plaguing Public Date: 10 Mar 88 21:55:29 GMT Does anybody know what payphones (other than NJ Bell) are "safe" in NJ? Mark -- Mark Smith (alias Smitty) "Be careful when looking into the distance, RPO 1604, CN 5063 that you do not miss what is right under your nose." New Brunswick, NJ 08903 {backbone}!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu msmith%topaz.rutgers.edu@CUNYVM.BITNET ------------------------------ From: ccoprrd@pyr.gatech.edu (Richard Dervan) Subject: Re: 10988 LD Access code and modem carrier Date: 11 Mar 88 16:49:25 GMT In article <8803071837.AA01807@nsc.NSC.COM>, woolsey@nsc.nsc.COM (Jeff Woolsey) writes: > I get a modem carrier when I try to place any call using 10375 as > the prefix. It answers as > EASYLINK > ID? > > The CIC list posted earlier identifies it as Western Union. I believe this is an electronic mail service offered my Western Union. Maybe the prefix code allows you to access the service from anywhere with equal- access without having to remember lots of phone access numbers. -Richard -- _________________________________________________________________________ | Richard B Dervan BitNet: ccoprrd@gitvm1 | | Office of Computing Services ARPA : ccoprrd@pyr.gatech.edu | | Georgia Institute of Technology CIS : 70365,1012 | | Atlanta, Ga 30332 MCI : RDERVAN | | uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!gatech!gitpyr!ccoprrd | |__________________"We don't fit the mold...we build it"__________________| ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Mar 88 9:40:51 EST From: news@bbn.com To: comp-dcom-telecom@uunet.uu.net Path: bbn!bbn.com!levin From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Calling 10xxx without signing up first Message-ID: <21930@bbn.COM> Date: 11 Mar 88 14:40:45 GMT References: <8803101317.AA19184@decwrl.dec.com> Sender: news@bbn.COM Reply-To: levin@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin) Organization: BBN Communications Corporation Lines: 10 Mostly (around here, anyhow) the carriers available for 1+ access have an arrangement with the local Telco: calls made using 10xxx by non subscribers are billed by the Telco who passes the payment on to the carrier. I have had a page of Sprint bill along with the page of ATT bill in my N E Tel bill. /JBL UUCP: {harvard, husc6, etc.}!bbn!levin ARPA: levin@bbn.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 14-Mar-88 21:29:35-EST,9498;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Mon 14 Mar 88 21:29:34-EST Date: 14 Mar 88 19:51-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #50 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, March 14, 1988 7:51PM Volume 8, Issue 50 Today's Topics: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? 700 numbers, 900 numbers, LATAs & Calling Cards, Dial a Porn 600 area code? Codex/Motorola/UDS leased/dial modems Wiring in my house. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mende@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Mende pie) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 13 Mar 88 10:37:31 GMT In article <5400@columbia.edu> dupuy@WESTEND.COLUMBIA.EDU (Alexander Dupuy) writes: > New Jersey Bell has a similar campaign ("Dial 10-NJB") here in NYC, > encouraging people making calls to Jersey to save over AT&T rates. If > we only had equal access, my roommates (whose parents live in Trenton > and Princeton) would probably give it a try. No ... the 10NJB only works to a few parts of NJ. From NY they only work the surrounding counties. You cant use it in any many counties (morris and middlesex come to mind). I assume that somthing similar works for PA area. /bob -- mende@rutgers.edu {...}!rutgers!mende mende@zodiac.bitnet YOW!! The land of the rising SONY!! ------------------------------ From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (John R. Covert) Date: 14 Mar 88 07:06 Subject: 700 numbers, 900 numbers, LATAs & Calling Cards, Dial a Porn From: Greg Monti National Public Radio 9-MAR-1988 19:13 Subj: 700 numbers, 900 numbers, LATAs & Calling Cards, Dial a Porn 700 numbers: Someone implied recently that (area code) 700 numbers were another province of AT&T. This can't be true, since other LD companies offer services (occasionally) using NPA 700. Besides the number used to identify your primary long distance carrier (1-700-555-4141, free) I have only seen two 700 numbers advertised publicly: 0-700-456-1000: This was advertised as AT&T Alliance Teleconferencing (or AT&T Teleconferencing Alliance). The latter implies that AT&T is offering the service in conjunction with other companies. True? A quick test of this number shows that it is not automatically-routed to the proper LD carrier like 800 numbers are. From a phone whose default LD company is not AT&T, one must dial 10288 first. The advertisement never mentioned that. 1-700-456-1000 does NOT work, it must be preceded with the 0. 100-411-700-777-7777: I'm not kidding. I actually saw a TV commercial on WWOR(TV) Secaucus NJ (serving the New York market but widely viewed via satellite and cable) advertising this number. Note that they broke up the number in a way it would be easy for Joe Blow to remember. They announced it as "one hundred, four eleven, seven hundred and seven sevens." The correct way to break this up is 10041-1-700-777-7777 where 10041 is a 10XXX code representing some special service division of Allnet. (Allnet's regular 10XXX is 10444.) The fine print whizzed by faster than I could read it, but I think it said "available from area codes 212, 718, 516, 914, 201 and 203" and "available only in equal-access areas" (which are few in New York) and "billing services provided by Allnet." This service is one of those party lines where you get to talk to anybody else who also dials in, intended to be a singles-bar-by-phone. Kind of an LD-carrier-provided version of 976 or other specialized prefixes. 900 numbers after equal access: What's the story on these? Far as I know, all 900 numbers are "owned" by AT&T. Therefore, all LOC exchanges should know to route all 900 calls to AT&T. Especially equal access ones. However, a very small disclaimer in one of those "vote by phone" 900 polls on TV said "Sprint and MCI customers may need to dial 10288 first." If a CO is smart enough to understand equal access, shouldn't it be smart enough to route all 900 calls to AT&T or whererver they need to go? Calling Cards, billed by LOC or AT&T: If you use either an AT&T Card or a LOC Calling Card (they have the same number and same procedure for use) to make a call from, say, a pay phone, the rules for "who carries this call" are the same as from any other phone. If both the originating phone and the terminating phone are in the same LATA (not the same STATE), the call is routed by whatever local company controls the originating phone. It gets BILLED by the local company which issued the card, even if that is different than the LOC that carried the call. If the call is within a LATA but involves two LOC's (possible if you call across franchise borders) then the two LOC's together handle the call and the billing is done by the LOC which issued the card. Example: my C&P of Virginia calling card is used to make a call from Long Beach CA (served by GTE) to Los Angeles CA (served by Pac Bell). Both Long Beach and LA are in the Los Angeles LATA. GTE and Pac Bell cooperate to route the call. It appears on the C&P Calling Card Calls page of my C&P of Virginia phone bill. It doesn't matter whether the call is in fact considered local or long distance. As long as it's intra-LATA, C&P does the billing. If I make a call using that card from Long Beach to San Francisco, in different LATAs, GTE Long Beach hands the call off to AT&T (as it would any direct dialed inter-LATA call from an AT&T-default phone). AT&T hands it off to Pac Bell San Francisco to complete the call. This call appears on the AT&T Card Calls page of my phone bill. By the way, for the AT&T Card instructions (0 + AC + number) to work, you must place the call from a phone whose default long distance company is AT&T. ALL pay phones owned by local Bell companies and independents that I know of have AT&T as the default long distance company, considerably simplifying things. Such a call CAN be completed from a phone with a non-AT&T carrier as the default, but one must dial 10288 + 0 + AC + number for it to work. One more twist: in a few states (only Connecticut that I know of), the state utility commission has pre-empted the LATA-boundary decision which resulted from the AT&T breakup. In Connecticut, Southern New England Tel, the local company is REQUIRED to carry all LD calls within the state, regardless of any LATA boundaries that may be crossed. In effect, the state is made into a de-facto LATA. This is legally possible since neither federal courts nor the FCC can regulate intrastate communications. This is a blatant case of monopoly protectionism and was roundly criticized by MCI, AT&T and US Sprint when it happened. Dial a porn lockout: A story in a February issue of the Washington Post notes that C&P Telephone will eventually move so-called dial-a-porn adult entertainment services off the 976 prefix to a separate prefix. Customers will have to specifically authorize C&P to process calls from their phone to the new prefix in order to hear (and be billed for) dial-a-porn services. Written authorization from the customer will be required. This system will either replace or exist in addition to the existing method of having customers pay $4.50 to have all 976-prefixed calls from their phone shut off. Announced startup date: 4/1/88. New prefix: (202) 915. Greg Monti, National Public Radio, 2025 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20036 +1 (202) 822-2459 ------------------------------ From: mattz@killer.UUCP (Matthew Zank) Subject: 600 area code? Date: 14 Mar 88 10:01:18 GMT I Like To Know If AnyOne Can Tell Me What Is The (600) Area Code for? I Have Call It by Call 1(600)555-1212, I got some operater, Can some -one tell me what is this for? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Mar 88 13:18:35 -0500 (EST) From: "Anthony A. Datri" Subject: Codex/Motorola/UDS leased/dial modems We've got a number of the modem-type devices following literally sitting around: {Codes | Motorola | UDS} 25882 224ARM16M LSI9600 Our hope is to take two of whatever we need and run TCP/IP over what I guess would be a leased line. Unfortunately, we have (you guessed it) No Manuals. So, we'd be extremely grateful to anyone who can 1) tell us just what these things are 2) get us copies of documentation Anthony A. Datri Scribe Systems aad%gold.scribe.com@vb.cc.cmu.edu q113ad0r@cmuccvb (bitnet) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 88 15:01:42 EST From: Seshashayee Murthy Subject: Wiring in my house. New York Telephone says it owns the wiring in my house. I charges me a rental of about $2.50 along with a fee of about 1.50 for fixing my lines if something is wrong. What would they do if I said that I did not want their wiring in my house? Would they cut their wiring, so as to make it unusable? Has anybody gotten rid of the telephone company's charge without too much trouble in rewiring? Sesh Murthy, Murthy at Ibm.com, 914-789-7840 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 15-Mar-88 20:54:00-EST,11588;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Tue 15 Mar 88 20:53:55-EST Date: 15 Mar 88 19:30-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #51 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, March 15, 1988 7:30PM Volume 8, Issue 51 Today's Topics: long distance (dis)service 202-915 Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Connecticut vs. competition Re: Wiring in my house. I would check further... Dial a Porn Lockout ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Mar 88 09:25:55 EST From: michaels@nrl-css.arpa (Larry Michaels) Subject: long distance (dis)service Now that we finally have equal access out here (Silver Spring MD), I would like to find out which 10XXX numbers work. I have tried several and so far have come up with the following: 011 Metromedia 220 Western Union 222 MCI 288 ATT 333 Sprint (10777 does not work) 444 Allnet 488 ITT There was also a prefix for Southernet, but I don't recall it off hand. For each prefix tried, I dialed 1-700-555-4141. For the ones listed above, I got a recording thanking me for using that company's service. When I tried to place an actual call using Metromedia however, I got a recording telling me that they are sorry, the number which I am calling from is not in their files. If I would like to join the many Metromedia customers I should dial 950-1011, wait for the tone, and then dial seven more digits. Dialing any invalid 10XXX + 1 + area code causes an instant fast "busy" signal. Does anybody have a more complete list of 10XXX prefixes which work in my (301-681) exchange? By the way, my default carrier is now MCI. The connection quality has been very good to excellent. For the previous few years I used Sprint, and connection quality was almost always excellent (well, for the last two years anyway). Their billing of course was a mess; they made me send them a copy of a cancelled check for a bill which they claimed I never paid. Their customer service people (when I was able to get through to them) were always very polite and helpful. It wasn't their fault that only ~50% of the credits they entered into the computer ever made it to the billing department. AT&T is a completely different story however. About a year and a half ago, I received a page with my C&P bill indicating a long-distance directory assistance call on AT&T (no number or time given). I did not make any such calls, but I suspected that the charge may have been mistakenly billed when I dialed the 700-555-4141 number. I called AT&T's customer (dis)service and spoke to one of their representatives. The conversation began roughly this way: "There is a charge on my bill for a call which I didn't make." "We don't bill customers for calls they don't make. If there is a charge on your bill, you made the call and you have to pay for it.". The conversation deteriorated from there. I informed the man that I hadn't made any long-distance DA calls, and that if I had, I would have used Sprint because they charge 10 cents less for the same call. That didn't amuse him, but he informed me that the DA call would be directed to an AT&T operator in any case, and I told him that regardless, it was still 10 cents less. I also mentioned the 700-555-4141 call which I made, and he assured me that those calls are free. After several minutes of arguing, he refused to budge and told me that my only recourse was to just not pay the bill, and that when C&P hounds me for non- payment it's my problem, not his. A few hours later I decided to try my luck again. This time I got a different (dis)service representative who gave me the same story as the first. I tried to convince him that maybe the antiquated C&P equipment misinterpreted the 700- call as DA, but he didn't care. He finally grudgingly agreed to remove the charge, but, if it happens again, they won't be so nice the second time. Larry Michaels ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 88 9:14:21 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 202-915 Notice that 202-915 represents a use of N0X/N1X for the first time. (Isn't there also going to be a 301-915 in Baltimore for the same purpose?) Also, how does this affect long-distance? Some areas don't have 976. ------------------------------ From: dwl@mtunf.att.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Your Long Distance Carrier? Date: 15 Mar 88 13:56:53 GMT In article <5400@columbia.edu>, dupuy@WESTEND.COLUMBIA.EDU (Alexander Dupuy) writes: > New Jersey Bell has a similar campaign ("Dial 10-NJB") here in NYC, > encouraging people making calls to Jersey to save over AT&T rates. If > we only had equal access, my roommates (whose parents live in Trenton > and Princeton) would probably give it a try. New Jersey Bell is not permitted to handle calls between NYC and Princeton or Trenton. Both are inter-lata calls. The 10-NJB stuff only works between NYC and a few counties of Northern NJ. I think it includes Hudson, Essex, Bergen, Union, and Passaic Counties. I know it does not allow us to call NYC from Somerset County (we're 30 miles from NYC). ------------------------------ From: goldstein%delni.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) Date: 15 Mar 88 12:05 Subject: Connecticut vs. competition V8I50 mentioned that there is no LD competition in Connecticut, and it's like one big LATA. True. But Connecticut is a special case anyway. The concept of "LATA" was created as a response to the MFJ (Modified Final Judgement, the AT&T breakup order) which prohibited the Bell companies (RBOCs) from long distance service. RBOCs are allowed only to carry calls 1) within a LATA; 2) locally across LATA boundaries (i.e., Salem NH to Lawrence MA, no tolls) and 3) across "corridor exceptions" (New Jersey to PA and NY, but only some counties in each corridor). Note that historically, NJB and NYT owned the LD facilities across the hudson, NOT AT&T. Whether or not competition is allowed within a state is up to the state. Intrastate calls are still an AT&T monopoly in several states, even though there are multiple LATAs. So if you have equal access, it's only applicable to interstate calls. The MFJ didn't and couldn't change this; the franchise to carry toll within a state is issued by the state! Some states have only one LATA, so the BOC instead of AT&T gets the monopoly. (The BOC gets the intra-LATA monopoly in multi-LATA states. Some also allow inter-LATA but not intra-LATA competition. Etc.) Connecticut, though, is essentially exempt from the MFJ, since all but two exchange (2/3 of the Town of Greenwich, most expensive town in the US, still served by NYT) are served by Southern New England Tel, NOT a Bell company. SNET is allowed to provide long distance, anywhere, anytime, not to mention lots of other things prohibited to RBOCs. In this sense SNET is more like United Tel, Lincoln Tel, Rocheseter Tel., etc. What makes SNET so interesting is that they have almost the whole state to play in, no Bell competition. And no AT&T either, since the Conn. PUCA has decided they don't want competition. BTW, Hawaii is also a Bell-fre state, being all GTE territory. I don't know if they have competition for intrastate service. fred ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 88 13:18:46 -0500 (EST) From: Martin Weiss Subject: Re: Wiring in my house. Each state regulates inside wiring in different ways. For a period after divestiture, most telcos were allowed to charge a wire cost recovery fee. After this was paid, the owner of the building owned the wires. In PA, Bell of PA offers a maintenance service of about $1.50/mo (I think) for which they will provide inside wire maintenance, but this is strictly optional. Some consultants have told the telephone companies on behalf of their clients that they no longer want their inside wiring, that they were going to install their own. The telephone company can retrieve their wire or abandon it, as they see fit. In many instances, the telco abandons it, because it is simply too expensive to remove. I would suggest discussing the matter with your co-workers and find out what they did, if anything. You can also write to your PUC with a complaint. I hope this helps. ------------------------------ From: mcpherson%rutlnd.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.) Date: 15 Mar 88 13:21 Subject: I would check further... > Date: 14 Mar 88 15:01:42 EST > From: Seshashayee Murthy > Subject: Wiring in my house. > New York Telephone says it owns the wiring in my house. I charges me > a rental of about $2.50 along with a fee of about 1.50 for fixing > my lines if something is wrong. Huh? Did NY Tel install the wiring for _you_ or the previous owner (if there was one)? If they installed it for _you_ (I assume pre-divestiture install date) then yes, they own it w/o question. If they installed it for a previous owner and you just "inherited" it, then they probably still own it. Other than that, I am not certain of the letter of the law here. > What would they do if I said that I did not want their wiring in my > house? > Would they cut their wiring, so as to make it unusable? Has > anybody gotten rid of the telephone company's charge without too much > trouble in rewiring? The wiring would be legally termed "abandoned" and past experience within DEC says that YOU are liable for any removal chages, should you choose to discontinue service. If you discontinue service and elect to leave their wiring in place, then I _believe_ that you are verboten to use said wire for any purpose. Also I am not certain where they would "cut" their wiring. /doug DISCLAIMER: The opinions expessed above reflect neither my employer's views, nor anything else for which I may be held responsible. Any statement of fact in the above has a high probabilty of being incorrect. In fact, I never said anything. So there. ;^) ======================================================================== Received: by decwrl.dec.com (5.54.4/4.7.34) id AA20486; Tue, 15 Mar 88 10:20:39 PST ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 88 14:15:40 PST (Tuesday) From: Swenson.PA@Xerox.COM Subject: Dial a Porn Lockout Pac Bell announced that the charge for "locking out" access to 976 prefix ( in order to prevent use of dial a porn or lots of calls to dial a joke, etc) has been reduced from $2.00 to 1 cent. Calif PUC (I think it was) said the law authorizing lockout says "for a charge not to exceed $5.00" and the PUC interpreted that to require some charge. So the charge was set at 1 cent. Both the PUC and Pac Bell are urging the legislature to make it possible not to charge anything. Bob Swenson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 17-Mar-88 22:46:50-EST,15276;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 17-Mar-88 21:56:03 Date: 17 Mar 88 21:56-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #52 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, March 17, 1988 9:56PM Volume 8, Issue 52 Today's Topics: DEATH of the ARPANET Re: Nationwide paging Cyber Foundation BBS Submission for comp-dcom-telecom FCC reported ready to drop plan to boost phone charges Modem access fee proposal scrapped by FCC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Mar 88 18:04:34 EST From: jsol@bu-it.BU.EDU Subject: DEATH of the ARPANET There have been a number of rumors about the impending death of the ARPANET. Here is the current DARPA position. Brian Boesch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DEATH OF THE ARPANET AND OTHER PARANOIA There have been a number of rumors throughout the community that the ARPANET project is being terminated. Many individuals and organizations have expressed concern that the service that they have become accustomed to will be terminated. Enough rumors, now a word from your sponsor, DARPA. The ARPANET project in fact is being terminated, but not soon. DARPA is in the business of conducting research into critical NEW technologies that will advance the state of the art. ARPANET is neither new, nor