DP Tool Club 15/CD_ASCQ_15_070894.iso/vrac/tc14_274.zip/TC14-274.TXT

Text File | 1994-06-07 | 34KB | 790 lines

TELECOM Digest     Mon, 6 Jun 94 14:40:00 CDT    Volume 14 : Issue 274

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Calling Card Suggestion (Bob Maccione)
    Fast Packet Switch-Based Networks (Pedro Ramalho Carlos)
    Is Meridian 1 Option 11 Current? (Paul Havinden)
    Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Keith Knipschild)
    What Do I Get When Dialing 311? (Keith Knipschild)
    Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club (Dave Leibold)
    Re: DTMF-Tones: Alternating or Overlayed? (John Lundgren)
    Re: Piping Sound From a Stereo to a Telephone Line (John Lundgren)
    Re: Second Phone Line: How Can I Do it Myself (Carl Oppedahl)
    Re: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted (Steve Gibons)
    Re: Book Review: "Internet: Mailing Lists" by Hardie/Neou (Peter M. Weiss)
    Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (Ronald L. Wright)
    Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (Samuel A. Simon)
    Re: Country and Area Codes on PC Software (Les Reeves)
    Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? (Paul Begley)
    Re: What is a New Activation? (Ed Ellers)
    Re: Current List of Areacodes Wanted (Mark E. Daniel)
    Re: LD Carrier's Message Delivery Service (Nathan N. Duehr)
    Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Wes Leatherock)
    Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Carl Moore)

TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Bob Maccione <[e-mail]>
Subject: Calling Card Suggestion
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 08:34:18
Organization: The Promus Companies, Inc. (Memphis, TN)


With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as
to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for
international calls.  It should be easy enough and if the user really
needs to have access to international numbers they can add a level of
country restrictions.  So since all I call is the US I wouldn't have
to worry about someone abusing my card (at least from the international
level of abuse).

Reasons?

Bob Maccione   [e-mail]

PS: MCI and AT&T can send me 1% of the savings and I'll finally afford to
get ISDN into my house ...


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As a matter of fact, even though their
policy is not stated in writing -- they refuse to state it in writing
for obvious reasons -- AT&T routinely redlines the use of their calling
card to selected international points from payphones in inner city areas
where ethnic populations reside. For instance, try calling Pakistan or
Iran using an AT&T Calling Card from some communities on the north side
of Chicago. The call will always be rejected, and the operator will pro-
fess an inability to put it through on the card. When you scream and
get really obnoxious about it, a supervisor at the Pittsburgh International
Operating Center will give you this rap about how 'the telephone company
in Iran does not honor AT&T cards ...'. The first time I heard that it was
hard to keep from snickering while talking to her. They must take their
customers for a bunch of fools, which may not be too far off base in a
few cases. There are a lot of places where AT&T will not honor their own
calling card if they do not like the combination of where you are calling
to and calling from using a payphone. Of course if you are in a mostly
white, relatively well-off suburban community calling a nice anglo-saxon
part of the world such as the UK or France or Australia, well ... no
problem!  Your call goes right through. If you are a student from India or
Pakistan or Iran attending the University of Illinois at Chicago, don't
bother trying to call your parents using the AT&T card however.

And AT&T is not the only long distance company placing illegal restrict-
ions on their card. Sprint (at least they were for several years) was
refusing to honor its own calling card from payphones at the Port Authority
terminal as well as other poor, ethnic neighborhoods in New York to call
anywhere.

The classic case came up several years ago when Sprint sent out a promotion
to people on a list of parents of older teenagers likely to be going away
to college or traveling during the summer, etc. The promotion said this
bit about 'keeping in touch with your kids when they are away from home'
and inviting the parents to get a Sprint calling card for the kids to use
to call home. One mother did just that; got her eighteen year old son a
Sprint card when he went on his own to visit NYC with a friend during the
summer.

Despite the omnipresence of discrete and pleasant poster signs in Port
Authority (and the Greyhound station here in Chicago) showing the
silhouette of a young kid walking with his luggage and a caption which
read "Teenage travelers: Please don't rely on strangers!" he did just
that. He wound up minus most of his possessions and money, but he
still had his Sprint card ... guess what! Sprint would not accept it
for a call back home to his mother. The Traveler's and Immigrant's Aid
social worker at Port Authority got the kid back home, and the mother
sued Sprint for false advertising, etc. The kid may have been an idiot
or simply naive, but that is not the point. Sprint settled with her on
it.