state of the art. It is slow and expensive. ARPANET was founded in the early 70's when 56Kbit/second trunks were on the cutting edge of modulation and transmission technology. Packet switching was unheard of. (An interesting fact is that the average terminal of the day was 30cps giving the net trunks about a factor of 230 faster than the average user interface). Since that time the project expanded into the INTERNET where a number of dissimilar networks could be interconnected relatively transparently. The internet grew from about 63 hosts to over 20,000. The local nets that connect to the ARPANET and other Wide Area Nets (WANs) progressively increased in speed. The result is that while in '73 a large number of users could effectively share one trunk, today, one user on a PC can overload the entire capacity of the ARPANET. In addition to being overloaded, the ARPANET is no longer able to support its other prime function, that of a research base. To conduct any kind of experiment on the ARPANET causes too much service disruption to the community. Finally, the ARPANET is absorbing a significant fraction of our total research budget in what is really a support function. Solution, eliminate the source of the problem. Rather than cutting off the community our approach is to outgrow the ARPANET in a few years. The follow on network experiment will be called the Defense Research Internet (DRI). We are also working in conjunction with other Federal agencies, most notably National Science Foundation, to integrate our networking experiments with the new regional networks, the NSFNET project, and other agency networks. An additional source of confusion is the fact that we are currently arranging for NSFNET to support some ARPANET users, as part of a joint effort to reduce costs by phasing out overlapping service. Our intention, as always, is to do this with minimal disruption to the reserach community. While this happening, we will be putting together the initial version of the DRI apart from the ARPANET. From the beginning the DRI will provide the long distance trunk capacity that the ARPANET lacks. Initial speeds will be 1.5Mbit/second per link (a factor of 25 improvement). The DRI will also be segregated into an "experimental" and an "operational" side. The experimental side will have higher performance, with the possibility of higher degree of net problems; the operational side will support high data-rate applications such as image transfer. The experimental side will be phased from 1.5Mbit to higher and higher bandwidths with the intent of eventually reaching gigabit/second performance; the operational side will take over for the ARPANET. It will be operated by a contractor, and will be funded as overhead on individual users' projects rather than becoming a drain on the Networking research budget. After the DRI is stable, the ARPANET will be phased out. PLEASE DON'T BURY US WITH QUERIES ON THE DETAILS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION, WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO ANSWER THEM. AS DETAILS ARE FINALIZED AND READY FOR PUBLIC DISSEMINATION, WE WILL POST THEM. Mark Pullen & Brian Boesch ------------------------------ From: nuchat!phillip@uunet.UU.NET (Phillip Keen) Subject: Re: Nationwide paging Date: 16 Mar 88 20:12:56 GMT In article <8803100903.AA09479@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, reilly@AQUA.WHOI.EDU (Brendan Reilly) writes: > > Has anyone had success using a nationwide paging service. > My experience so far has been that this industry is just > starting up, and that bugs need to be worked out. Is anybody > out in front of the pack with a working system? Nationwide paging services are new, and so they need many improvements and fixes. -- Thanks, Snail Address: Phillip Keen Phillip Keen 2705 Martin Pasadena, TX 77502 ------------------------------ From: Subject: Cyber Foundation BBS Date: 16 Mar 88 23:08:53 CST (Wed) I've just read something in the "Computer Communications" column of the April 1988 *Computer Shopper* that I find HIGHLY disturbing and which I think should be brought to the attention of modem users. I quote the salient portion: "In a recent issue of *Info-Mat* magazine, an online 'magazine' available on 170 selected BBSs across the country, it was reported that the feds have underwritten a BBS to monitor the BBS user community, with an eye toward taxation and regulation. The Cyber Foundation BBS describes itself and its system in a text file as 'a non-profit government-supported system run by the United States Instructional Department. [has anyone ever heard of this alleged organization?] This system is a test for the government and FCC to determine if bulletin board systems, non-paying information exchange systems, should be charged for use.' "The sysop of the Cyber Foundation BBS is Chris Regan, who has left messages to the effect that he does not work for the government, but that the govern- ment has paid for (part of?) the equipment and operating costs. An elaboration of the system's purpose as stated by sysop Regan in some online messages is, 'a test to see if bulletin boards, their phone lines, and others, should be taxed or have a tariff placed on the information.' "Other regulatory ideas discussed on the BBS by the sysop have included the licensing of modems (similar to ham radio), and the licensing of BBSs, inclu- ding the segregation of BBSs by computer type, and foregoing any semblance of BBS privacy by giving a government official the right to log on and 'inspect' all messages and files at random times. "There is little justification for regulating computer communication via telephone. As a licensed ham radio operator, I understand the reasons why transmission of voice or data over the radio spectrum are regulated, but none of these reasons are applicable concerning telephone usage. When I make a call on my telephone, whether I communicate by voice or computer, it is a private matter between the party I am calling and me. The government has no more business pursuing private messages I have left on a BBS than they do voice messages I leave on a friend's answering machine. The FCC has spent the last several years reducing regulation on the radio services; there is absolutely no reason for them to set up a whole new area of regulation in the telephone service. "These ideas for bureaucratic power grabbing, invasion of privacy, limitation of free speech and government money grubbing need to be refuted before they advance any further. The Cyber Foundation BBS is located somewhere in Connecticut and the phone number is (203) 264-5463. I encourage you to call it up and let your opinions be known (courteously, of course)." [end quote] I have called the phone number, and found a BBS that does indeed go by that name, with the stated Chris Regan as sysop. Those messages I looked at didn't seem to discuss the issues mentioned in the *CS* article; however, any threat to the Constitution merits investigation. (I left a message with the sysop expressing my concern.) Does anyone out there know anything about this BBS? Are the cited issues really under discussion there? Thanks... James Jones [My opinions? Who'd want them? Certainly not some company...] ------------------------------ From: rja Date: 17 Mar 88 12:58:17 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: edison!rja From: rja@edison.GE.COM (rja) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Owning the premises distribution wiring Message-ID: <1389@edison.GE.COM> Date: 17 Mar 88 12:58:16 GMT References: <8803151826.AA20914@decwrl.dec.com> Organization: GE-Fanuc North America Lines: 10 Here in Virginia I'm certain that the customer owns the wires, whether they were installed by telco pre- or post-divestiture. Both CENTEL and C&P/Bell Atlantic offer to "maintain" [sic] your wires in your house for a few bucks per month, but the choice is entirely the customer's. My folk's wiring was done in 1955 and as of divestiture it became ours according to C&P Telephone. Back pre-divestiture, when U.Va. went from CENTEL centrex to their own in-house ROLM VLCBX, they did have to install new wiring. rja@edison.GE.COM ------------------------------ From: coherent!dplatt@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Dave Platt) Subject: FCC reported ready to drop plan to boost phone charges Date: 17 Mar 88 18:43:17 GMT Excerpted without permission from the 3/17/88 issue of the San Jose Mercury News: "Washington (AP) - The Federal Communications Commission plans to scrap a proposal that would substantially increase telephone charges for business and home computer users. "FCC Chairman Dennis R. Patrick has concluded that, based on strong and nearly unanimous opposition to the proposal, the plan should be dropped, according to sources at the commission and on Capitol Hill... "The commission was expected to vote in two or three months to drop the proposal... "Users of [database] services flooded the FCC and Capitol Hill with thousands of letters opposing the plan, which would add about $4.50 an hour to the cost of hooking up to information services. "They said the increased charges, which would double the hourly hookup price for some information services, would drive many of them off the computer networks and crush a fledgling industry." -- Dave Platt UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@sun.com, ...@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1988 19:30 MST From: Keith Petersen Subject: Modem access fee proposal scrapped by FCC From Pg. 6 of the Wall Street Journal for 17 March 1988. Status: O FCC SCRAPS PLAN TO CHARGE FOR COMPUTER ACCESS TO PHONE SYSTEMS, SOURCES SAY WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission has quietly decided to scrap its plan to sharply in- crease telephone rates for computer users, agency and congressional sources said. Last week, the agency informed importamt lawmakers that it wouldn't go ahead with its plan to assess so- called access charges of as much as $5.50 per hour per user to hook up computer-communication networks to lo- cal telephone systems. An FCC official described the decision as a tactical move to placate opposition from Congress and computer users. "They got the message loud and clear from Congress that this plan was a political and policy loser", said a House staffer who was informed of the FCC decision. The FCC's about-face is a big victory for informa- tion service companies, who have contended that steep access charges would have drivem them out of business by making their services too expensive. Currently, computer-communications networks are exempt from those access charges. Computer users around the country deluged the FCC with about 10,000 letters opposing ac- cess fees, the most letters the agency has ever gotten on a telephone issue. The decision to drop the proposal was made by FCC Chairman Dennis Patrick and the common-carrier bureau of the agency, the sources said. Mr. Patrick, whose office wouldn't comment on the decision formally needs the vote of at least one of the agency's other two members to terminate a proposal. But in practice, he can act unilaterally because, as chairman, he controls which proposals can come to a vote. In any event, FCC Commissioner Patricia Diaz Dennis said she supported the decision to end the access- charge plan. "We've got a lot of things on our plate," she said. That's one that would overcrowd it." Several agency officials described the FCC's action as a way of patching up its tattered relations with Congress which is still fuming over the FCC's decision to abolish the fairness doctrine. Last Thursday, [March 10] Rep. Edward Markey (D., Mass.), chairman of the House telecommunications sub- committee, said he would introduce legislation to kill the access charge - even though agency officials said they had assured the congressman's staff that the FCC itself would kill the plan. A Markey aide said he was only notified an hour before Rep. Markey was to give a previously scheduled speech on access charges. "We'll closely monitor the commission's future actions to insure that this onerous charge doesn't re-emerge in a new form", Rep. Markey said in a statement yes- terday. Rep. Markey and other lawmakers also still oppose Mr. Patrick's pet plan to radically alter regulation of American Telephone & Telegraph Co. FCC and congressional sources said the agency would proceed, but slowly, with a separate plan to assess charges of about $4.50 per hour per user to hook up private telephone networks to local telephone systems. The FCC believes that both computer-communications networks and private telephone networks aren't paying their fair share of the cost of local telephone ser- vice. But exempting computer-communications networks has more appeal politically, because the users are often consumers with limited ability to pay increased charges. (end of article) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 18-Mar-88 23:55:45-EST,8282;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Fri 18 Mar 88 23:55:44-EST Date: 18 Mar 88 20:45-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #53 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, March 18, 1988 8:45PM Volume 8, Issue 53 Today's Topics: Nationwide Paging Re: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Re: I would check further... Submission for comp-dcom-telecom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Mar 88 00:28:01 EST From: hplabs!sun!sundc!mgrant%cos.com@rutgers.edu (Michael Grant) Subject: Nationwide Paging A while ago I did some research on nationwide paging. I found 2 contenders at the moment. There are atleast 2 others, Queue and Megamessage which I was told were not worth looking into. Queue's system is based on FM SCA's which just don't work well. I was told that Megamessage wasn't really fully up yet, that might have changed in the last couple of months. Metrocast --------- This company uses a pager which scans 14 frequencies in the 150 MHZ range. This technique allows them to use already built paging systems to expand their market. They say they have fairly complete coverage in all of the major metropolitian areas. Their pagers are strictly alphanumeric. Pager rental: $23.00 / month Service: $17.00 / month + $1.50 per page (numeric or alphanumeric) or $39.50 / month + $1.50 per alphanumeric page (UNLIMITED numeric paging) This means: $40.00 / month + 1.50 per page or $62.50 / month + 1.50 per alphanumeric page (unlimited numeric paging) National Satelite Paging ------------------------- This company uses a 900 MHZ pager with satelite down links. The coverage is not nearly as complete as Metrocast, and they do not offer alphanumeric paging at this time but will in the future. $25.00 one time connect fee Pager rental: $15.00 / month Service: $33.00 / month + $0.50 / page or $57.00 / month for unlimited paging This means: $48.00 + .50 per page per month or $72.00 per month flat rate Summary ------- The advantage to NSP over Metrocast is that your pages go to the entire country always, (but NSP tells me that this is going to change in the future). The advantage of Metrocast over NSP is the coverage area. With Metrocast, you tell it what area-code you will be traveling in, and it sends your pages there. Both have an 800 number for which you can review your pages in case you missed one. Metrocast operates a 24 hour answering service which you can call to receive missed pages. Metrocast uses an alphanumeric pager, but you can send it only numeric pages if you want. This permits you to only use the premium alphanumeric paging on an as needed basis. I hope this helps you in your quest for information. -Mike Grant ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 88 11:39:24 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: Re: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom According to a C&P repair person from Virginia, he tells me that C&P owns the wire in a building if the wiring was installed in the building BEFORE divestature. In the new buildings, C&P will bring a line into the wire closet in the basement. If you want it moved into your office area/apartment, you pay. In old buildings, the will bring the wire into your office or apartment. -Mike Grant ------------------------------ From: ucbvax!ucscc.UCSC.EDU!haynes@decwrl.dec.com (99700000) Subject: Re: I would check further... Date: 17 Mar 88 05:53:25 GMT Reply-To: ucbvax!ucscc.UCSC.EDU!haynes@decwrl.dec.com (Jim Haynes) Seems to me you should check with your state P.U.C. to see what's happening. In Calif this year the phone company offered a choice of you take responsibility for your own inside-house wiring or you pay them 50 cents a month and they will maintain it. Also the last time I needed the lines worked on (the wire from pole to house got leaky and noisy) they put a box on the side of the house that holds the lightning protector and a modular jack, so that the customer can plug a modular phone right into the line wire, disconnecting the house wiring, to tell whether the trouble is in inside or outside wiring. They didn't charge anything for repairing the outside wire or for the disconnect box. So I assume all this means they regard the inside wiring as the homeowner's property and that if I had elected to pay them the 50cents/month that would be just a maintenance contract and not rental on the wire. But of course this kind of thing varies from state to state, so yours is probably different. haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu haynes@ucscc.bitnet ..ucbvax!ucscc!haynes ------------------------------ From: ssc-vax!clark@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Roger Clark Swann) Date: 18 Mar 88 06:18:13 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: ssc-vax!clark From: clark@ssc-vax.UUCP (Roger Clark Swann) Newsgroups: misc.consumers,comp.dcom.telecom Subject: More on US Sprint Keywords: virus, toll fraud, billing problems Message-ID: <1771@ssc-vax.UUCP> Date: 18 Mar 88 06:18:12 GMT Distribution: na Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA Lines: 52 ************************** Reprinted without permission from The Seattle Times, Wednesday, March 16,1988 ........................................................................... U.S. Sprint blames 'toll fraud' for erroneous telephone bills Shelby Gilje - Times staff columnist You've heard of computer viruses, those mischievous little programs created by hackers that make computers do wild and crazy things? Well, according to U.S. Sprint Communications Co., "toll fraud," or a computer virus caused by hackers, was responsible for errors on the phone bill for J.F. of Bothell. J.F. reported that she has had major billing problems with U.S. Sprint since May 1986, and was billed $146 for calls she had not made. Each time she complained, the company promised the error would be corrected. Finally, in August 1986, she discontinued service with U.S. Sprint. In September of that year she again received an incorrect billing statement along with a collection notice. She wrote U.S. Sprint again, and called the customer-service department. An operator checked and said her file would be placed on hold while the errors were investigated. However, the billing would continue. The opertor assured her that no extreme collection measures would be taken. In December 1986, she received a letter noting that her service had been disconnected and she still owed more than $140. Again she called the customer-service department, and again was assured that an investigation was in progress. In December 1987 she received a new bill showing the old balance as well as some new phone calls. "I have never heard of the city in which the new calls originated. This is outrageous! What happened to the 'investigation'? Has someone else been issued my old code?" J.F. wrote. Now U.S. Sprint has informed us that the erroneous bills have been removed from J.F.'s account, and that they were accumulated as a result of "toll fraud." U.S. Sprint said a computer hacker was accessing its network and, through trial and error, was discovering codes and using them illegally. "Ordinarily, U.S. Sprint attempts to determine who the individual was that abused the codes. This research is vital for verification of the abuse. The procedure can be very time consuming and sometimes procedures are not carried out in the most expeditious manner," Keith Marcom, a U.S Sprint representitive, wrote to J.F., apologizing for the delay in resolving her complaint. ...................................................................... Hum... Computer Virus? Sounds like a convenient excuse... Roger Swann uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!clark ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 20-Mar-88 23:21:53-EST,3708;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Sun 20 Mar 88 23:21:52-EST Date: 20 Mar 88 22:18-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #54 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, March 20, 1988 10:18PM Volume 8, Issue 54 Today's Topics: Re: I would check further... Re: I would check further... European vs. US telephone systems query Who's calling who? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: uiucdcs!pur-ee!clio.las.uiuc.edu!berger@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: I would check further... Date: 18 Mar 88 22:54:00 GMT Here in Illinois, all inside wiring reverted to the owner of the residence. This applied to businesses too. I don't know if it was universal, but I thought it applied pretty generally around the country. For that price, I'd let them remove the wires and put in my own. Mike Berger Department of Statistics Science, Technology, and Society University of Illinois berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu {ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!berger ------------------------------ From: uiucdcs!pur-ee!clio.las.uiuc.edu!berger@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: I would check further... Date: 18 Mar 88 22:55:00 GMT Incidentally, be sure that the charge is actually for USING the indoor wiring. Here, we can optionally pay a monthly charge for MAINTAINING the indoor wiring. But using it is free. Mike Berger Department of Statistics Science, Technology, and Society University of Illinois berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu {ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!berger ------------------------------ From: cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) Subject: European vs. US telephone systems query Date: 19 Mar 88 19:49:31 GMT Reply-To: iuvax!cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) A friend of mine would like to purchase an answering machine in the united states, to be used on the telephone system in West Germany. Aside from the obvious power difference for powering the thing, is there any problem on the telephone end, eg. are the protocols similar enought that the US machine could talk with the West German telephone system, or if not, is there a streight-forward hack to allow this? -charles -- Charles Daffinger >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water< (812) 339-7354 cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ihnp4}!iuvax!cdaf Home of the Whitewater mailing list: whitewater-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu ------------------------------ From: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Subject: Who's calling who? Date: 19 Mar 88 22:54:47 GMT An extememly bizarre thing happened to me the other day. My phone rang and when I picked it up, what I heard was the sound of a remote phone ringing (as if I had placed a call and was waiting for the other party to pick up). After a few seconds, I heard what sounded like somebody picking up the phone but (after a few very confused moments) it was obvious that the person on the other end was somebody who had just placed a call and was surprised that I wasn't the person she had called. Anybody have any idea what might have happened? -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 21-Mar-88 22:36:12-EST,7241;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Mon 21 Mar 88 22:36:10-EST Date: 21 Mar 88 21:38-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #55 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, March 21, 1988 9:38PM Volume 8, Issue 55 Today's Topics: Re: Who's calling who? Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Re: Wiring in my house. Submission for comp-dcom-telecom V & H tarrif tables ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Mar 88 09:55:53 EST From: Michael Grant Subject: Re: Who's calling who? Yes, sounds like you were a victem of the infamous 3-way-call prank where some prankster calles you and someone else with 3-way-calling and listens to the confused conversation for his/her listening enjoyment pleasure. -Mike ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 88 11:58:07 GMT From: prlb2!fun-cs!pge@uunet.UU.NET (Patrick Geurts) Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: fun-cs!pge From: pge@fun-cs.UUCP (Patrick Geurts) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Unattended faulty terminals of a W.A.N. Message-ID: <109@fun-cs.UUCP> Date: 17 Mar 88 10:47:04 GMT Organization: F.U.N.D.P., Computer Science, Namur, Belgium Lines: 15 Keywords: WAN tele-maintenance networks I am interested in the problem of tracking and maintaining faulty unattended terminal over a wide area network. For examples of such terminals, one would give automatic counting tellers or gas station counters. I did not find so far accurate materials on this topic. Can someone tell me about interesting articles or share his experience on this matter. I hope this is the right newsgroup to post this request. Please mail your answers to pge@fun-cs.uucp Patrick Geurts. Institut d'Informatique F.U.N.D.P. Rue Grangagnage 21 5000 Namur Belgium +32 81 22 90 65 ext 26 52 pge@fun-cs.uucp ------------------------------ From: steinmetz!davidsen@uunet.UU.NET (William E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: Wiring in my house. Date: 21 Mar 88 15:29:28 GMT Reply-To: kbsvax.steinmetz!davidsen@uunet.UU.NET (William E. Davidsen Jr) In article <031488.150144.murthy@ibm.com> MURTHY@IBM.COM (Seshashayee Murthy) writes: >What would they do if I said that I did not want their wiring in my >house? Would they cut their wiring, so as to make it unusable? Has >anybody gotten rid of the telephone company's charge without too much >trouble in rewiring? I know several people who have done this. The result is that it depends on the service person to some extent. They will cut some wire. They will install an isolator ($50-150 depending on your area). The only person who had serious trouble was one who was mad at the phone company and took it out on the installer. Big mistake. Every vertage of surface wiring was removed, and all the wiring in the walls was either pulled out or cut flush with a wall or floor. If you paint over wiring it looks really bad to rip the wiring out. In general you will only have to pay a one time fee and run 2-4 feet of wire. If you phone company or installer is feeling obnoxious you can spend several days redoing the wiring and trying to match paint. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me ------------------------------ From: Rick Carl Date: 21 Mar 88 19:15:09 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: edison!rgc From: rgc@edison.GE.COM (Rick Carl) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Nationwide paging Summary: Nationwide paging...cellular technology Message-ID: <1401@edison.GE.COM> Date: 21 Mar 88 19:15:08 GMT References: <8803100903.AA09479@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: General Electric Company, Charlottesville, VA Lines: 18 In article <8803100903.AA09479@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, reilly@AQUA.WHOI.EDU (Brendan Reilly) writes: > > Has anyone had success using a nationwide paging service. > My experience so far has been that this industry is just > starting up, and that bugs need to be worked out. Is anybody > out in front of the pack with a working system? I thought that nationwide paging is an "offshoot-technology" of the cellular technology... If this is true, it's no wonder that bugs need to be worked out :-) My guess is that Motorola or Johnson Controls are ahead of the pack since they are the original Cellular-people. Does anyone know if ITT ever got their cellular system working??? -- Rick Carl GE Fanuc - Charlottesville, VA 22901 rgc@edison.GE.COM old arpa: rgc%edison.GE.COM@seismo.CSS.GOV rgc@edison.UUCP old uucp: {seismo,decuac,houxm}!edison!rgc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 88 16:19:45 EST From: news@bbn.com To: comp-dcom-telecom@uunet.uu.net Path: bbn!bbn.com!levin From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 700 numbers, 900 numbers, LATAs & Calling Cards, Dial a Porn Summary: AT&T's special relationship, despite divestiture Message-ID: <22408@bbn.COM> Date: 21 Mar 88 21:19:37 GMT References: <8803141208.AA14007@decwrl.dec.com> Sender: news@bbn.COM Reply-To: levin@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin) Organization: BBN Communications Corporation Lines: 19 It seems there remain lots of ways AT&T still occupies a special position with respect to the local telcos. Calling cards is one; I experienced another last week. I dialled "0"--the New England Telephone operator--to inquire about long distance rates. Yes, she said, she could help me: I was connected to an AT&T person (I suppose a Rates and Routing operator). To find out the MCI and Sprint rates for instance I had to call the LD carrier directly. (Incidental information: the destination of the call was Israel; Sprint doesn't go there; the MCI call took place quickly and sounded very clean and strong, like next door, except for the typical slow direction switching on the satellite link.) /JBL UUCP: {harvard, husc6, etc.}!bbn!levin ARPA: levin@bbn.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 88 08:08:12 PST From: coffland@lll-lcc.llnl.gov (Douglas R. Coffland) Subject: V & H tarrif tables Please post this question on comp.dcom.telecom. Subject: V & H tarriff tables Can someone please tell me how to get the V&H tarriff tables. I would prefer to get them on some type of computer media. My goal is to get this information into my PC for billing purposes. I will also need updates as changes come out. Thanks, Doug Coffland coffland@lll-lcc.llnl.gov 415-423-7867 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 22-Mar-88 20:38:10-EST,4761;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Tue 22 Mar 88 20:38:08-EST Date: 22 Mar 88 19:50-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #56 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, March 22, 1988 7:50PM Volume 8, Issue 56 Today's Topics: V&H Tables Long Distance Rate Schedules? Re: Who's calling who? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue 22 Mar 88 08:50:34-PST From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: V&H Tables About where to get the V&H Tables (and updates) some suggestions: o Buy them from Bellcore 290W Mt Pleasant Ave Livingston, NJ 07039 (800) 521-2673 o Buy them from a 3rd Party Supplier such as CCMI/McGraw-Hill Info Sys Co (800) 825-3311 o Get them free from your LD Carrier. Ask for a tape of NPA-NXXs they serve. It will contain much info you don't need but, somewhere in there, the V&H coordinates will appear Questions: o Are you sure you are not re-inventing the wheel?. There are about 500 Call Accounting packages in the market which do this for you. (Priced from $450 to $20K) o Why?. Exact pricing of dialed calls has the following flaws: + Errors in timing. Your system may or may not get answer supervision from the distant end, your CPU may (will) make subtle rounding errors in generating SMDR records. + Computional variations. AT&T uses a multi-step algorithm in pricing calls. Other carriers use the simpler square root of the sum of the squares (of the differences) divided by 10 + Automatic Routing. Since your switch is going to select the path a call takes and each path may have a different pricing scheme, pricing each call could be difficult and meaningless (for example, if you bill back, will the user pay more or less depending on which route his call took? Suggestion: o Consider some type of "blended" pricing algorithm. The trend is generally towards usage (time) sensitive pricing rather than distance (V&H). Sorry if this is $2 answer to a nickel question. +HECTOR+ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 88 09:30:06 PST From: dmr@csli.stanford.edu (Daniel M. Rosenberg) Subject: Long Distance Rate Schedules? Reply-To: dmr@csli.UUCP (Daniel M. Rosenberg) >Can someone please tell me how to get the V&H tarriff tables. I would If these are the tables on how muchlong distance calls cost, I wouldn't mind getting them too. After several requests to AT&T, MCI, and Sprint, I've ended up with copies of magazine advertisements, calling card flyers -- but no LD rate schedules. Thanks, -- ## Daniel M. Rosenberg /////// CSLI/Stanford //////////////// +1 (415) 323-0389 ## INTERNET: dmr@csli.stanford.edu //////////// UUCP: {ucbvax, decvax}!csli!dmr ## I've my opinions, Stanford theirs. I don't speak for them, nor they for me.# ------------------------------ From: shs@ramones.rutgers.edu (S. H. Schwartz) Subject: Re: Who's calling who? Date: 22 Mar 88 18:55:45 GMT Reply-To: shs@ramones.rutgers.edu (S. H. Schwartz) In article <3202@phri.UUCP> roy%phri@UUNET.UU.NET (Roy Smith) writes: > > An extememly bizarre thing happened to me the other day. My phone >rang and when I picked it up, what I heard was the sound of a remote phone >ringing (as if I had placed a call and was waiting for the other party to >pick up). After a few seconds, I heard what sounded like somebody picking >up the phone but (after a few very confused moments) it was obvious that >the person on the other end was somebody who had just placed a call and was >surprised that I wasn't the person she had called. The Dimension PBX has an option where, if I'm trying to call another inside extension, but it's busy, I set my phone to redial in the background. When the other person's phone becomes free, PBX grabs his line, and rings my phone; then I answer, and -his- phone starts ringing. Still, the destination shouldn't hear ringing until the source picks up for the second time. -- ---***--- Spring cleaning: get the BREAD out!! S. H. Schwartz (201) 846-9185 shs@paul.rutgers.edu (201) 932-4714 ...rutgers!paul.rutgers.edu!shs ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 28-Mar-88 18:45:30-EST,3845;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Mon 28 Mar 88 18:45:27-EST Date: 28 Mar 88 17:33-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #57 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, March 28, 1988 5:33PM Volume 8, Issue 57 Today's Topics: Re: Who's calling who? Connecting a modem to a 2 line phone jack 811 Translation Table ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Who's calling who? Date: 23 Mar 88 01:40:47 GMT Reply-To: roy%phri@uunet.UU.NET (Roy Smith) mgrant@mimsy.umd.EDU (Michael Grant) writes: > sounds like you were a victem of the infamous 3-way-call prank Nice try, but I don't think that's what happened. The party I ended up talking to insisted that she had just *placed* a call, not gotten one as would happen with a 3-way prank. Then again, in the confusion I suppose it's possible that either she didn't say what she meant to say, or I didn't understand her right. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ From: bellcore!bpa!sjuvax!cc743810@rutgers.edu (Chuck(ster)) Subject: Connecting a modem to a 2 line phone jack Date: 26 Mar 88 05:11:26 GMT Reply-To: bellcore!bpa!sjuvax!cc743810@rutgers.edu (Chuck(ster)) I have a Hayes 1200b modem installed in an AT&T 6300 PC, and the office that it is in has a 2-line phone. The phones wall plug is not the standard size, it is wider. How do I connect the modem to the 2 line wall jack? (It it not necessary to have the phone operational when the modem is in use - but it would be nice if it is an easy to do hack). Any help at all would be appreciated. Chuck Conway -- Chuck Conway, Mopar Pilot ...!allegra\ cc743810@sjuvax.UUCP -or- ...!rutgers!cbmvax!bpa!sjuvax!cc743810 ...!princeton/ "If it won't do 150 mph, take it back." -Corvette Engineering Group ------------------------------ Reply-To: ucsd!trout.nosc.mil!pnet01!pro-mars!bill@ames.arc.nasa.gov Date: Sun, 27 Mar 88 11:49:46 PST From: ucsd!pro-mars.cts.com!bill@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Bill Cerny) Subject: 811 Translation Table {This topic applies to readers in the Pacific*Bell serving areas, though other RBOC's might have a similar switching arrangement.} I'm attempting to compile a table that translates Pacific*Bell's 811 numbers into their 10 digit equivalents. I welcome any assistance you might provide, even if it's just the 811 numbers out of your local white pages. If you'd like a copy of this table, just let me know. I hope to have some modest compilation ready by mid-April. For those net.readers unfamiliar with Pac*Bell's 811 network, it's a network loophole allowed for in the Modified Final Judgment (MFJ) that permits RBOC's to carry inter-LATA "administrative" traffic over their own facilities. The 811 network is a feature for Pac*Bell customers 'cuz it allows toll-free calling to your telco representative from any of the 10 CA LATA's. Even if you're in an independent telco area, dialing 1+811 usually succeeds in getting you to a tandem that can perform the 811 translation. -- Bill _ /| Oop! \'o.O` (crash!pro-mars!bill@nosc.mil) =(___)= Ack! U ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 1-Apr-88 19:30:09-EST,13656;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Fri 1 Apr 88 19:30:07-EST Date: 1 Apr 88 18:34-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #58 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Friday, April 1, 1988 6:34PM Volume 8, Issue 58 Today's Topics: Re: Who's calling who? The 10xxx Table - Again. Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Two-line cordless phones Re: Connecting a modem to a 2 line phon ISDN/OSI Positions at COS Ohm my, this is shocking!!! more sprint ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sparks@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Steve Gaarder) Subject: Re: Who's calling who? Date: 29 Mar 88 17:13:40 GMT Reply-To: sparks@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Steve Gaarder) Once upon I time, when I was in high school, a friend and I took 2 phone lines, called the John Birch Society on one and the National Socialist White People's Party on the other, connected the two lnes together, and listened. This was before 3-way calling was even heard of. -- Steve Gaarder Cornell University, 171 Hollister, Ithaca NY 14853 607-255-5389 UUCP: {cmcl2,shasta,rochester,uw-beaver}!cornell!batcomputer!sparks BITNET: sparks@crnlthry.BITNET ARPA: sparks@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 88 09:15 EST From: "Scott D. Green, Classroom Services" Subject: The 10xxx Table - Again. I lost my list of 10xxx access codes. Would someone be kind enough to e-mail it to me (no need to take up anymore Digest space with it? Thanks. Scott Green green@wharton.upenn.edu ------------------------------ From: Kral Date: 29 Mar 88 17:10:58 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: drivax!braun From: braun@drivax.UUCP (Kral) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: communication handbooks request Message-ID: <3284@drivax.UUCP> Date: 29 Mar 88 17:10:57 GMT Reply-To: braun@drivax.UUCP (Kral) Distribution: usa Organization: Digital Research, Inc. Lines: 15 I recently received a brochure for "Communication Handbooks and Publications" from GTE. I have two questions to pose to the net: 1) Are these publications useful for non-GTE sites/equipment? 2) Does AT&T put out similar publications? Please email, I rarely manage to wade through to this group. Thanx, -- kral 408/647-6112 ...{ism780|amdahl}!drivax!braun Think Globally ... Act Locally DISCLAIMER: If DRI knew I was saying this stuff, they would shut me d~-~oxx ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 88 10:52 EST From: REILLY@wharton.upenn.edu Subject: Two-line cordless phones Anyone have a working two-line cordless? My Southwestern Bell likes to send high-pitch noise over the phone line even when the receiver is in the cradle, as well as other misfeatures. It's a Freedom Phone 5000 which places such as the The Sharper Image have stopped selling. Suggestions for a replacement welcome. ------------------------------ From: uiucdcs!pur-ee!clio.las.uiuc.edu!berger@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Connecting a modem to a 2 line phon Date: 30 Mar 88 19:43:00 GMT Often, the second line is the outer pair (yellow/black) of conductors, while the primary line is the inner pair (red/green). The wider jacks are frequently wired the same way, unless other options are present. If you plan to use the primary line for dialing out, you may just be able to plug your cable into the jack, provided your modem doesn't connect the black/yellow wires, or use them for A1 switching, etc. Mike Berger Department of Statistics Science, Technology, and Society University of Illinois berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu {ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!berger ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 88 12:25:21 EST From: jgg@cos.com (Jay G. Gadre) Subject: ISDN/OSI Positions at COS TECHNICAL POSITIONS AT COS The Company: The Corporation for Open Systems International is a nonpro- fit research and development firm founded in 1986 for the purpose of working toward worldwide information systems interoperability. COS receives funding from a consortium of major Corporations which includes major hardware and software companies, information and communications services companies and information systems users. COS's major focus is the promotion and acceleration of OSI (Open Systems Interconnection), ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), and related international standards. The Position: COS currently has several openings for senior level Engineers and Software Developers in the Engineering Divi- sion. The interested individual should be an expert in at least one communication protocol. Your expert understanding of the protocol will be used in developing COS specifica- tions and test systems for OSI and ISDN protocols, partici- pation in National Bureau of Standards OSI Workshops, rapid prototyping of emerging standards and conformance testing methodologies, and attending various conferences/workshops related to OSI and ISDN. The Qualifications: An advanced degree, MS/PhD in CS, EE or related field (or equivalent experience) and a good knowledge of communica- tions protocols is required. A minimum of four years of professional experience with at least two years of experi- ence with ISDN and/or OSI protocols is also required. One or more years experience in any combination of C/UNIX, LISP, PROLOG, and conformance testing of protocols is highly desired. The Salary: Highly competitive, consistent with education, training, and experience; along with an excellent benefits package. The Place: COS headquarters in beautiful McLean, Virginia is located in the metropolitan Washington, DC area. All the cultural and political attractions of Washington and environs are close by. Ski resorts, beaches, hiking, and other attractions are all within easy reach. If you feel you can make a major impact on the future of OSI and ISDN and are otherwise interested in COS, please send a cover letter and a resume or curriculum vitae to: Dr. Jay Gadre Manager, Advanced Studies Corporation for Open Systems 1750 Old Meadow Road McLean, Virginia 22102 uucp: ...!uunet!cos.com!jgg internet: jgg@cos.com Phone: +1 703 883 2793 COS is an Equal Opportunity Employer ------------------------------ From: morris%swsvax.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Skip, @DTN 249-4704, BUO/E54) Date: 31 Mar 88 17:19 Subject: Ohm my, this is shocking!!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Obligatory three pages for forwarding addresses) . . . . . . . AN UNUSUAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CALL This story was related by Pat Routledge of Winnepeg, ONT about an unusual telephone service call he handled while living in England. It is common practice in England to signal a telephone subscriber by signaling with 90 volts across one side of the two wire circuit and ground (earth in England). When the subscriber answers the phone, it switches to the two wire circuit for the conversation. This method allows two parties on the same line to be signalled without disturbing each other. This particular subscriber, an elderly lady with several pets called to say that her telephone failed to ring when her friends called and that on the few occations when it did manage to ring her dog always barked first. Torn between curiosity to see this psychic dog and a realization that standard service techniques might not suffice in this case, Pat proceeded to the scene. Climbing a nearby telephone pole and hooking in his test set, he dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring. He tried again. The dog barked loudly, followed by a ringing telephone. Climbing down from the pole, Pat found: a. Dog was tied to the telphone system's ground post via an iron chain and collar. b. Dog was receiving 90 volts of signalling current. c. After several jolts, the dog was urinating on ground and barking. d. Wet ground now conducted and phone rang. Which goes to prove that some grounding problems can be passed on. This annecdote excerpted from Syn-Aud-Con Newsletter, Vol4, No 3, April 1977. ------------------------------ From: ssc-vax!shuksan!evans@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Gary Evans) Subject: more sprint Date: 31 Mar 88 22:03:32 GMT *** *** *** Reprinted without permission from The Seattle Times, Wednesday, March 16,1988 ............................................................................ U.S. Sprint blames 'toll fraud' for erroneous telephone bills Shelby Gilje - Times staff columnist You've heard of computer viruses, those mischievous little programs created by hackers that make computers do wild and crazy things? Well, according to U.S. Sprint Communications Co., "toll fraud," or a computer virus caused by hackers, was responsible for errors on the phone bill for J.F. of Bothell. J.F. reported that she has had major billing problems with U.S. Sprint since May 1986, and was billed $146 for calls she had not made. Each time she complained, the company promised the error would be corrected. Finally, in August 1986, she discontinued service with U.S. Sprint. In September of that year she again received an incorrect billing statement along with a collection notice. She wrote U.S. Sprint again, and called the customer-service department. An operator checked and said her file would be placed on hold while the errors were investigated. However, the billing would continue. The opertor assured her that no extreme collection measures would be taken. In December 1986, she received a letter noting that her service had been disconnected and she still owed more than $140. Again she called the customer-service department, and again was assured that an investigation was in progress. In December 1987 she received a new bill showing the old balance as well as some new phone calls. "I have never heard of the city in which the new calls originated. This is outrageous! What happened to the 'investigation'? Has someone else been issued my old code?" J.F. wrote. Now U.S. Sprint has informed us that the erroneous bills have been removed from J.F.'s account, and that they were accumulated as a result of "toll fraud." U.S. Sprint said a computer hacker was accessing its network and, through trial and error, was discovering codes and using them illegally. "Ordinarily, U.S. Sprint attempts to determine who the individual was that abused the codes. This research is vital for verification of the abuse. The procedure can be very time consuming and sometimes procedures are not carried out in the most expeditious manner," Keith Marcom, a U.S Sprint representitive, wrote to J.F., apologizing for the delay in resolving her complaint. ...................................................................... Hum... Computer Virus? Sounds like a convenient excuse... Roger Swann uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!clark As usual, I disavow any knowledge of my actions. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Mar 88 09:17:20 CST (Mon) From: ihnp4!iquery!matt@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Matt Reedy) To: petro!ihnp4!comp-dcom-telecom Path: iquery!matt From: matt@iquery.UUCP (Matt Reedy) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Long Distance Rate Schedules? Summary: LD Rate info not worth it Message-ID: <112@iquery.UUCP> Date: 28 Mar 88 15:17:14 GMT References: <8803231307.AA14040@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: Programmed Intelligence, San Antonio Lines: 24 In article <8803231307.AA14040@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, dmr@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Daniel M. Rosenberg) writes: > >Can someone please tell me how to get the V&H tarriff tables. I would > If these are the tables on how muchlong distance calls cost, I > wouldn't mind getting them too. After several requests to AT&T, MCI, > and Sprint, I've ended up with copies of magazine advertisements, > calling card flyers -- but no LD rate schedules. You can obtain the V&H tables, and LD rate information, but I've found it's probably not worth the trouble. Reason? This information changes *daily* We built a call accounting system for PC's and needed LD rate information for pricing (we got the rate info from a company called Tele-tech Services, P.O. Box 757 McAfee NJ 07428 201/827-4421). The problem is that almost as soon as you receive the info, it's out of date. The BOC's are forever updating their intra-lata rates and AT&T is (less frequently) updating the interstate rates. For this reason Tele-tech offers a monthly update service, so that once you've bought the info, you can keep it current (costs about $40/month). matt -- Matthew Reedy harvard!adelie!iquery!matt Programmed Intelligence Corp. (512) 822 8703 830 NE Loop 410, Suite 412 "just ONE MORE compile...." San Antonio, TX 78209-1209 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 3-Apr-88 05:56:42-EDT,16335;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Sat 2 Apr 88 22:13:19-EST Date: 2 Apr 88 21:06-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #59 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, April 2, 1988 9:06PM Volume 8, Issue 59 Today's Topics: Another Story of Sprint Problems Integrated Network Management Call European vs. US telephone systems query: Responses ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Apr 88 19:11:26 EST From: ll-xn!ames!hc!csed-1!csed-47!roskos@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Eric Roskos) Subject: Another Story of Sprint Problems Here is yet another story of U. S. Sprint problems. Although it is long and complex, the length and complexity are part of the story, and it does have a moral. And, I have actually simplified the story a lot; there was a lot more confused-billing and letter-writing involved than the hilights I have given here.... About 2 years ago, I moved to Bellevue, Washington, which is served by GTE (General Telephone). With my initial phone service, I was assigned AT&T, because equal access was not yet available in that area; so, I subscribed to U. S. Sprint (which at the time had been recently created out of its two predecessor companies) by the old dial-up service. About 6 months later, Equal Access came to the area, and I received a letter from Sprint (after I'd made my selection of Sprint) telling me how my old account was being transferred to the new "1+" service; my old account, they said, would cancelled immediately "to keep someone from fraudulently misusing it." Unfortunately, this was not true. Due to the well-known Sprint billing problems, charges continued to trickle in for calls I'd made many months before; with careful checking, I found that none were duplicates, although at one point I got confused and overpaid by about $56 when they failed to credit my account promptly for the previous month's payments (not the only time they failed to do so, just the only time I failed to catch it). These charges all appeared on bills sent directly from Sprint, rather than through GTE. At the same time, they began billing me via my regular GTE bill, which, it said on the bill, "was provided as a service to U. S. Sprint". Eventually, I moved away from Seattle, and cancelled my GTE account, along with my Sprint account through GTE (the old account, you'll recall, had been "automatically cancelled" earlier). GTE sent me a final bill, which included some Sprint calls, which I paid. The end result was that I had a $56 credit on my old, very-long-cancelled account, and a zero balance on my more recently cancelled account. So, I filled in the "change of address" forms that came with the credit, and wrote on the bill "please send a check for the credit balance". They never sent a check for this credit balance. Then, six months after I'd left the area, GTE sent me a bill with new Sprint charges (for calls which I apparently had indeed made), along with a note saying that these were charges that had been newly found due to "improvements" in the billing process. Now I had a $56 credit and $60 worth of charges, both for the same telephone number, and I attempted to get this corrected by writing to both companies -- since GTE was only billing "as a service to Sprint," I reasoned, Sprint could just correct this apparent accounting error themselves. I also sent GTE a check for the correct balance, since I did owe about $4.00, and since GTE was apparently responsible for collection of however much I did owe at that point. But today, I got a call from GTE, requesting that I pay them the $60, because "the computer" wouldn't let them correct the problem, and Sprint had (they said) already billed GTE for the money. I would have to pay GTE, and then get the money back from Sprint myself somehow. My first reaction was to take some action similar to that which Sprint would take if it was me who was 6 months delinquent in my payments. But, after thinking awhile, I decided to call them and try to straighten out the problem first. What I found was that Sprint had apparently marked the oldest account as "cancelled" in response to my most recent letter, and had credited my new Sprint account here in Alexandria for the balance, leaving GTE with a charge of $60. So, now if I pay the $60 to GTE, which I will do, when my next bill comes, everything *should* be corrected (unless they discover some more "lost" charges), although I have to write a check to cover Sprint's mis-billing, essentially to perform a transfer of funds from one of two duplicated accounts to the other, which they allegedly can't do themselves. Incidentally, despite all the billing problems, the customer service representative had an English-language description of the actual action taken ("Customer requested credit balance be refunded. Balance credited to new account nnnnnnnn") and who it was done by (an office responsible for "correspondence") on her display of my account. This was not so bad if you think about the implementation; at least the software seems to work. I had said there was a moral to this story, but after telling it, I see that there are actually just diffuse morals: 1) the original one: don't trust Sprint to cancel accounts when they are "supposed" to. Call them up and be sure. In this case, they apparently left the very-old account active due to their continually-incoming temporarily-misplaced charges. And, they did have two accounts, rather than simply transferring the old one to the new equal-access billing, or even tying them together in any way that they could transfer the credit on one to the outstanding balance on the other. 2) Sprint's billing continues to have problems. I am really curious how they could have such serious problems, since charges seem to come in over six month periods, interleaved from a variety of locations; I can envision dusty tapes being found under a pile of papers and being sent in to the central office to be added to the next month's bills (even bills on accounts that have been cancelled for six months). and 3) It all works out in the end, if you keep after everyone enough. Though I must admit, it is unfortunate that one must provide one's own efforts to correct such problems for free, while companies usually have fines and fees to cover their costs in correcting problems in the opposite direction... Will I still use Sprint? Well, for awhile. But I guess I'll start looking at other companies. There is only so long you can continue to be forgiving, especially when the company's mistakes cause a customer service representative from the collection office of your (former) local phone company to call you... ------------------------------ From: sundc!leff%smu@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Integrated Network Management Call Date: 31 Mar 88 16:01:00 GMT ____________________________________________________________ ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS FIRST IFIP INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INTEGRATED NETWORK MANAGEMENT BOSTON, May 14-17, 1989 The First International Symposium on Integrated Network Management sponsored by IFIP WG 6.6 and hosted jointly by the National Bureau of Standards and MITRE corporation will be held in Boston. The objective of the symposium is to create an international forum for information exchange and cooperation between vendors, system integrators, users, researchers, and standardization bodies. Presentations on management policy, administration, and operation of local and wide area communication networks, including data, voice, and integrated communications are solicited. In particular, the program of the symposium will concentrate on the follow- ing subjects, emphasizing the integration of different sys- tems: o management requirements and standardization issues o models/architectures/algorithms o fault, configuration and name, accounting, performance, and security management o heterogeneous networks o protocols o quality of service o management data bases o knowledge based systems o planning systems o user interfaces and management languages o implementations and case studies o and other related topics The Proceedings of the symposium will be published as a hardbound volume by the North-Holland publishing company. Authors are invited to submit unpublished papers on the top- ical areas indicated. Contributions of a more general nature (tutorial) are also welcome. Please submit five copies (in English, restricted to 12 single spaced pages) to either of the two addresses by September 1, 1988. The cover page must contain: the paper title, full name, affiliation, complete address and phone number of each author. All papers will be refereed. Acceptance notifications will be mailed by December 1, 1988. Final camera ready papers will be due January 10, 1989. General Chair: Program Committee: Paul Brusil, MITRE, USA Sudhir Aggrawal, Bell Com. Res., USA General Vice-Chair Eric Aupperle, U. of Michigan, Dan Stokesberry, NBS, USA USA Dave Clark, MIT, USA Andre Danthine, University de Liege, Belgium Deborah Estrin, U. of South. California, USA Program Co-Chair Guy Juanole, LAAS du CNRS, Branislav Meandzija, SMU, USA France Kim Kappel, Digital Com. Assoc., USA Dipak Khakhar, Lund Univer- sity, Sweden Program Co-Chair Gautam Kar, IBM Research, USA Jil Westcott, BBN Labs., USA Yoshikazu Kobayashi, IBM, Japan Koos Koen, Informatica, ZA Submit papers to either Gerard Le Lann, INRIA, France Branislav Meandzija (Americas, Australia) Gesualdo LeMoli, Pol. di SMU, CSE Department, 322 SIC Milano, Italy Dallas, TX 75275 - 0122, USA Louis Pouzin, CNET-PAA, France or Wolfgang Zimmer (Europe, R. Rathnasabapathy, North. Africa, Asia) Tele. Inc., USA GMD-FIRST, Hardenbergplatz 2 D - 1000 Berlin - 12, West Morris Sloman, Imperial Col- Germany lege, UK For further information con- Chris Sluman, CAP Group PLC, tact UK Hershey Young NBS, B217 TEC, Gaithersburg, Brian Spratt, University of MD 20899 Kent, UK (Tel: (301) 975-3600) Carl Sunshine, UNISYS, USA Liba Svobodova, IBM Research, Switzerland Liane Tarouco, U. Fed. Rio Grande Sul, Brazil Keith Travorrow, British Telecom, UK Steve Wilbur, University Col- lege London, UK Wolfgang Zimmer, GMD-FIRST, West Germany _______________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ From: cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) Subject: European vs. US telephone systems query: Responses Date: 2 Apr 88 21:38:40 GMT Reply-To: iuvax!cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) Here are the replies I received to my recent query about the compatibility of US telephone equipment (eg, answering machines) with the West German telephone system. As some people have requested to remain anonymous, I've simply removed the headers and signatures of all articles... Thanks to all who responded. -charles -----1----- Subject: Re: European vs. US telephone systems query It is illegal to hook your own equipment to the phone-system and the BP (BundesPost), the government postal authorities, who also governs the phone-system, is very severe with anyone they catch meddling with their prime profit-center. BTW, there are no modular plugs, so if your friend decides to go ahead anyway, he better take along some parts ... yes, it would work. -----2----- Subject: Re: Answering machine query Charles, I live in Germany, so probably can best answer your question. No compatibility problem, BUT there are big time legal problems. See, the Deutsch Bundespost (that's Germany's Ma Bell) will only allow "approved" answering machines to be hooked up. The ones that are approved are pretty outrageously expensive (all over $200-$300). Also, you must pay the Bundespost to hook up your machine. Then you have to pay a monthly fee to have the priviledge to have the manchine in the first place. After being used to the US system, it's pretty ridiculous. Now, I know several people here who have just hooked their American machines up and away you go....but you run the risk of fines and loss of service if they catch you. -----3----- Subject: Re: European vs. US telephone systems query In article <7029@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> you write: >A friend of mine would like to purchase an answering machine in the >united states, to be used on the telephone system in West Germany. The German post office, which runs the phone system there, has traditionally been extremely paranoid about attaching anything not provided by them to the phone system. (It used to be illegal to use an acoustic coupler, even though there was no electrical connection at all.) Also, unlike most other telephone authorities, they actually prosecute people who make illegal attachments. I'd be extremely wary about attaching some U.S. answering machine to a German phone line -- he could end up in court. If he insists, you can tell him that technically most phone systems in the world use the same electrical interface to the phone (largely the same as that used by Bell in the late 1800's) and assuming he can deal with 110 vs. 220 volts, 50 vs. 60 HZ, and the different shaped power and phone plugs, any U.S. answering machine should work. Perhaps he should move to France where they sell phones and answering machines in discount stores, just like here. -----4----- Subject: Re: European vs. US telephone systems query I am not sure about West Germany but I have successfully used US equipment in all the Scandinavian countries and to the best of my knowledge telephony is about the best standardized area of telecommunications (thanks to CCITT, which really was the first serious standardization organisation in the world). It is possible that US equipment is not type approved in Germany and should not be connected to the network (that is you are operating at your own risk) but who cares :-) Nevertheless, I am >90% sure it works without problems (save the different voltage, of course). So, go for it! --------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Charles Daffinger >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water< (812) 339-7354 cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ihnp4}!iuvax!cdaf Home of the Whitewater mailing list: whitewater-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 5-Apr-88 18:10:39-EDT,16243;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 2-Apr-88 21:06:58 Date: 2 Apr 88 21:06-EST From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #59 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, April 2, 1988 9:06PM Volume 8, Issue 59 Today's Topics: Another Story of Sprint Problems Integrated Network Management Call European vs. US telephone systems query: Responses ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Apr 88 19:11:26 EST From: ll-xn!ames!hc!csed-1!csed-47!roskos@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Eric Roskos) Subject: Another Story of Sprint Problems Here is yet another story of U. S. Sprint problems. Although it is long and complex, the length and complexity are part of the story, and it does have a moral. And, I have actually simplified the story a lot; there was a lot more confused-billing and letter-writing involved than the hilights I have given here.... About 2 years ago, I moved to Bellevue, Washington, which is served by GTE (General Telephone). With my initial phone service, I was assigned AT&T, because equal access was not yet available in that area; so, I subscribed to U. S. Sprint (which at the time had been recently created out of its two predecessor companies) by the old dial-up service. About 6 months later, Equal Access came to the area, and I received a letter from Sprint (after I'd made my selection of Sprint) telling me how my old account was being transferred to the new "1+" service; my old account, they said, would cancelled immediately "to keep someone from fraudulently misusing it." Unfortunately, this was not true. Due to the well-known Sprint billing problems, charges continued to trickle in for calls I'd made many months before; with careful checking, I found that none were duplicates, although at one point I got confused and overpaid by about $56 when they failed to credit my account promptly for the previous month's payments (not the only time they failed to do so, just the only time I failed to catch it). These charges all appeared on bills sent directly from Sprint, rather than through GTE. At the same time, they began billing me via my regular GTE bill, which, it said on the bill, "was provided as a service to U. S. Sprint". Eventually, I moved away from Seattle, and cancelled my GTE account, along with my Sprint account through GTE (the old account, you'll recall, had been "automatically cancelled" earlier). GTE sent me a final bill, which included some Sprint calls, which I paid. The end result was that I had a $56 credit on my old, very-long-cancelled account, and a zero balance on my more recently cancelled account. So, I filled in the "change of address" forms that came with the credit, and wrote on the bill "please send a check for the credit balance". They never sent a check for this credit balance. Then, six months after I'd left the area, GTE sent me a bill with new Sprint charges (for calls which I apparently had indeed made), along with a note saying that these were charges that had been newly found due to "improvements" in the billing process. Now I had a $56 credit and $60 worth of charges, both for the same telephone number, and I attempted to get this corrected by writing to both companies -- since GTE was only billing "as a service to Sprint," I reasoned, Sprint could just correct this apparent accounting error themselves. I also sent GTE a check for the correct balance, since I did owe about $4.00, and since GTE was apparently responsible for collection of however much I did owe at that point. But today, I got a call from GTE, requesting that I pay them the $60, because "the computer" wouldn't let them correct the problem, and Sprint had (they said) already billed GTE for the money. I would have to pay GTE, and then get the money back from Sprint myself somehow. My first reaction was to take some action similar to that which Sprint would take if it was me who was 6 months delinquent in my payments. But, after thinking awhile, I decided to call them and try to straighten out the problem first. What I found was that Sprint had apparently marked the oldest account as "cancelled" in response to my most recent letter, and had credited my new Sprint account here in Alexandria for the balance, leaving GTE with a charge of $60. So, now if I pay the $60 to GTE, which I will do, when my next bill comes, everything *should* be corrected (unless they discover some more "lost" charges), although I have to write a check to cover Sprint's mis-billing, essentially to perform a transfer of funds from one of two duplicated accounts to the other, which they allegedly can't do themselves. Incidentally, despite all the billing problems, the customer service representative had an English-language description of the actual action taken ("Customer requested credit balance be refunded. Balance credited to new account nnnnnnnn") and who it was done by (an office responsible for "correspondence") on her display of my account. This was not so bad if you think about the implementation; at least the software seems to work. I had said there was a moral to this story, but after telling it, I see that there are actually just diffuse morals: 1) the original one: don't trust Sprint to cancel accounts when they are "supposed" to. Call them up and be sure. In this case, they apparently left the very-old account active due to their continually-incoming temporarily-misplaced charges. And, they did have two accounts, rather than simply transferring the old one to the new equal-access billing, or even tying them together in any way that they could transfer the credit on one to the outstanding balance on the other. 