Both Sprint and AT&T have been sued many times for their discriminatory
credit practices where calling cards are concerned; it does not phase
them. They blame it all on fraud, and that, to them, is a sufficient
response. It apparently is easier to pay off complainers with a bunch
of free 'pay to the order of the telephone company' gift certificates
than to change their routine.  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Pedro Ramalho Carlos)
Subject: Fast Packet Switch-Based Networks
Organization: INESC (Inst. Eng. Sistemas e Computadores)  -LISBOA -PORTUGAL
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 15:16:00 GMT


Hi all,

 Does any one around have experience with pre-ATM cell based networks
(normally referred as Fast Packet Switching, I guess), allowing voice
and data integration with slow links?

 I'm specially interested in your experience regarding the reliability
of the switches, to compare with the info the vendors provide. Data on
MTBF, Uptime, and even qualitative information on your experience will
be greatly appreciated.

 The main objective I have is to find out whether this technology is
stable enough to be used in an environment where a very high
availability is needed (> 99.995%) without additional redundancy
regarding the switches (i'm refering to external redundancy, since I
believe that most FP Switches have quite a lot of internal
redundancy).  In my model I assume that comms interfaces can have
smaller availability as long as the core cell switch remains
operational.

 Please email any info, and I'll summarize.

 Thanks a lot in advance.

Cheers,

pedro ramalho carlos email: [e-mail] INESC
tel: [phone] Av. Duque de Avila, 23
fax: [phone] Lisboa Codex - PORTUGAL

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Is Meridian 1 Option 11 Current?
Date: 6 Jun 1994 16:00:37 GMT
Organization: Graphics Data Systems Ltd, Cambridge, UK


We are about to purchase a new phone system and have decided on the
Northern Telelcom Meridian 1 option 11 system. However we now here
that this is about to be discontinued.  Can anyone confirm this, and
if so what has/is replacing it?  We are in the UK and buying this
system through British Telecom, who are unable to confirm that this
system is still current.


Paul Havinden  ([e-mail])
Graphic Data Systems,  Cambridge, UK

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

From: [e-mail]
Organization: America's Suggestion Box - BBS [phone]
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 94 18:22:26
Subject: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient?


Is it true that you can have your local telephone company BLOCK ANI,
So that when you call a 800 number they can't know who you are?

I am not talking about Caller ID. I know the difference.

Any help would be great.


[e-mail]


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No it is not true. You cannot prevent the
person or company paying for your call from knowing who called. And why
would you want to force someone else to pay for your call while you
remained anonymous?  If you don't see any problem with it, I have a few
calls here I need to make that I will have billed to you under the
condition telco promises not to reveal my name or number to you.   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail]
Organization: America's Suggestion Box - BBS [phone]
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 94 18:22:26
Subject: What Do I Get When Dialing 311?


When I dial 311 (I live on LI.N.Y -NYNEX-) I get connected to a
TELETYPE sounding device. Does anyone know what this is? In the past
311 would announce the telephone number you were calling from, like
958 does.


[e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Dave Leibold)
Date: 06 Jun 94 14:01:30 -0500
Subject: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club
Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway


 From tests on Friday night, it seems Bell Canada recently activated
certain aspects of the equal access system. 1+ dialing with other
default carriers is expected to be set up around 1st July (though
thousands of carrier cutovers will take several days to complete).

When 1 700 555 4141 is dialed from a Toronto phone, the following
recording is heard:

"Your provider of long distance service is Bell Canada. Thank you for
choosing us. This is a recording... 416 11"

Looks like casual calling format 10XXX + 1 700 555 4141 doesn't work
at this point, so that one can check out what other carriers are
announcing.

 From a Millennium type payphone, 1 700 555 4141 does not complete,
but rather gets a "restricted" number error. From an older type
Centurion payphone, the 700 number gets to an operator who starts off
announcing a cost for the call, then falls silent in bewilderment as
there is apparently no cost information for the call.