2) Sprint's billing continues to have problems. I am really curious how they could have such serious problems, since charges seem to come in over six month periods, interleaved from a variety of locations; I can envision dusty tapes being found under a pile of papers and being sent in to the central office to be added to the next month's bills (even bills on accounts that have been cancelled for six months). and 3) It all works out in the end, if you keep after everyone enough. Though I must admit, it is unfortunate that one must provide one's own efforts to correct such problems for free, while companies usually have fines and fees to cover their costs in correcting problems in the opposite direction... Will I still use Sprint? Well, for awhile. But I guess I'll start looking at other companies. There is only so long you can continue to be forgiving, especially when the company's mistakes cause a customer service representative from the collection office of your (former) local phone company to call you... ------------------------------ From: sundc!leff%smu@seismo.CSS.GOV Subject: Integrated Network Management Call Date: 31 Mar 88 16:01:00 GMT ____________________________________________________________ ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS FIRST IFIP INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INTEGRATED NETWORK MANAGEMENT BOSTON, May 14-17, 1989 The First International Symposium on Integrated Network Management sponsored by IFIP WG 6.6 and hosted jointly by the National Bureau of Standards and MITRE corporation will be held in Boston. The objective of the symposium is to create an international forum for information exchange and cooperation between vendors, system integrators, users, researchers, and standardization bodies. Presentations on management policy, administration, and operation of local and wide area communication networks, including data, voice, and integrated communications are solicited. In particular, the program of the symposium will concentrate on the follow- ing subjects, emphasizing the integration of different sys- tems: o management requirements and standardization issues o models/architectures/algorithms o fault, configuration and name, accounting, performance, and security management o heterogeneous networks o protocols o quality of service o management data bases o knowledge based systems o planning systems o user interfaces and management languages o implementations and case studies o and other related topics The Proceedings of the symposium will be published as a hardbound volume by the North-Holland publishing company. Authors are invited to submit unpublished papers on the top- ical areas indicated. Contributions of a more general nature (tutorial) are also welcome. Please submit five copies (in English, restricted to 12 single spaced pages) to either of the two addresses by September 1, 1988. The cover page must contain: the paper title, full name, affiliation, complete address and phone number of each author. All papers will be refereed. Acceptance notifications will be mailed by December 1, 1988. Final camera ready papers will be due January 10, 1989. General Chair: Program Committee: Paul Brusil, MITRE, USA Sudhir Aggrawal, Bell Com. Res., USA General Vice-Chair Eric Aupperle, U. of Michigan, Dan Stokesberry, NBS, USA USA Dave Clark, MIT, USA Andre Danthine, University de Liege, Belgium Deborah Estrin, U. of South. California, USA Program Co-Chair Guy Juanole, LAAS du CNRS, Branislav Meandzija, SMU, USA France Kim Kappel, Digital Com. Assoc., USA Dipak Khakhar, Lund Univer- sity, Sweden Program Co-Chair Gautam Kar, IBM Research, USA Jil Westcott, BBN Labs., USA Yoshikazu Kobayashi, IBM, Japan Koos Koen, Informatica, ZA Submit papers to either Gerard Le Lann, INRIA, France Branislav Meandzija (Americas, Australia) Gesualdo LeMoli, Pol. di SMU, CSE Department, 322 SIC Milano, Italy Dallas, TX 75275 - 0122, USA Louis Pouzin, CNET-PAA, France or Wolfgang Zimmer (Europe, R. Rathnasabapathy, North. Africa, Asia) Tele. Inc., USA GMD-FIRST, Hardenbergplatz 2 D - 1000 Berlin - 12, West Morris Sloman, Imperial Col- Germany lege, UK For further information con- Chris Sluman, CAP Group PLC, tact UK Hershey Young NBS, B217 TEC, Gaithersburg, Brian Spratt, University of MD 20899 Kent, UK (Tel: (301) 975-3600) Carl Sunshine, UNISYS, USA Liba Svobodova, IBM Research, Switzerland Liane Tarouco, U. Fed. Rio Grande Sul, Brazil Keith Travorrow, British Telecom, UK Steve Wilbur, University Col- lege London, UK Wolfgang Zimmer, GMD-FIRST, West Germany _______________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ From: cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) Subject: European vs. US telephone systems query: Responses Date: 2 Apr 88 21:38:40 GMT Reply-To: iuvax!cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) Here are the replies I received to my recent query about the compatibility of US telephone equipment (eg, answering machines) with the West German telephone system. As some people have requested to remain anonymous, I've simply removed the headers and signatures of all articles... Thanks to all who responded. -charles -----1----- Subject: Re: European vs. US telephone systems query It is illegal to hook your own equipment to the phone-system and the BP (BundesPost), the government postal authorities, who also governs the phone-system, is very severe with anyone they catch meddling with their prime profit-center. BTW, there are no modular plugs, so if your friend decides to go ahead anyway, he better take along some parts ... yes, it would work. -----2----- Subject: Re: Answering machine query Charles, I live in Germany, so probably can best answer your question. No compatibility problem, BUT there are big time legal problems. See, the Deutsch Bundespost (that's Germany's Ma Bell) will only allow "approved" answering machines to be hooked up. The ones that are approved are pretty outrageously expensive (all over $200-$300). Also, you must pay the Bundespost to hook up your machine. Then you have to pay a monthly fee to have the priviledge to have the manchine in the first place. After being used to the US system, it's pretty ridiculous. Now, I know several people here who have just hooked their American machines up and away you go....but you run the risk of fines and loss of service if they catch you. -----3----- Subject: Re: European vs. US telephone systems query In article <7029@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> you write: >A friend of mine would like to purchase an answering machine in the >united states, to be used on the telephone system in West Germany. The German post office, which runs the phone system there, has traditionally been extremely paranoid about attaching anything not provided by them to the phone system. (It used to be illegal to use an acoustic coupler, even though there was no electrical connection at all.) Also, unlike most other telephone authorities, they actually prosecute people who make illegal attachments. I'd be extremely wary about attaching some U.S. answering machine to a German phone line -- he could end up in court. If he insists, you can tell him that technically most phone systems in the world use the same electrical interface to the phone (largely the same as that used by Bell in the late 1800's) and assuming he can deal with 110 vs. 220 volts, 50 vs. 60 HZ, and the different shaped power and phone plugs, any U.S. answering machine should work. Perhaps he should move to France where they sell phones and answering machines in discount stores, just like here. -----4----- Subject: Re: European vs. US telephone systems query I am not sure about West Germany but I have successfully used US equipment in all the Scandinavian countries and to the best of my knowledge telephony is about the best standardized area of telecommunications (thanks to CCITT, which really was the first serious standardization organisation in the world). It is possible that US equipment is not type approved in Germany and should not be connected to the network (that is you are operating at your own risk) but who cares :-) Nevertheless, I am >90% sure it works without problems (save the different voltage, of course). So, go for it! --------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Charles Daffinger >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water< (812) 339-7354 cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ihnp4}!iuvax!cdaf Home of the Whitewater mailing list: whitewater-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 5-Apr-88 20:38:59-EDT,10580;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Tue 5 Apr 88 20:38:57-EDT Date: 5 Apr 88 17:42-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #60 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Tuesday, April 5, 1988 5:42PM Volume 8, Issue 60 Today's Topics: Re: Another Story of Sprint Problems Illinois Bell Unveils ISDN Charges US Sprint saga RISKS of using the "AT&T Public Phone Plus" BOYCOTT COCOTS! Re: Connecting a modem to a 2 line phone jack ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rbd@neon.gatech.edu (Richard B. Dervan) Subject: Re: Another Story of Sprint Problems Date: 3 Apr 88 18:14:25 GMT Reply-To: rbd@neon.gatech.edu (Richard B. Dervan) I had exactly the problem described earlier. I finally got US Sprint to transfer the $60 credit balance I had over to my new dial 1 account. It took about 6 phone calls and 4 months, but everything is ok now, or so it seems. Maybe I'll switch to MCI and use Sprint as a secondary carrier by using the carrier access code.... -Richard _________________________________________________________________________ | Richard B Dervan BitNet: ccoprrd@gitvm1 | | Office of Computing Services ARPA : rbd@neon.gatech.edu | | Georgia Institute of Technology CIS : 70365,1012 | | Atlanta, Ga 30332 MCI : RDERVAN | | uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!gatech!neon!rbd | |__________________"We don't fit the mold...we build it"__________________| ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 30 March 1988 23:02-MST From: portal!cup.portal.com!Patrick_A_Townson@UUNET.UU.NET Subject: Illinois Bell Unveils ISDN Charges On March 28, Illinois Bell Telephone Company released its long-awaited list of charges for its new Integrated Services Digital Network service, a system that permits voice, high speed data and video transmissions over standard phone lines. Ameritech, parent company of Illinois Bell and other phone companies said the cost for ISDN service would be roughly 1.2 to 1.3 times higher than the price of a 'comparably equipped' Centrex service, the current business telephone standard, which offers mainly voice transmission. They said the comparison was based on Centrex with the maximum of three calling features, as opposed to ISDN service, with roughly thirty features. Illinois Bell, the first telephone company in the nation to begin ISDN service, made the announcement at the Interface '88 conference at McCormick Place, following by one day its filing of a tariff with the Illinois Commerce Commission discussing pricing for the new system. Illinois Bell said basic ISDN service will begin in the suburban Oak Brook area and downtown Chicago area during the third quarter, 1988. Other area markets will be phased in during 1989-1990. ISDN is generally considered a major breakthrough that will allow all types of computer, office and voice equipment to communicate easily and cheaply. The service will eliminate the miles of wires and cable under office floors that currently keep phones and computers connected. Beginning in the summer and running through the end of 1988, Illinois Bell will offer a six month introductory package for the service to give customers a chance to learn about ISDN in their own offices. The packages will be in combinations of ten lines and thirty lines; they will include voice services only, data services only, and combined voice and data services. Here are some pricing examples: An ISDN line with circuit switched voice capabilities only will cost $146.50 in one time installation charges, and $16.58 per line/month for service. For a fully loaded ISDN line with voice and data capability, the one time charge for installation will be $246.50 and $29.68 per line/month for service. These charges of course do not include ISDN telephone hardware purchases or rentals, nor do they include the costs of internal 'house wiring' to connect a company's wires to the phone network junction box in the building. Questions for readers: Do you think their pricing is fair? Do you think there is (will be soon) a market for ISDN service? If ISDN was available in your community, would [you] subscribe? Why or why not? Thanks for your consideration, and responses. ------------------------------ Subject: US Sprint saga Date: Mon, 04 Apr 88 12:44:15 -0400 From: eli@spdcc.COM here's another incredible story about US Sprint billing... last month, one of my old roommates received a local telco bill with $70 worth of calls on the US Sprint page... the calls were made during the months of January through May, 1987. this is a 14 month billing delay!! the FCC allows 2 years for long distance companies to bill calls to customers -- lucky for GTE Sprint!!! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Apr 88 22:24:36 EDT From: henry@GARP.MIT.EDU (Henry Mensch) Subject: RISKS of using the "AT&T Public Phone Plus" Reply-To: henry@GARP.MIT.EDU The AT&T Public Phone Plus service is most often found in airports, rail stations, etc. There is a card reader at the bottom of the phone which will do the right thing (purportedly) with your AT&T card (I didn't think to try my FoNCard), a bank card, or an AmEx/DinersClub/etc. Some days ago I was in Boston's Logan Airport and I spotted one of these phones so I went up to investigate. Instead of seeing a "Welcome" sort of screen on the display, I saw a display which read "if you want to make another call, press the button." Further inspection revealed that the receiver, while sitting in the hangup hook, didn't fit well enough to depress the lever which would have terminated the calling session. Over the next few days I noted that the same situation existed on other "Public Phone Plus" devices in remote places (other terminals of Logan Airport, as well as JFK and LAG airports). Hasn't anyone been burned by this yet? # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # {ames,cca,rochester,harvard,mit-eddie}!garp!henry ------------------------------ From: covert%covert.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (John R. Covert) Date: 5 Apr 88 10:42 Subject: BOYCOTT COCOTS! B O Y C O T T C O C O T S ! ! When the Massachusetts DPU authorized Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephones (COCOTs), it was done to permit competition with New England Telephone's monopoly on coin service. The DPU is not likely to have realized that the current anti-consumer situation would result. COCOTs are invariable more expensive than New England Telephone pay phones. NET offers local calls for 10 cents from its payphones, COCOTs often charge 25 cents or allow a 10 cent call for a much shorter period than NET. But the real problem occurs when the caller, who may not even realize that the phone is not operated by New England Telephone, makes a call from a COCOT using an NET or AT&T calling card. A three-minute call from Acton to Boston, on a Saturday morning, costs 27 cents plus a 44 cent calling card surcharge. That same call, placed from a COCOT, can cost $3.55! The operator of the COCOT will bill the caller via the caller's normal New England Telephone bill. The unsuspecting caller may not even realize that an NET coin phone could have provided the call for much less. Find the nearest New England Telephone pay phone instead. Or use a cellular mobile phone, which can call Boston from Acton on a Saturday morning for 86 cents for three minutes. A bit more than an NET coin phone, but drastically less than a COCOT. BOYCOTT COCOTs! [Though written for readers in New England, readers in other parts of the country will find a similar situation exists if COCOTs are permitted in their states. --jrc] ------------------------------ From: kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England)) Subject: Re: Connecting a modem to a 2 line phone jack Date: 30 Mar 88 18:39:25 GMT Reply-To: kwe@buit13.bu.edu (Kent England) In article <1218@sjuvax.UUCP> bellcore!bpa!sjuvax!cc743810@rutgers.edu (Chuck(ster)) writes: > > > >I have a Hayes 1200b modem installed in an AT&T 6300 PC, and the office >that it is in has a 2-line phone. The phones wall plug is not the >standard size, it is wider. How do I connect the modem to the 2 line >wall jack? If it's a wider jack it is probably an eight-wire or RJ-45 jack. AT&T calls the shots for wiring a 4 pair jack and they maintain the same pin-out for the first and second line pairs, although pair one is still pair one, pair two [the second line] is pair three on the punchdown. If you want to connect to the first line, I think a regular one or two pair patch cord should work. If you want to connect to the second phone line you need a little adaptor to swap the first and second pair. I think these are common at Radio Shack. You should be able to plug a cord designed for the narrow jack into the fat jack. Here's the two different pin-outs: RJ-11 (narrow jack) what the modem wants 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pr R2 R1 T1 T2 Pr T&R refer to tip and ring [like + and -]. I may have the pin number ordering reversed. The number refers to the ordering of the pair on the punchdown. 1 is the first line and 2 is the second line. Pr is for power (to light your Princess phone :-) RJ-45 (wide jack) what the phone is wired for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 P2 P2 R3 R1 T1 T3 Pr Pr Pair one is for voice, the second and third pair for data and the fourth pair for power, but you can use the third pair for the second phone line. Is this too confusing? Try a standard patch cord and see if it works, you might have trouble swapping tip & ring, although I'm not sure but that the modem will work either way. > (It it not necessary to have the phone operational when >the modem is in use - but it would be nice if it is an easy to do >hack). That will only work if the modem is on line 2 and the phone on line 1, of course. Kent England, Boston University ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 7-Apr-88 00:08:15-EDT,3134;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Thu 7 Apr 88 00:08:14-EDT Date: 6 Apr 88 18:20-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #61 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, April 6, 1988 6:20PM Volume 8, Issue 61 Today's Topics: Phase shift another privacy issue ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Apr 88 23:13:53 EST From: Charles Daffinger Subject: Phase shift Reply-To: iuvax!cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) When calling a particular modem from home on what is otherwise a *very* clear line... (I watched the phone company checking it, and otherwise hear no noise) I still get occasional brief bursts of noise. I've been told that this is due to phase shift in the newer (3 yr old) digital switching system at the local Bell office. How exactly does phase shift happen? Is there a work-around? Can the phone company fix it (ha!)? (this is at 2400 baud; there is no problem at 1200) I'll summarise resonses mailed to me. Thanks, -charles -- Charles Daffinger >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water< (812) 339-7354 cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ihnp4}!iuvax!cdaf Home of the Whitewater mailing list: whitewater-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%cmsa.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Tue, 05 Apr 88 16:23:37 PDT Subject: another privacy issue MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/05/88 16:23:36 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Subject: another privacy issue To: comp-dcom-telecom@ucbvax Erik Fair posted an interesting article by Brock Meeks regarding a possible violation of the ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act). That instance included the revealing of allegedly private email by a system operator. I am curious about a different situation, namely, when a recipient of email sends it on to others or makes it public. That is, the party doing the revealing is the original and intended recipient, not an unrelated systems person. I suppose that's fair game, possibly an etiquette violation, but not illegal; are there other analyses or opinions on this? ( Doug Mosher ) ( 257 Evans, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, 415/642-5823 ) another privacy issue [The article which was posted has not been received by TELECOM as of yet. It was posted directly to usenet sites in order to reach the largest possible audience and to permit cross posting of the article to other newsgroups. Once I receive a copy of the posting, I will send it to TELECOM directly. --jsol] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 7-Apr-88 00:25:48-EDT,3042;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 6-Apr-88 23:29:24 Date: 6 Apr 88 18:20-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #61 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, April 6, 1988 6:20PM Volume 8, Issue 61 Today's Topics: Phase shift another privacy issue ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Apr 88 23:13:53 EST From: Charles Daffinger Subject: Phase shift Reply-To: iuvax!cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) When calling a particular modem from home on what is otherwise a *very* clear line... (I watched the phone company checking it, and otherwise hear no noise) I still get occasional brief bursts of noise. I've been told that this is due to phase shift in the newer (3 yr old) digital switching system at the local Bell office. How exactly does phase shift happen? Is there a work-around? Can the phone company fix it (ha!)? (this is at 2400 baud; there is no problem at 1200) I'll summarise resonses mailed to me. Thanks, -charles -- Charles Daffinger >Take me to the river, Drop me in the water< (812) 339-7354 cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu {pur-ee,rutgers,pyramid,ihnp4}!iuvax!cdaf Home of the Whitewater mailing list: whitewater-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu ------------------------------ From: SPGDCM%cmsa.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Tue, 05 Apr 88 16:23:37 PDT Subject: another privacy issue MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/05/88 16:23:36 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher Subject: another privacy issue To: comp-dcom-telecom@ucbvax Erik Fair posted an interesting article by Brock Meeks regarding a possible violation of the ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act). That instance included the revealing of allegedly private email by a system operator. I am curious about a different situation, namely, when a recipient of email sends it on to others or makes it public. That is, the party doing the revealing is the original and intended recipient, not an unrelated systems person. I suppose that's fair game, possibly an etiquette violation, but not illegal; are there other analyses or opinions on this? ( Doug Mosher ) ( 257 Evans, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, 415/642-5823 ) another privacy issue [The article which was posted has not been received by TELECOM as of yet. It was posted directly to usenet sites in order to reach the largest possible audience and to permit cross posting of the article to other newsgroups. Once I receive a copy of the posting, I will send it to TELECOM directly. --jsol] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* ------- 7-Apr-88 19:20:04-EDT,8813;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 7-Apr-88 19:03:42 Date: 7 Apr 88 19:03-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #62 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, April 7, 1988 7:03PM Volume 8, Issue 62 Today's Topics: Private Pay Phones and Calling Cards SNET not a Bell co???? re: another privacy issue (forwarding a message) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6-APR-1988 17:51:12.13 From: Douglas Scott Reuben Subject: Private Pay Phones and Calling Cards Recently, I received a bill from New York Telephone for a Bell Calling Card call from a private payphone. (I think they are called "COCOTs"). A local call in New York City using a calling card is usually $.47 for the first minute, including the surcharge for using the card. My bill from the private phone/COCOT, which was operated by Central Tel. (??), came to $3.18!!! Outraged, I called NYTel (collect), and they proceeded to tell me "Well, you know, you SHOULD have used a New York Tel phone." I told them thanks for letting me know after the fact, and they told me "Ok, we'll take the $3.18 off now, but it you do it again, we'll make you pay." Fair enough. But what am I supposed to do next time I am on the road and the only phone is one of those private phones? I mean, they actually make GTE payphones in GTE territory seem nice! ;-) Apparently, the COCOT does not dial through the calling card call directly, but instead calls an 800 number (in this case) or a local number, to reach an Alternate Operator Service operator. (I know it was an 800 number becuase you could hear the phone dialing out the 800 call.) The phone seems to have been able to pass along the number I was trying to reach, but not the calling card number I dialed in. When the Alternate operator came on, she asked me to tell her my WHOLE calling card # again, SLOWLY, in front of a group of people, which I'm sure Bell is just very happy to hear about. :-) When I received the bill, the COCOT call was billed as an Alternate carrier call, IE, after my New York Tel local call section and the AT&T Long Distance call section, there was a section that said "Central Tel." and the charges for that one call. I'm not sure how they do this, but is it possible that like some Bell Co's that have their own Equal Access codes for local service (Bell of PA, New Jersey Bell, and New York Tel., for example), Central Tel has its own equal access number, which the operators on the other end are somehow hooked up to? (IE, they dial 10XXX and then 0+AC+# ? Or all calls that the operators make use a Central Tel 10xxx number so that the Bell Operating Company knows to bill that call at a different rate?) I'm curious as to how they do this, and any ideas on this would be appreciated. (I'll summarize if anyone cares...) I called my local Bell company at home in Connecticut (SNET) to ask them about this, and they said its the first they ever heard of a $3 surcharge for a calling card call, and said I must have made a mistake. In any event, they assured my, SNET would never bill me for that. I'd like to go back to that payphone and see if they are right! (SNET still has, in many ways, a pre-divestiture atitude, which is refreshing after talking to New York Tel customer reps....!) At least Connecticut does not have private payphones, so we don't have to worry too much about that here! Finally, on a recent trip to Tahoe, I noticed that a lot of the payphones, as well as the hotels, were handled by a AOS outfit called NTS. NTS seems to operate just like Central Tel, although I haven't received a bill from them yet, so I don't know how high their rates are. Many hotels there used the same service. Interestingly, there are many AT&T-like payphones, which appear to be old Bell phones which were rebuilt and are now sold by AT&T as private payphones. (They mailed me a catalog about these...). These phones are especially deceptive, as they don't let you "tone-in" more than 14 digits, just enough for a calling card call. They also charge $.25 for an * 800 * call (!!!!) and a 950 call (again, !!!!!). So after foolishly putting in my $.25 cents to use my school's 800 number to get their PBX, the phone wouldn't let me tone in my access code, and the PBX hung up on me. When I called NTS for a refund, they (rudely) told me that "The 25 cents to dial an 800 number is a service charge, and you don't get it back, period!". In cases like this, its best to just dial the Pac*Bell operator (or any local operator, but not "00"), and have them place the clal for you. I know, Pac*Bell is very fussy about getting an AT&T operator for a cusotmer, but the minute you tell them "I'm calling from a private patyphone" they suddenly laugh and put you through, no questions asked. In most cases, although it is slightly more inconvenient to go through the operator, it saves a lot of time and a lot of quarters in the long run! This works pretty well for most COCOTs, so I usually do that rather than dial direct and let the COCOT charge me 600% what I should normally pay... Sorry this was so long...I think I'll go back my car up into a private payphone and see if it takes a beating as well as Bell's do ! :-) -Doug DREUBEN%EAGLE.WESLYN@WESLEYAN.BITNET Dreuben@Eagle.Weslyn ------------------------------ Date: 6-APR-1988 18:32:22.01 From: Douglas Scott Reuben Subject: SNET not a Bell co???? Some time ago, Fred Goldstien (sp?) mentioned that SNET was NOT a Bell Company. From what I have been told and have observed, they are (or were) a Bell Status: O Company, but they were one of the two that AT&T didn't have a controlling interest in. SNET employees (as well as other Bell Employees in other BOCs) have told me that SNET joined the Bell System out of choice, and adopted the standards and practices of the Bell System, including the Bell logo. SNET is heavily ESS (very few DMSs), has "Custom Calling" (its called Totalphone here) exactlye like any other BOC, used Western Electric phones as well as Western Electric Payphones, has the same Calling Cards as any other BOC, uses the same Charge-A-Calls as any other BOC, has the same directories with the standard Bell pictures and rate tables, and lots of other things which make it look a LOT like a Bell Company. As a matter of fact, a book published in 1976 for the Bell Centenial listed Southern New England Tel as a Bell company, and AT&T reps that I deal with frequently say "SNET? Oh yeah, that Bell in CT...". (Well, not EXACTLY like that, but sort of...) I'm not sure what Fred is using to distinguish between a Bell Co. and an independent. I think the sole difference between SNET and the other Bell Co.s is that it was AT&T ("The Bell Company") did not have a controlling interest in SNET. (I'm not sure what the other Bell like that was... somewhere near PA or sometihng? Anyhone know?) In any event, as I said in my previous posting about COCOTs/Private Payphones, in most ways, SNET is much more typical of a Bell Company than many others, such as the "trendy" Pac*Bell ( :-) ). I certainly wouldn't go so fat as to say that SNET is comparable to a GTE local company!! SNET would get *REALLY* upset about that!! ;-) -Doug DREUBEN%EAGLE.WESLYN@WESLEYAN.BITNET Dreuben@Eagle.Weslyn [SNET is *still* 18% owned by AT&T. They never had a monopoly on phone service in Connecticut (I'm an old connecticut boy myself). If you consider the fact that they use a bell logo then they are a bell company, but if you consider controlling interest, then they are not. BTW, Doug; have you ever heard of the telephone company which serves Woodbury, Southbury and Bethelehem, CT? That company is non bell but buys its equipment from SNET, which in turn gets it from.... Another BTW: West Hartford, CT. now has a DMS. They were step for *years*...-jsol] ------------------------------ Subject: re: another privacy issue (forwarding a message) Date: 07 Apr 88 13:24:44 EDT (Thu) From: wrf%juliet@CSV.RPI.EDU With paper letters, I believe that the sender owns the copyright. This has been an issue, I think, when collections of letters to/from some famous person are published. If the writer of a letter to the person refuses consent, then the editor may include only a paraphrase. Presumably the same might hold for email. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 10-Apr-88 11:56:33-EDT,8883;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Sun 10 Apr 88 11:56:30-EDT Date: 10 Apr 88 11:02-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #63 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, April 10, 1988 11:02AM Volume 8, Issue 63 Today's Topics: Re: Private Pay Phones and Calling Cards Bell Operating Companies Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! Connecticut's semi-Bell status Re: RISKS of using the "AT&T Public Phone Plus" trailblazers and HP3000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rbd@neon.gatech.edu (Richard B. Dervan) Subject: Re: Private Pay Phones and Calling Cards Date: 8 Apr 88 02:36:22 GMT Reply-To: rbd@neon.gatech.edu (Richard B. Dervan) I had a similar experience where in Atlanta with NTS pay phones. I got a call on my pager and went to the nearest pay phone. I used by Southern Bell calling card since I was out of change and expected to see a $.55 charge on my So. Bell bill. Lo and behold, there's a $7.00 charge from NTS for a call from Atlanta to Atlanta. I contacted Southern Bell about this and they gave me the toll-free number to NTS for billing questions. After one month of busy signals, I called Southern Bell again and really complained this time. They told me that they would return the charge to NTS as 'uncollectable'. It seems that NTS is one of the services that cater mostly to hotels for local and long distance calls. Hence, the outrageous long distance charges many hotels have. I have definitly learned my lesson.... If it doesn't have the familiar little bell symbol and/or have the words "genuine bell" on it, I will run (not walk) away from it. -Richard _________________________________________________________________________ | Richard B Dervan BitNet: ccoprrd@gitvm1 | | Office of Computing Services ARPA : neon!rbd@gatech.gatech.edu | | Georgia Institute of Technology or : rbd%neon@gatech.gatech.edu | | Atlanta, Ga 30332 CIS : 70365,1012 | | (404)894-6808 (Work) MCI : RDERVAN | | uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,rutgers}!gatech!neon!rbd | |__________________"We don't fit the mold...we build it"__________________| ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Apr 88 23:59 EST From: Jeffrey James Bryan Carpenter Subject: Bell Operating Companies >From: Douglas Scott Reuben >Subject: SNET not a Bell co???? ... >I'm not sure what Fred is using to distinguish between a Bell Co. and an >independent. I think the sole difference between SNET and the other Bell >Co.s is that it was AT&T ("The Bell Company") did not have a controlling >interest in SNET. (I'm not sure what the other Bell like that was... >somewhere near PA or sometihng? Anyhone know?) In any event, as I said in The other one was Cincinatti Bell. There was also Nevada Bell Telephone Company that was not owned by AT&T, but by Pacific Bell (which was owned by AT&T). jeff ------------ Jeffrey J. B. Carpenter Computing and Information Systems (Computer Center) University of Pittsburgh JJC%VMS.CIS.PITTSBURGH.EDU@VB.CC.CMU.EDU 110 Old Engineering Hall JJC@PITTVMS.BITNET 4015 O'Hara Street jjc@cisunx.UUCP Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 JJC@CISVM{1,2,3}.CCnet (412) 624-9330 R001JC5K@VB.CC.CMU.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Apr 88 23:00:48 EST From: think!johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) In article <8804051448.AA23908@decwrl.dec.com> covert@covert.DEC.COM (John R. Covert) writes: >When the Massachusetts DPU authorized Customer Owned Coin >Operated Telephones (COCOTs), it was done to permit competition >with New England Telephone's monopoly on coin service. The DPU >is not likely to have realized that the current anti-consumer >situation would result. Boy, you're not kidding. I've had COCOTs ask me to pay for 800 calls, and one asked 90 cents for a 950 call. Needless to say, I didn't pay. It seems to me that the current behavior of COCOTs borders on fraud. Most of them are made from AT&T pay phones and have instruction cards that in type style and color closely resemble those used by telco. Since they so closely resemble telco payphones, consumers could reasonably expect them to provide service comparable to that from telco payphones, which they don't. I certainly never expected that these phones ripped you off for calling card calls as well as for coin calls. They don't say anything about it. A recent flyer in with my phone bill mentioned COCOTs and said in passing that they're all supposed to identify the provider of the phone on the phone itself. I've never seen one that does, so it's time to call the DPU. John Levine, ima!johnl -- John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Rome fell, Babylon fell, Scarsdale will have its turn. -G. B. Shaw ------------------------------ From: goldstein%delni.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) Date: 8 Apr 88 09:12 Subject: Connecticut's semi-Bell status Just to clarify... Southern New England Tel used to be a "licensee" of the "Bell System". That meant they paid maybe 3% off the top to AT&T, and got the rights to AT&T's patents and manufacturing (cheap). So they used a Bell in their logo and provided Bell-quality service (if there was such a thing, but I suppose it was better than GTE California!) But came the day of reckoning (the divestiture MFJ), SNET was NOT classed as a Bell. They're "innocent", and not prohibited from doing things that the seven Baby Bells are prohibited from doing. "Bell" is now a trademark collectively owned by the RBOCs, but nowadays usually refers to those seven companies and their associated lawyers, probation officers, etc. :-) fred ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Apr 88 11:26:41 PDT From: ll-xn!ucsd!sdsu!csun!polyslo!pbowden@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Prentiss Bowden) Subject: Re: RISKS of using the "AT&T Public Phone Plus" Reply-To: ll-xn!ucsd!sdsu!polyslo!pbowden@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Prentiss Bowden) In article <8804050224.AA01237@garp.mit.edu> henry@GARP.MIT.EDU writes: > >stations, etc. There is a card reader at the bottom of the phone which will do >the right thing (purportedly) with your AT&T card (I didn't think to try my >FoNCard), a bank card, or an AmEx/DinersClub/etc. I once used one of these AT&T Calling Card phones in San Francisco while waiting for a friends plane to arrive. I walked up to the first available phone and the last person to use it didn't completely hang up the phone either-- similar to what is explained here. I dropped their call and placed a call out on my card, but as usual I got an answering machine. I DID try out my other cards on my answering machine and it did MUTE the audio to the AT&T card phone, it passed the info to my answering machine at the other end. I tried it with an ATM card and a FON card and both sequences were there. > >Hasn't anyone been burned by this yet? > I am sure they have... and I am sure that AT&T is probably not so forgiving to see you place a "legitamate" call and then see perhaps one or more denied toll charge calls. Maybe SOMEONE out there might be able to deal with this, which seemingly isn't just a localized (Boston and SF aren't too close) problem. ___ -'/ > / |"Pete" Bowden, P.O. Box 905, Santa Maria, CA 93456-0905 /___/___ --/--___ | Sysop--LOIS BBS 805-928-6969 (4 public dialups) / /___> / /___> | Packet: N6QDC@W6IXU or N6QDC@WB6DAO / _/\____/\_/\____/ | ...{csun,sdsu}!polyslo!pbowden Quitting while behind is NOT a viable alternative! ------------------------------ From: battle@umbc3.umd.edu (Mr. Rick Battle ) Subject: trailblazers and HP3000 Date: 8 Apr 88 19:21:07 GMT Does anyone have any experience or ideas on how to connect to HP3000's over the PSTN using Trailblazers as a backup connection if the 3002 VGC should fail? This is a host to host using HP DS, not a terminal connection. Thanks in advance for any info. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 10-Apr-88 13:09:39-EDT,10123;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Sun 10 Apr 88 13:09:37-EDT Date: 10 Apr 88 12:25-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #64 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Sunday, April 10, 1988 12:25PM Volume 8, Issue 64 Today's Topics: Network Administration Survey Submission for comp-dcom-telecom SNET ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ccjoan@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu (Joan Gargano) Subject: Network Administration Survey Date: 6 Apr 88 00:07:50 GMT To: Data Communications Managers, Network Adminstrators I am a gradute student in the California, State University, Sacramento, Management Information Science program. I am working on my thesis, "Skills Requirements for Network Administration in Management Information Systems". My thesis will require the results of two surveys. I need your assistance to complete the first of these surveys. In the first survey, the requirements of a management informations systems network manager will be defined in terms of business, technical, management and information systems skills. This survey is being conducted of network administrators for large organizations with local area networks as well as connections to wide area networks, to determine the degree of importance of each of the skills to performance as a network administrator. Second, the curriculum of management information systems degree programs in the country will be reviewed in a summary of educational coursework provided to support the network management specialization. Finally, an evaluation will be performed of the skills determined important by current network administrators for network management and the ability of current management information science/systems programs to provide them. Please complete the following survey and return it to me, by email or U.S. mail, with any comments you would like to add. I would like to complete the survey by April 29, 1988. I will be happy to send you a copy of my results when my thesis is complete. Your assistance in this project is appreciated. Sincerely, Joan Gargano Computing Services University of California Davis, CA 95616 (916)752-2591 ucbvax!ucdavis!jcgargano jcgargano@ucdavis.edu jcgargano@ucdavis.bitnet Knowledge and Skills Requirements for Network Administrators Please provide the following information about your organization, title, background and duties. Organization type (underline one): Educational Government Commercial Military Approximate number of networked hosts: ___________________ Wide area network connections (underline all that apply): Internet BITNET UUCP SPAN CSNET VNET DEC Easynet Supported Network Protocols (underline all that apply): TCP/IP RSCS UUCP DECNET Your working title _____________________________________________________ Undergraduate degree ____________________________________________________ Graduate degrees ________________________________________________________ Electronic mail address (optional): _____________________________________ Number of years working with computer networks __________________________ Received formal education in data communications/ Y N computer networks If yes, how many courses? _____________ Have taken seminars in data communications/ Y N computer networks If yes, how many seminars? ____________ Percentage of knowledge and skills from on 25 50 75 100 the job training and experience. Do you have a formal organizational networking plan? Y N Is an understanding of organizational information Y N sources and processing helpful to you as a network administrator? Do you set managerial policies as boundaries and Y N guidelines for local computer networks. Do you have a formal network design and documenta- Y N tion methodology. Please indicate the importance of a working knowledge of the following areas to perform your job as network administrator. Low High 1. Data transmission, ie., frequency, spectrum, 1 2 3 4 5 bandwidth, transmission attenuation. 2. Transmission media, twisted pair, coaxial cable 1 2 3 4 5 fiber optic cable, microwave. 3. Types of signals and modulation. 1 2 3 4 5 4. Communication networking techniques, ie., 1 2 3 4 5 circuit switching, packet switching. 5. Local area networks, transmission media, 1 2 3 4 5 topologies and protocols. 6. Wide area networks, transmission media, 1 2 3 4 5 topologies and protocols. 7. The Open Systems Interconnection Model using 1 2 3 4 5 a layered model of communications functions. 8. The Department of Defense heirarchical model 1 2 3 4 5 internetworking and the TCP/IP protocols. 9. IBM's Systems Network Architecture 1 2 3 4 5 10. Digital Equipment Corporations's Decnet 1 2 3 4 5 11. Integrated Services Digital Network standards 1 2 3 4 5 12. The Internet Request for Comments documents. 