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

From: [e-mail] (John Lundgren)
Subject: Re: DTMF-Tones: Alternating or Overlayed?
Date: 06 Jun 94 15:54:25 GMT
Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network


Christian Kral ([e-mail]) wrote:

> I would like to know if DTMF tones are alternating (i.e. 10ms low tone, 10ms
> high tone, 10ms low tone, ....) or if they are overlayed?

> I have alredy got the frequency table, but I don't know how they appear.

I'm not sure what you mean by overlayed.  If you mean are they simultaneous,
then the answer is yes.  They are dual tone multi-frequency.

Over on alt.2600 newsgroup, someone uploaded a .UUE of a program
called BOX, i believe.  If you have a sound card, it generates all the
tones, including A,B,C,D.  It also (I think) generates the ones used
in the trunks.

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

From: [e-mail] (John Lundgren)
Subject: Re: Piping sound from a stereo to a telephone line.
Date: 6 Jun 94 15:08:41 GMT
Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network


Homer J. Simpson ([e-mail]) wrote:

> I am curious is finding a way to pipe music into a phone line (for
> example hold music).  I know that a phone line uses 50 Volts AC.  Can
> someone send me plans or a electronic device that will allow me to do this.
> I am not interested in purchasing commercial hold music equipment.  I
> would like to make this a project for myself.  Anyone with info on this,
> please email me at [e-mail].

Oops.  It's 48 to 54 volts DC, not AC.  Also about 100 volts AC at 20
Hz for ringing current.  The audio is much weaker than that.

In the U.S., the device has to meet FCC part 68 rules to be connected to
the phone line.  There are manufacturers such as Cermetek that make part
68 accepted DAAs.

There are devices called phone patches that the hams use to connect
their gear to the phone line.  It's a circuit called a hybrid.  Ask
the guys in the rec.amateur.equipment or .misc about them.  The Radio
Amateurs Handbook usually has some circuits for phone patches.

The transformer that can be used is the 600 ohm 1:1 audio job from Radio
Shack.  They also had a 10K to 2K C.T. but it's no longer available.
Another place to check for info is comp.dcom.telecom and alt.dcom.telecom.


John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs
Rancho Santiago Community College District
17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706
Voice (714) JOHN GAB \ FAX (714) JOHN FRY
[e-mail]\[e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Carl Oppedahl)
Subject: Re: Second Phone Line: How Can I Do it Myself
Date: 6 Jun 1994 14:28:37 -0400
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC


In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Edgar Estrada) writes:

> I'd like to add a second phone line in my apartment. I called the local
> phone company and they want $100 just to install the jack.  I suspect
> that I can probably do it myself. I remember reading somewhere that
> most new aparments have been wired for two lines so all I would have
> to buy is a phone panel with two jacks and connect the right wires.
> Would this be right? If so what are the right wire? Does anybody know
> of a how to book that will tell me how to do it?

Your header suggests you are writing from California.  If so, you
should know you are in a "renter beware" state, as defined on page 51
of The Phone Book.  It means that before you sign a lease in California
it would be smart to find out these things.  Otherwise you may end up
paying a lot of money for an improvement that the landlord gets to
keep when you move out.

Not to mention, the cost to install your second line may include the
telco charging as much as the whim of the day leads to, for the
portion of the work that goes from the basement of your building to
your apartment.

But from your posting I gather you have probably figured this out
already.

Since you have already signed the lease, here's what you do.

Follow the instructions in chapter 2 (ordering new telephone service),
chapter 7 (two-line telephone service) and chapter 14 (doing your own
two-line wiring).

The book should be at your local bookstore (ISBN 0-89043-364-X).  If it
is not, then maybe if you ask they will order a hundred copies.  :)  :)

Or, call Consumer Reports Books at 1-800-272-0722.