1 2 3 4 5 13. General knowledge of wide area networks such 1 2 3 4 5 as the Internet, BITNET, UUCP, SPAN, etc. 14. Voice communications 1 2 3 4 5 15. Distributed databases 1 2 3 4 5 16. Network design methodologies and techniques 1 2 3 4 5 17. Electronic mail systems 1 2 3 4 5 18. Network monitoring 1 2 3 4 5 19. Systems analysis and programming 1 2 3 4 5 20. Theoretical basis for routing strategies 1 2 3 4 5 In your opinion: How many semester courses of data communications/computer networking coursework is necessary to prepare management information science/systems students for network adminstration positions? _________________________ -- Joan Gargano * Univ. of Calif., Davis, Computing Services * (916) 752-2591 Internet jcgargano@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu BITNET jcgargano@ucdavis UUCP {ucbvax, lll-crg, sdcsvax}!ucdavis!jcgargano ------------------------------ From: David Daemon Date: 8 Apr 88 12:42:45 GMT Subject: Submission for comp-dcom-telecom Path: mcnc!unccvax!dya From: dya@unccvax.UUCP (Edison Carter) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Connecting a modem to a 2 line phone jack Message-ID: <949@unccvax.UUCP> Date: 8 Apr 88 12:44:43 GMT References: <1218@sjuvax.UUCP> <21084@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Organization: Univ. of NC at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC Lines: 58 In article <21084@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, kwe@BU-CS.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England)) writes: > In article <1218@sjuvax.UUCP> bellcore!bpa!sjuvax!cc743810@rutgers.edu (Chuck(ster)) writes: . . . > >standard size, it is wider. How do I connect the modem to the 2 line > >wall jack? > Here's the two different pin-outs: > RJ-45 (wide jack) what the phone is wired for > 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 > P2 P2 R3 R1 T1 T3 Pr Pr > Pair one is for voice, the second and third pair for data and > the fourth pair for power, but you can use the third pair for the Sorry, but this is an extremely sore point with me. The RJ45 jack is obstensibly NOT configured for this "pair one, pair two" business. Pins 1 and 2 of the RJ45S jack are UNDEFINED. Pin 3 is M1, a contact closure for exclusion key telephones, to pin 6, M1C. Pin 4 is Ring, pin 5 is Tip, of the line connected to the PSTN. Pin 7 and pin 8 define a programming resistor which, upon correct measurement of the loss of the subscriber loop, tells the modem (in programmed mode) what transmit level to emit so that -12 dBmV arrives at the CO. RJ41S is similar, but pins 1 and 2 represent Ring and Tip (respectively) with a fixed loss loop pad inserted in the circuit. Pins 4 and 5 carry the unmodified ring and tip, respectively, of the same PSTN circuit. There is no such thing (although people do it frequently) as a two line RJ11W/C jack. The two line equivalent is RJ14W/C. The wiring sequence is up to the customer. Pins 1 and 6 are not defined. However, as a practical matter, the RJ11W/C plug will even (usually) pick up T and R (1) of even the 8 pin jack. Be forewarned, there are other configurations of 8 pin jacks which do neat things like remove a shorting bar when a plug is inserted, operate with the exclusion key, etc. The only real flamage is the misunderstanding which most (including telephone company personnel) have about the data jacks, and the perpetual misinformation campaign - which the original poster(s) aren't a part of - about the RJ41/45 data jacks. They are defined, and have a specific function in life. My source is Title 47, United States Code of Federal Regulations, Part 68, Appendix A, Subpart F, FCC Rules and Regulations, 41 FR at 28699, published July 12, 1976. David Anthony WLQV Detroit ------------------------------ From: smb@research.att.com Date: Thu, 7 Apr 88 21:56:24 EDT Subject: SNET Actually, I'm fairly certain that AT&T sold its interest in SNET in the last two years or thereabouts. The sale was by mutual agreement, and not part of the divestiture. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 11-Apr-88 20:52:06-EDT,2904;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Mon 11 Apr 88 20:52:05-EDT Date: 11 Apr 88 20:17-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #65 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, April 11, 1988 8:17PM Volume 8, Issue 65 Today's Topics: COCOTS Illinois Bell ISDN Tariff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: princeton!pyrnj!argon!westmark!dave@rutgers.edu (Dave Levenson) Subject: COCOTS Date: 11 Apr 88 12:39:16 GMT I would like to suggest a simple solution to the COCOT problem. Certainly any service-provider ought to be able offer public telephone service at any price, but the price ought to be available to the public before a call is actually placed. I suggest that the several states (or perhaps the FCC where interstate calls are involved) should require that ALL public telephones display the surcharge schedule for their toll calls, just as they now display the cost of a local call. The calling party can then look at the rate card on the telephone, and compare it with the rate card on a nearby telephone provided by another company, and make an informed decision. What do you think? -- Dave Levenson Westmark, Inc. A node for news. Warren, NJ USA {rutgers | clyde | mtune | ihnp4}!westmark!dave ------------------------------ From: sdsu!csun!ttidca!jackson.TTI.COM%sdcsvax@ucsd.edu (Dick Jackson) Subject: Illinois Bell ISDN Tariff Date: 11 Apr 88 18:55:02 GMT Reply-To: sdsu!ttidca!jackson.tti.com%sdcsvax@ucsd.edu (Dick Jackson) Thanks to Patrick Townson for his posting about the Illinois Bell ISDN tariff filing. >Questions for readers: Do you think their pricing is fair? Do you think >there is (will be soon) a market for ISDN service? If ISDN was available >in your community, would [you] subscribe? Why or why not? I am unsure what I get for 1.3 times the cost of a current line. If my station equipment lets me use two phones independently, one on each B channel, then I am clearly ahead. If instead I can only use one "phone" for two "appearances", or for voice and simultaneous data (for example), then *I* am not impressed I see no compelling reason to choose ISDN other than voice economics, unless someone has a real need for 64kbps data. I don't believe such a need is common currently. I think it will be very interesting to see if ISDN finds customers (in the future) because of the new services it offers/will offer. Dick Jackson Path: ..!{trwrb|philabs|csun|psivax}!ttidca!ttidcc!jackson jackson@ttidcc.TTI.COM ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 14-Apr-88 00:21:44-EDT,8375;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Thu 14 Apr 88 00:21:42-EDT Date: 13 Apr 88 23:30-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #66 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Wednesday, April 13, 1988 11:30PM Volume 8, Issue 66 Today's Topics: Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! Call Waiting Indication Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! partial local echo for 3270 emulation over PDNs? Re: The 10xxx Table - Again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 88 15:51:07 EDT From: Ralph.Hyre@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu To: comp-dcom-telecom@rutgers.edu Path: IUS3.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU!ralphw From: ralphw@IUS3.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU (Ralph Hyre) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Non-Bell owned Bell companies Date: 11 Apr 88 19:51:07 GMT References: <8804081245.AA16703@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 27 Cincinnati Bell is another BOC that AT&T had a minority stake in. I believe it made the breakup effects much easier there. They've always been pretty reasonable about things. I also believe they were able to get the non-POTS services going faster there (like a long distance service and software development company). Too bad they've got GTE (and even smaller companies) around them. Makes it a real hassle when traveling. I travel between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati a lot, and there are these vast wastelands on I-71 between Cincinnati and Columbus, and I-70 between Columbus and Wheeling where there are no Bell payphones to be had. I've actually gone to the trouble to specially mark a map with known Bell payphones rest areas, so I know where I can make calls from. You'd think they give favorable treatment to SPRINT or something, but no 950 numbers seem to work. (part of this may be due to population density, but it's a real hassle.) BTW, is there any carrier out there that doesn't have a 950 surcharge? SBS Skyline never did, and they were nice enough to activate my code in all the cities they served. The MCI took over, and life got tough and more expensive again. -- - Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. Internet: ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Phone:(412)268-{2847,3275} CMU-{BUGS,DARK} Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Apr 88 06:21:34 PDT From: hoptoad.UUCP!gnu@cgl.ucsf.edu (John Gilmore) Subject: Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! johnl@think.UUCP (John R. Levine) wrote: > Boy, you're not kidding. I've had COCOTs ask me to pay for 800 calls, and > one asked 90 cents for a 950 call. Needless to say, I didn't pay. I had a private pay phone in Las Cruces, NM take my quarter when I got ring-no-answer! It was at a large chain grocery store. I went inside to complain, they gave me back the quarter, I went out and called the second number where my friend might be, ring-no-answer, hung up. Went back inside to get the refund again. This happened four times total (and I never did find my friend). The store management explained that a few months earlier, the parent company had had all the Bell phones removed and put in their own to make more money. They sure did, but lost the goodwill of at least one customer. ------------------------------ From: km@emory.UUCP (Ken Mandelberg) Subject: Call Waiting Indication Date: 13 Apr 88 14:47:23 GMT Is there any way to get a call waiting indication other than the standard short beep. It would be great if it could be made to ring the phone bell, light a light, or even just give a longer tone on the handset. The issue is that I use a modem on my only line and I would like to know when incoming calls are coming in. My new modem (trailblazer) fights through the call waiting beep without a flicker, so I can't tell. -- Ken Mandelberg | {decvax,sun!sunatl,gatech}!emory!km UUCP Emory University | km@emory BITNET Dept of Math and CS | km@emory.ARPA ARPA,CSNET Atlanta, GA 30322 | Phone: (404) 727-7963 ------------------------------ From: heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) Subject: Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! Date: 8 Apr 88 15:58:24 GMT Reply-To: heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) A similar situation has existed for some time in the Chicago area. My most recent experience with them was accidental, as I have been refusing to use these phones for some time. Unfortunately, a restaraunt that I used to eat at frequently changed their IL Bell pay phones to some private operator. The phones looked like regular Bell pay phones. I needed to place a couple of business calls. The way this works is that I call an 800 number, enter a sequence of digits to tell who I am, then get another dial tone that allows me to place the call. I got through to the 800 number, just fine, but after I did, the phone refused to allow any additional tones to be generated from the keypad, preventing me from placing my call. Both phones behaved the same way. To be fair, I used one of the newer AT&T card caller phones that can often be found in hotel lobbies. They have a digital display of a couple of lines telling you what to do. (I'm not talking about the phones with the built-in CRT displays.) I found it nearly impossible to place the same kind of call on this phone. It didn't want to let me send touch-tones from the keypad after my call had been "placed". Fortunately, in this case, a *real* IL Bell pay phone was nearby. (Do you suppose that this was an intentional feature of the phone to discourage use of alternative long distance services???) -- Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.UUCP Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix "I believe in the Tooth Fairy." "I believe in Santa Claus." "I believe in the future of the Space Program." ------------------------------ From: swb@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Scott Brim) Subject: partial local echo for 3270 emulation over PDNs? Date: 13 Apr 88 20:29:33 GMT Reply-To: swb@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Scott Brim) We would like to connect ASCII terminals across a public data network (e.g. Telenet) to a 3270 emulator (7171) connected to our large IBM systems. There are a few problems here: We want to echo locally to the terminal (at the remote PAD, i.e. far from the host) most of the time, in order to minimize the number of packets being sent across the PDN; we plan on packetizing on control characters, and whenever the user types plus a sequence of characters (to allow for emulation of PF keys, etc.). I'm not sure about the other PDNs, but with Telenet at least there are X.29 parameters to set it up this way. The problem is that we think the 7171 will *always* echo *everything* it hears, including what the remote PAD is *already* echoing to the terminal. It looks like what we were hoping to do won't work. Has anyone used IBM systems in this way (ascii terminals connected with no special software across a PDN to a 3270 emulation box)? If so, how did you do it? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott W. Brim swb@devvax.tn.cornell.edu Cornell University Theory Center {decvax,ihnp4}!cornell!batcomputer!swb 265 Olin Hall bitnet: swb@crnlthry Ithaca, NY 14853 607-255-9392 ------------------------------ From: silver@emory.UUCP (Stuart Stirling) Subject: Re: The 10xxx Table - Again. Date: 14 Apr 88 00:30:37 GMT Reply-To: silver@emory.UUCP (Stuart Stirling) In article <8804021113.AA15444@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> GREEN@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU ("Scott D. Green, Classroom Services") writes: : I lost my list of 10xxx access codes. Would someone be kind enough to : e-mail it to me (no need to take up anymore Digest space with it? Thanks. : : Scott Green : green@wharton.upenn.edu Where can I get a copy? -- Stuart Stirling silver@emory.arpa {decvax,emoryu1,gatech,gt-eedsp,msdc,sbmsg1,sun!sunatl}!emory!silver ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 14-Apr-88 20:29:33-EDT,6294;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU with Chaos/SMTP; Thu 14 Apr 88 20:29:30-EDT Date: 14 Apr 88 19:43-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #67 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Thursday, April 14, 1988 7:43PM Volume 8, Issue 67 Today's Topics: protocol conversion and packet nets Re: Illinois Bell ISDN Tariff ISDN (Was Illinois Bell IDSN) A COCOT bargain ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Apr 88 20:57:55 SST From: Jim Crooks Subject: protocol conversion and packet nets re SUBJ: partial local echo for 3270 emulation over PDNs/13Apr88 Scott Brim swb@cgould.tn.cornell.edu / Telecom-Digest re Subj: YTERM/13Apr88 John Valentine john@mcgill1 / IBM7171 discussion One protocol conversion system that is very happy to run over packet nets is SIM3270. SIM runs in the mainframe and lets the FEP handle the X.25 interface (in fact I heard that someone was using a 4341 front-ending a host+SNA network JUST for protocol conversion with SIM for 400+ concurrent users, I think it was GE in the USA). I don't know how SIMWARE really handles the I/O, but I know that VT100 + a multitude of other protocols + their own PC software pkg run very nicely over packet both in Canada, the USA and Europe. I seem to remember that VT100 and the like generated a few garbage characters (when PFkey press went in), but first response would eat those characters and clean up the screen just fine... But then SIM was designed (almost from the start) to work with packet. Now if you can just get the 7171 to do the same thing (anybody out there in network land know about how SIM does it and about 7171?) James W. Crooks Telephone: (65) 772-2009 FAX: (65) 778-2571 Telex: RS 39988 ATTN:((JIM)) Telebox/DIALCOM: 12:GVT331 ATTN:((JIM)) BITNET: JIM@ISS.NUS.AC.SG Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Kent Ridge, Singapore 0511 ------------------------------ From: casemo!pc@trantor.UMD.EDU (Paul Carew ) Subject: Re: Illinois Bell ISDN Tariff Date: 14 Apr 88 16:19:57 GMT > > I see no compelling reason to choose ISDN other than voice economics, unless > someone has a real need for 64kbps data. I don't believe such a need is > common currently. I think it will be very interesting to see if ISDN finds > customers (in the future) because of the new services it offers/will offer. > I guarantee that if you put somebody in a position to choose between a file transfer at 2.4kbs or a transfer at 64kbs, they will opt for the faster rate. As for cost, I must admit that I didnt see the posting on the tariff, however by using 64kbs, the file transfer takes about 1/26th of the time taken by a 2.4kbs link! Paul Carew (Case Communications Inc..) PS. Terminal equipment & PC boards are already becomming avaliable and will soon rival the cost of modems! ------------------------------ Date: Thu 14 Apr 88 12:05:28-PDT From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: ISDN (Was Illinois Bell IDSN) Patrick Townson writes: >Ameritech, parent company of Illinois Bell and other phone companies said the >cost for ISDN service would be roughly 1.2 to 1.3 times higher than the price >of a 'comparably equipped' Centrex service, the current business telephone >standard, which offers mainly voice transmission. ....... >The service will eliminate the miles of wires and cable under office floors ....... >Questions for readers: Do you think their pricing is fair? Do you think there >is (will be soon) a market for ISDN service? If ISDN was available in your >community, would [you] subscribe? Why or why not? ....... A few nits (with Ameritech PR not with Patrick's posting). "Centrex service, the current business telephone standard". It once was and may even be so again but to say that Centrex is "the standard" tody is just PR BS. ISDN defines interfaces, not wiring plans. It may, in fact, INCREASE the cabling requirements if a 2 wire system is now in use. Other things (Baluns, smarter wiring plans) may reduce wire and cabling but it ain't ISDN. No one is likely to "subscribe" to ISDN per se. A customer may desire SERVICES which the LEC can best deliver via ISDN. Most likely the LEC will use ISDN as a selling point for Centrex. Different (but related) topic. A business line (1MB) in this area is tariffed at $16.85/month. A friend who started a small business requiring a single line was quoted $71/month by PacBell. After investigation we found the "quote" included not only the expected bundle of "features" but also listing in Yellow Pages from here to LA (a slight exageration). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Apr 88 14:01:43 EST From: think!johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) Subject: A COCOT bargain Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) I dropped by my local COCOT the other day while walking the dog, picked up the handset (no dial tone, just a voice telling me to deposit 25 cents), and tried dialing 1 809 555 1212. "Thank you" it said, then shortly the usual "What island please?" A real pay phone would have charged 60 cents. Experimentation showed that from that brand of COCOT, at least, all D.A. calls are free. Considering how they overcharge you for all other calls, the free directory assistance is darned decent of them, and I plan to use COCOTs extensively for my directory assistance needs. Each phone seems to have its direct dial rates programmed into the phone itself, so it'll be interesting to see if they ever fix them to charge for D.A. -- John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Rome fell, Babylon fell, Scarsdale will have its turn. -G. B. Shaw ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 18-Apr-88 19:47:47-EDT,13356;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 18-Apr-88 19:15:31 Date: 18 Apr 88 19:15-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #68 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, April 18, 1988 7:15PM Volume 8, Issue 68 Today's Topics: Re: COCOTS Re: Call Waiting Indication The 10xxx Table via FTP Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! Re: Call Waiting Indication Re: Illinois Bell ISDN Tariff PCPursuit query Re: COCOTS Sprint billing not all bad? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bsu-cs!dhesi@uunet.UU.NET (Rahul Dhesi) Subject: Re: COCOTS Date: 14 Apr 88 14:37:30 GMT Reply-To: bsu-cs!dhesi@uunet.UU.NET (Rahul Dhesi) In article <145@westmark.UUCP> dave@westmark.UUCP (Dave Levenson) writes: >I suggest that the several states (or perhaps the FCC where >interstate calls are involved) should require that ALL public >telephones display the surcharge schedule for their toll calls,... I prefer this alternative: Just as the Post Office has mandated that unsolicited merchandise may be kept as a free gift, the consumer may safely assume that if no charges are listed on the telephone, then there are none. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: !{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi ------------------------------ From: davidc@pyr.gatech.edu (David Carter) Subject: Re: Call Waiting Indication Date: 15 Apr 88 16:10:49 GMT In article <2844@emory.uucp> km@emory.UUCP (Ken Mandelberg) writes: >Is there any way to get a call waiting indication other >than the standard short beep. >Ken Mandelberg | {decvax,sun!sunatl,gatech}!emory!km UUCP Maybe. If your phone system supplies a battery drop (heard as a loud click just before the call waiting beep; much of Atlanta does, but some "digital" offices don't) then you can add an inexpensive device to detect the battery drop. The device is a "battery detect relay." It has two coils that go in series between the incoming phone line and (in this case) your modem. While there is battery on the line (call is up) a SPST contact is held closed. So when you get a call waiting the switch will open briefly. Wire the switch to whatever else you like (loud buzzer, big light, something to give you a shock, etc.). Delta Electronics in Atlanta probably still has them. David Carter Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!davidc ARPA: davidc@pyr.ocs.gatech.edu -- David Carter Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!davidc ARPA: davidc@pyr.ocs.gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Subject: The 10xxx Table via FTP Date: 15 Apr 88 14:12:52 GMT Reply-To: sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson@rutgers.edu (Russ Nelson) In article <2846@emory.uucp> emory!silver (Stuart Stirling) writes: >In article <8804021113.AA15444@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> GREEN@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU ("Scott D. Green, Classroom Services") writes: >: I lost my list of 10xxx access codes. Would someone be kind enough to >: e-mail it to me (no need to take up anymore Digest space with it? Thanks. >Where can I get a copy? The 10xxx table is available by anonymous ftp from sun.soe.clarkson.edu [128.153.12.3] in /pub/10xxx. -- -russ AT&T: (315)268-6591 BITNET: NELSON@CLUTX Internet: nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu GEnie: BH01 Compu$erve: 70441,205 ------------------------------ From: rbd@neon.gatech.edu (Richard B. Dervan) Subject: Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! Date: 15 Apr 88 18:14:54 GMT Reply-To: rbd@neon.gatech.edu (Richard B. Dervan) I wish some local telephone companies would realize that a lot of people (including myself) use touch-tones to access services such as telephone banking, answering machines, etc. It is really irritating to place a long distance call only to find out you can't generate tones. I recently purchased a DTMF tone generator to get around that problem. Works like a charm! -Richard | Richard B Dervan BitNet: ccoprrd@gitvm1 | | Office of Computing Services ARPA : neon!rbd@gatech.gatech.edu | | Georgia Institute of Technology or : rbd%neon@gatech.gatech.edu | | Atlanta, Ga 30332-0275 CIS : 70365,1012 | | (404)894-6808 (Work) MCI : RDERVAN | | uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,rutgers}!gatech!neon!rbd | ------------------------------ From: moss!ihuxv!tedk@att.arpa (Kekatos) Subject: Re: Call Waiting Indication Date: 15 Apr 88 20:42:55 GMT Reply-To: moss!ihuxv!tedk@att.arpa (55624-Kekatos,T.G.) In article <2844@emory.uucp> km@emory.UUCP (Ken Mandelberg) writes: >Is there any way to get a call waiting indication other { text deleted } >My new modem (trailblazer) fights through the call waiting >beep without a flicker, so I can't tell. Dear Ken, My suggestion is to get a second phone line installed with multi-line hunt. Or get a second line installed that is used _only_ for your modem. Ted G. Kekatos backbone!ihnp4!ihuxv!tedk (312) 979-0804 AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill South, IX-1F-460 Naperville & Wheaton Roads - Naperville, Illinois. 60566 USA ------------------------------ From: nusdhub!rwhite@ucsd.edu (Robert C. White Jr.) Subject: Re: Illinois Bell ISDN Tariff Date: 17 Apr 88 06:52:51 GMT in article <2283@ttidca.TTI.COM>, jackson.TTI.COM%sdcsvax@ttidca.UUCP (Dick Jackson) says: > Approved: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu >>Questions for readers: Do you think their pricing is fair? Do you think >>there is (will be soon) a market for ISDN service? If ISDN was available >>in your community, would [you] subscribe? Why or why not? > I see no compelling reason to choose ISDN other than voice economics, unless > someone has a real need for 64kbps data. I don't believe such a need is > common currently. I think it will be very interesting to see if ISDN finds > customers (in the future) because of the new services it offers/will offer. There is a real problem with the entire ISDN standard.... (no offense...) it was designed with a mainframe-to-mainframe mentality. [Can you say re-gen your SNA network...??] You only get 1 (!) packet courtesy of the ISDN provider in which to tell the "other end" what kind of a beast you are. Basicly, if you were to invent a totally new device, or make a major improvement on an old one you, and the other endpoint, are stuck with sync(ing) up on the open channel. In a few years, you could be looking at 30+ seconds to make _any_ kind of connection anywhere. There is a simple fix for all of this, and inclusively covers _ANY_ kind of amendments ot the standard! This fix can be implemented as a _software only_ (firmware?) change to any currently planned ISDN device [including something like a 5ESS C.O. Switch.] and covers such things as future enhancements to the actual communications rates [etc.] By implementing this fix, the thickness of the standard should be substantially reduced. I have already thought up 14 [or so] marketable devices for ues in the home, each would make a certain cross-section of the home markets saleable, and hardware manufactures could make _cheap_ devices to do a few things everybody would like. This fix can be sold to anybody. The problem is, I can't seem to get to the correct person, to tell them. I have talked to AT&T personnel who were directly working on ISDN in one form or another. I have talked to hardware manufactures, and telcom professionals at TCA . I've talked till I'm totally ill on the subject! On the avrage, it takes about an hour [face to face, with diagrams] to "convert" someone who really knows what's going on. I've done it about 20 times, but the conversations always end with "Your right!... but I'm not the one you should be talking to..." "Ok, who do I talk to?" "I don't know... If I can find someone, Ill have them call you." Followed by an exchange of buisness cards, and invariably a, I'm sorry I couldn't help follow-up call > Robert C. White Jr. << << and we are merely layers, <<|>> nusdhub!rwhite nusdhub!usenet << << port owners and port payers, <<|>>>>>>>>"The Avitar of Chaos"<<<<<<<<<<<< << each an others audit fence, <<|>> Network tech, Gamer, Anti-christ, << << approaching the sum reel. <<|>> Voter, and General bad influence. << <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ## Disclaimer: You thought I was serious???...... Really???? ## ## Interogative: So... what _is_ your point? ;-) ## ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------------ From: finkel%TAURUS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Date: Sun, 17 Apr 88 14:01:10 +0300 Reply-To: Subject: PCPursuit query I have a few questions about PCPursuit. I know that PCPursuit is running on Telenet's packet switching network. I also know that the local dialouts that telenet uses can be reached via any other X.25 service, You just have to know the PAD's NUA. I also know that's it's legal to call the PAD even if you don't have access to PCP. ( X.25 service costs more than PCP, and Telent gets it's share in the money ). Since I don't live in the USA, I never used PCP, and I don't know what are the steps that a PCP user peforms in order to dial the needed phone number. so my question is: How can I get a list of the accessible dialers of PCP? Do PCP users have a list of those dialers and they use it directly, or does the local PCP PAD gets the phone number, and uses an internal NUA list to get the correct local dialout? Shortly, how can I get a list of these NUA's? Also, can someone send me a list of all area codes accessible by PCP? please respond my by mail since we don't receive this newsgroup here. thanks, Udi ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Udi Finkelstein | Bitnet: finkel@taurus.bitnet or finkel@math.tau.ac.il Tel Aviv University | Internet: finkel%taurus.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu Israel | UUCP: ...!psuvax1!taurus.bitnet!finkel ------------------------------ From: ssc-vax!shuksan!evans@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Gary Evans) Subject: Re: COCOTS Date: 14 Apr 88 17:01:21 GMT In article <145@westmark.UUCP>, dave@westmark.UUCP (Dave Levenson) writes: > > I would like to suggest a simple solution to the COCOT problem. > ...(parts edited)... ...require that ALL public > telephones display the surcharge schedule for their toll calls, just > as they now display the cost of a local call.... > Yes, I agree with the idea that there should be a rate schedule on the phone itself and in addition, there should be a FREE number to call and ask about rates, etc. BEFORE one decides to use the service. Roger Swann uucp: uw-beaver\!ssc-vax\!clark ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Apr 88 12:36:19 CST From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI Subject: Sprint billing not all bad? The April '88 issue of "The Office" magazine just came in today's mail, and I noted the following in the "Telecommunications Insights" column by Thomas J. Hargadon, page 28: [Refers to previous column which described Sprint billing foul-ups, and continues:] "One very large company uses US Sprint BECAUSE of these problems. It says that the bills arrive anywhere from one to six months late, giving them a nice cash cushion, and usually come with less than 70% of the calls they know they made. US Sprint will have to shape up fast, because such problems cannot last much longer, if it wishes to survive." He then goes on to mention COCOT problems such as have been discussed here recently. I just wonder if his dire predictions as to Sprint's fate are really valid. It seems to me that the charges for Long Distance service don't really have a lot to do with the actual costs of providing that service, and it may well be that Sprint will continue blundering along, thrashing wildly with its billings, and still make enough to survive. Anyway, I thought I'd post this because it demonstrates a viewpoint which differs from those of earlier Sprint-billing comments. Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 23-Apr-88 22:38:05-EDT,3428;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from XX.LCS.MIT.EDU by XX.LCS.MIT.EDU.#Chaos with Chaos/SMTP; Sat 23 Apr 88 22:38:04-EDT Date: 23 Apr 88 20:13-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #69 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Saturday, April 23, 1988 8:13PM Volume 8, Issue 69 Today's Topics: mag cards Re: Sprint billing not all bad? Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #68 7171 via PDN's ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Apr 88 22:31:52 EDT From: simsong@westend.columbia.edu (Simson L. Garfinkel) Subject: mag cards I'm purchasing a machine that reads and writes the mag strips on credit cards. Question: Does anybody know if credit cards are high field or low field magnetic systems? Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Apr 88 16:23:24 PDT From: Jordan Hayes Subject: Re: Sprint billing not all bad? "One very large company uses US Sprint BECAUSE of these problems. It says that the bills arrive anywhere from one to six months late, giving them a nice cash cushion, and usually come with less than 70% of the calls they know they made." Well, the party's over. I did this as well, and in this month's Pacific Bell bill, I received a bill from Sprint for the last 6 months worth of calls ... a small note at the bottom said "We hope this isn't an inconvienience" ... grrr ... so much for any scratch money I had budgeted for this month ... /jordan ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Apr 88 11:21:11 EDT From: uunet!daitc!csed-1!csed-47!roskos@rutgers.edu (Eric Roskos) Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V8 #68 >"One very large company uses US Sprint BECAUSE of these problems. It says that >the bills arrive anywhere from one to six months late, giving them a nice cash >cushion, and usually come with less than 70% of the calls they know they made. >US Sprint will have to shape up fast, because such problems cannot last much >longer, if it wishes to survive." Unfortunately, the "less than 70%" part is not true in the long run. From my own experience, the remaining 30% do appear on your bills, it's just that they appear 6-8 months later (my most recent bill shows charges from August of 1987). The reason it is such a problem is that, when they (temporarily) lose calls from your bill, the calls are randomly lost throughout the month -- it's not as if a block of time during the month that you can readily identify has not been charged for. Unless you keep records of all your calls, it is often not apparent that any were lost. ------------------------------ From: David_Michael_McCord@cup.portal.com Subject: 7171 via PDN's Date: Fri Apr 22 14:16:59 1988 I would strongly advise that you do not attempt to implement a local echo for 7171 users. The 7171 needs to control the echo so that keypresses such as function keys are not echoed to the screen. I know it is going to cost you more $$$ to the PDN provider, but it is either that or have users contend with gibberish on their screen. ...David ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************* 2-May-88 20:50:02-EDT,12076;000000000000 Mail-From: JSOL created at 2-May-88 20:25:01 Date: 2 May 88 20:25-EDT From: The Moderator (JSol) Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #71 To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Telecom@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU TELECOM Digest Monday, May 2, 1988 8:25PM Volume 8, Issue 71 Today's Topics: Re: Your call did not go through... Re: Your call did not go through... Re: Is there a path from BITNET to Compuserve? Re: Your call did not go through... Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! re: ISDN standards foreign exchange in a shopping mall ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 88 22:25:35 EDT From: Michael Grant Subject: Re: Your call did not go through... > I just called Sun's service center and got the usual "dial 1 for >software assistance, dial 2 for hardware assistance" message. I dialed 1 >and got a recording saying, "da Da DAH! You call did not go through, >please try again. 212 4T", which raises several questions. 1-800-USA-4SUN, I'm pretty sure that they are subscribers to AT&T's Extended 800 service. The recordings you hear, "Thankyou for calling Sun Microsystems..." are generated by the AT&T network. When you press enough keys for the network to decide where to dump the call, it then puts your call through. I am told that this system is also used for the 900 Dialit service. -Mike Grant ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Apr 88 12:35:06 EDT From: news@bbn.com To: comp-dcom-telecom@uunet.uu.net Path: bbn!bbn.com!levin From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Exchanges that look like area codes Keywords: N0X N1X excahnges alternate theory Message-ID: <24064@bbn.COM> Date: 29 Apr 88 16:35:01 GMT References: <8755@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> Sender: news@bbn.COM Reply-To: levin@powell.BBN.COM (Joel B Levin) Organization: BBN Communications Corporation Lines: 22 In article <8755@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> marston.UUCP@eleazar.UUCP (David Marston) writes: : . . . anyone :calling from outside the 212 area code would dial 1-212-603-xxxx to get :this firm and there would be no ambiguity. People within 212 would ALL :dial 603-xxxx, just seven digits, because any number in 212 can reach any :other number in 212 without dialing 1 first. If a New Yorker dials 1-603-, :you know that 7 more digits will follow and the call is destined for NH. The point is, however, that some places, like Maryland for instance, do not use a prefix 1 to identify toll calls. For those places, the only way to distinguish a local call to the 603 exchange from a long distance call to New Hampshire is by waiting N seconds after the 7th digit to see if there will be an 8th. If not, it puts through the local call; otherwise it just keeps collecting digits. /JBL UUCP: {backbone}!bbn!levin USPS: BBN Communications Corporation ARPA: levin@bbn.com 50 Moulton Street POTS: (617) 873-3463 Cambridge, MA 02238 ------------------------------ From: jimmy@pic.ucla.edu Subject: Re: Your call did not go through... Date: 30 Apr 88 04:47:11 GMT Reply-To: denwa!jimmy@seismo.CSS.GOV (Jim Gottlieb) In article <3250@phri.UUCP> roy%phri@UUNET.UU.NET (Roy Smith) writes: > > I just called Sun's service center and got the usual "dial 1 for [...] > > 1) What handles the "dial 1 for .." call redirection? Is it done >at the CO or by the customers own PBX equipment? It is done by AT&T in Kansas City. The call routing information is then sent back to your local tandem office and a new call is set up. > 2) What does the "212 4T" mean? Is there some universal code for 212 is the area code. 4T is the number of the tandem switch. > 3) Why is the "da Da DAH!" always so loud? It has to be loud enough to be heard by the equipment (not your ears) that it is meant for. ...Jim Gottlieb ------------------------------ From: mdf@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark D. Freeman) Subject: Re: Is there a path from BITNET to Compuserve? Date: 30 Apr 88 19:44:37 GMT Reply-To: mdf@tut.cis.osu-state.edu (Mark D. Freeman) In <734NU115247@NDSUVM1> NU115247@ndsuvm1.BITNET writes: >I would like to know if there is a path between BITNET and Compuserve?? According to some poeple at CompuServe whom I spoke with last week, connecting CompuServe to non-commercial networks causes an interesting problem. If you send mail FROM CompuServe to another network, CompuServe can bill the sender (who obviously has a CompuServe account). If you send mail TO CompuServe, who do they bill for the resources to process it? You can't charge the RECEIVING CompuServe account, as the mail might be unsolicited and/or something the CompuServe user doesn't want to pay for. They can't bill the non-commercial network, as there is no central organization with the authority and/or responsibility for such things. Creating a link from CompuServe to other commercial networks poses much less of a problem, in that they need a funny-money exchange agreement, just like what most universities do for interdepartmental use of CIS department computer time. So, there is no link between CompuServe and BITNET. It seems to me like the problem keeping that link from being created is insoluble. If you have any ideas on ways around the billing problem, I'd like to hear it. * I don't work for or use CompuServe in any way. -- Mark D. Freeman (614) 262-1418 mdf@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu 2440 Medary Avenue ...!cbosgd!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mdf Columbus, OH 43202-3014 Guest account at The Ohio State University ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Apr 88 17:02:16 EDT From: think!johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Your call did not go through... Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) In article <3250@phri.UUCP> roy%phri@UUNET.UU.NET (Roy Smith) writes: > I just called Sun's service center and got the usual "dial 1 for >software assistance, dial 2 for hardware assistance" message. I dialed 1 >and got a recording saying, "da Da DAH! You call did not go through, >please try again. 212 4T", which raises several questions. This is an enhanced 800 service provided by AT&T. You may have noticed that it didn't ring before you got the announcement, because it's AT&T 800 exchanges talking to you. It lets you dial through a tree (generally pretty flat) to decide who actually to call. -- John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Rome fell, Babylon fell, Scarsdale will have its turn. -G. B. Shaw ------------------------------ From: panda!rob.UUCP@seismo.css.gov (Robert S. Wood) Subject: Re: BOYCOTT COCOTS! Date: 1 May 88 03:26:07 GMT Reply-To: panda!rob.UUCP@seismo.css.gov (Robert S. Wood) Today I went up to a pay-phone that I had used many times on an Air Force Base, Hanscom Field, in Massachusetts. It had turned into an AT&T PAY PHONE. It said dial the number and it would tell me how much money to put in. I touched the local number I was calling and it asked for 10 cents. I put it in and the phone grabbed a regular dial-tone and send tones out to dial my number. My dime clicked down. The phone rang 12 times and I gave up and hung up. You guessed it, NO REFUND! The phone said to dial 00 for Coin Refunds. I did. The operator told me I should call NET, I said no, it was AT&T phone. She said it was showing as a customer phone she had no way of refunding. I asked for a free call to another number, she said AT&T can not put thru local station calls. I asked for a supervisor. I repeated the same story to the supervisor. She put me on hold. (It has now been 7 minutes). I was then connected to a person who answered "AT&T Refunds" and told him the whole story. He said he had no way to connect me, did I want the money sent back. I said "YES"! He soiled his pants. He asked me if I was kidding. He said was it worth a dime? I said the only way AT&T was going to learn to do things right was if ALL of us demanded our dimes back. He took my name and address. He did not understand why I did not have a Military Rank, and what was a civilian doing on the base anyway? He ended the whole conversation saying OK, Mr, Civilian Wood, your WHOLE dime will be mailed to you. (I think the U.S.Govt has made a "deal" with AT&T). ------------------------------ From: goldstein%delni.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) Date: 2 May 88 16:03 Subject: re: ISDN standards In TELECOM V8I68, Robert C. White Jr. claims that he has an idea that will fix one of ISDN's problems, namely that of terminal compatibility. He wonders where to bring it -- AT&T didn't seem to listen! ISDN standards will be included in the 1988 CCITT Blue Books, whose final technical input will be in very soon. In the US, ANSI T1S1 is a) preparing input to CCITT, by means of the State Department's Joint Working Party; and b) writing the American National Standard for ISDN. I sit on T1S1. Standards input comes from member contributions. There are maybe a hundred or so members of T1S1 (successor to T1D1, kinda), each of which sends as many warm bodies to a meeting as they feel like funding. There are parallel meetings on various topics. Pretty much all work is based on written contributions brought in to the meetings. I bring home a 4-6 inch stack of paper from each meeting, and that's after I filter out stuff I'm not interested in. Now, the mentality of T1S1 is definitely not mainframe to mainframe! It's primarily telephony, since ISDN is the digital rationalization of the telephone network, incidentally supporting data. Since different types of terminals share the network, compatibility is an issue; there is a group of people who get together at each ISDN meeting and hash out specific issues around terminal compatibility and identification. This is not an area where all sides are equally comfy: Certain European administrations (no names, but you might guess) are leery of letting _too much_ information pass between users before the call is connected, since that might allow "free" exchange of info. Remember, "Collect Call from Joe Shmoishome", "Sorry, I' won't take it"? If it's an ISDN issue, we've probably beaten it to death at T1S1. New ideas should be directed at your organization's rep. (What, you don't have one?) fred ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 May 88 17:14:34 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: foreign exchange in a shopping mall I was in Security Square Mall, in a western suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, yesterday. I noticed, on a row of pay phones, 2 phones with a foreign exchange (301-448, occurring in a nearby part of Baltimore city) next to about 6 or 7 phones on 301-944 Woodlawn, a "correct" prefix for that area. Why a neighboring prefix? Both have Baltimore metro local service, and the difference is only in the outer fringes (such as 301-877 in Fallston, Harford County, way to the east of Baltimore city). Also, since Baltimore is big enough to have city as opposed to suburban prefixes, 911 would have different meaning (Baltimore city is not a part of Baltimore county, which includes Woodlawn area). The only other cases I know of where a foreign exchange appears on a pay phone both involve DC metro service from airports: 301-621 Laurel (Bowie- Glenn Dale service) at BWI and 703-471 Herndon (Vienna service) at Dulles. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest *********************