Carl Oppedahl AA2KW     Oppedahl & Larson (patent lawyers)
Yorktown Heights, NY    voice 212-777-1330


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For readers who have not figured it out,
Carl wrote The Phone Book. Not the one you find in the payphone stall
with half the pages missing and other half scribbed on ... his book
about phones -- which should be required reading for all Digest people --
is called The Phone Book. Look for it at your local bookstore.   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Steve Gibons)
Subject: Re: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted
Date: 6 Jun 1994 10:23:36 -0500
Organization: TEZCAT - Wicker Park's Own Internet Services 312-850-0181


John O'Shaughnessy ([e-mail]) wrote:

> Our four year old AT&T answering machine seems to have spun it's last
> capstan into the dirt.  I assume that a machine that was purchased for
> $70.00 would cost more than $50.00 to have repaired, so I'm in the
> market for a new answering machine.

I heartily recommend the Panasonic Easa-phone line, I own the KX-T1920.
It has never failed in any way. Older models of a similar unit are still
working after six or seven years. I don't know if you can find one that
supports time stamp.


Steve Gibons            [e-mail]


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Radio Shack has an answering machine which
does time and date stamp.   PAT]

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

Date: Mon, 06 Jun 1994 11:23:26 EDT
From: Peter M. Weiss <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Book Review: "Internet: Mailing Lists" by Hardie/Neou
Organization: Penn State University


For an authoratative document on how to search for lists, e-mail
[e-mail] and include the single line of text:

get listsof lists

This was editted by Marty Hoag.  It contains a LISTSERV script, which
one edits and mails back to the LISTSERV and will do a search for you.
(General LISTSERV search techniques are discussed via another list
called LDBASE-L.)


co-owner INFOSYS, TQM-L, CPARK-L, ERAPPA-L, JANITORS, -> LDBASE-L
[e-mail]                                        [phone]
31 Shields Bldg. -- Penn State Univ -- University Park, PA 16802-1202 USA

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

From: [e-mail] (Ronald L. Wright)
Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose
Date: 6 Jun 1994 08:58:12 -0700
Organization: Connected INC -- Internet Services


That is very true. I am a Network Technician for US West Communications
in Washington State, and have seen that happen a few times. Using our state
of the art test gear, there will be no physical trouble at all, and
noise and transmission readings will be picture perfect. The difficulty is
that there has really been very little training on data communications
problems, so the average technician uses his equipment and tells you
that everything is fine, while you are only getting 2600 bps out of a
28.8 modem :(

I'm really not sure what the answer is aside from cutting the line to
a new cable pair. I heard once that heavy power influence (from power
company lines) could also be a source of difficluties, but I have no
real verification of that.

I am real interested in the information that gets posted from this
thread, and will keep an eye out for any info that I may be able to
pass along to the techs up here.

See Ya!


Ron Wright    [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Samuel A. Simon)
Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing
Date: 6 Jun 1994 16:14:33 GMT
Organization: Capital Area Internet Service


In my view, the FCC should have actd to make AOS service illegal as
not being in the public interest to begin with.  The ONLY reason they
developed, and the only reason they now succeed, is that they have
what has been referred to as a "situational monopoly."

 But for the fact that consumers either did not hve a choice or
did not know the rates, they were in effect forced to use the AOS
associated with the pay phone.  The rates were and are non-competitive.

 If one assumes consumers would NEVER pick a service that
charges more than either (a) their own standard service or (b) the
prevailing rate (AT&T) for the same call if made from home or at
"stnadard" rates, then they would never have an AOS business.

 AOS serivces are essentially legal rip-offs of consumers. There
is no business of just operator services, it is the long distance
business to begin with.  The only reason it exists is consumers are
either captive or uninformed of choices.  What a sham.


[e-mail]


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except something you are forgetting is that
there are many locations where a payphone would NOT be installed by the
phone company otherwise which now have them because the COCOT owner was
willing to put one in at a somewhat higher cost to the end user. There are
many cases where merchants can not get a *commissioned* coin phone on the
premises because telco won't give them one unless the traffic volume is
as high as telco wants it to be. Telco would give the merchant a 'semi-
public' coin phone but the merchant not only gets no commission from those
but he has to pay a monthly fee as well for the convenience of a phone for
his customers to use. So COCOTS do sometimes fill a gap in areas where
telco will not otherwise provide a payphone yet one is needed.  Unlike
private residential service where telco MUST provide service to any qual-
ified customer (a 'qualified customer' is any person who requests service
and demonstrates both the ability and willingness to pay for the service),
telco has no legal obligation to put payphones anywhere. Whether or not
to install payphones, and under what terms are purely a business decision
by telco. the COCOT people do fill a need, but regulation is very important
as well.   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Les Reeves)
Subject: Re: Country and Area Codes on PC Software
Date: 6 Jun 1994 09:59:45 -0700
Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access  [phone]  [login: guest]


JJ Fai ([e-mail]) wrote:

> PC's, the great communicators, don't even provide us with basic
> information that we can use, such as country codes and area codes for
> leading cities around the world.

> As a new subscriber, I wonder whether there is a .DBF, .CSV, .TXT or other
> generally compatible databse available that lists this vital information.

> Even my little Psion 3A palmtop has country and area codes built-in,
> yet the leading PIM's and database programs for DOS and Windows ignore
> them.

> If such a database has not yet been compiled and been made widely
> available, it's about time that we fill the glaring gap.

Below is the first page of the documentation of an excellent shareware
program called NPA.  My copy is almost a year old, but perhaps the
author has released a newer version.

                                   -  NPA  -

                              Numbering Plan Area

                          The Comprehensive Area Code
                              and Exchange Locator

                                   <06Sep93>

                             (C) Copyright 1991-93

                               The PC Consultant
                                 P.O. Box 42086
                             Houston TX 77242-2086
                      Ph. 713/826-2629  (v-mail no answer)
                                 CIS 73670,1164


   What does NPA do?
   -----------------

   NPA is a comprehensive area code and prefix locator.  NPA stands for
   Numbering Plan Area which is telephone company jargon for "area code".
   NPA contains information for over 20,000 cities in the United States and
   Canada.  Such information includes:

      * area code (NPA)
      * state in USA or province in Canada
      * local exchange or prefix (NXX)
      * the city that NXX belongs to
      * county that city resides in
      * population of county
      * pravelent zip code within NXX
      * central office latitude and longitude of record for NXX (plus a
        feature for instantly calculating mileage)


Les    [e-mail]       Atlanta,GA      404.874.7806

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

From: [e-mail] (Paul Begley)
Subject: Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router?
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 14:57:57
Organization: Net Access - Philadelphia's Internet Connection


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John R.
Levine) writes:

>> If so, what's the *cheapest* router available?  Can a Unix box
>> connect to a digital comm line (56k)?

> The answer to the first question is an old 286, which costs about
> $300, running PCROUTE, which is free.  You need to add in an Ethernet
> card, about $60, and the DDS interface.  The leased line FAQ just
> posted includes, a reference for a DDS interface with packet driver
> software that will let it work under PCROUTE.

This is true, but the performance is pretty poor.  If you only require
a connection and don't need the performance, PCROUTE is fine.  If you
have a UNIX box available (particularly a RISC box), you can use it as
a router no problem.  Most UNIX's have it built in (SUN, HP, (even)
IBM if you use AIX 3.2.x).

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

From: Ed Ellers <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What is a New Activation?
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 22:53:56 -0500
Organization: Delphi ([e-mail] email, 800-695-4005 voice)


Bob Berger <[e-mail]> writes:

> In most states buying a cellular phone is much cheaper with a new
> activation; the carrier essentially subsidizes the purchase.

> Now, just how do they define "new"? Let's say I have an old, clunky
> cellular phone, and I want one of those whizbang pocket models. If I
> cancel my old service on May 31st, can I get a "New Activation" from
> the same company on June 1st? Or must I switch carriers to get a good
> deal on the phone purchase?

It worked out better than that when a fellow I know bought a new
Cadillac a while back.  He had a factory cellular phone in the car he
was trading in, and the dealer was giving away a free phone with every
new car -- with a one-year contract with BellSouth Mobility.  It
turned out that BellSouth let the guy simply extend his existing
service for a year to get the deal.

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

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 14:46:54 EST
From: [e-mail] (Mark E Daniel)
Subject: Re: Current List of Areacodes Wanted


Speaking of area code lists .... there used to be a lot of services
offered by Bell Labs? in NJ (Morristown to be exact) which were done
with a computer generated voice.  The whole system was rather nifty,
but just as usual with anything that's nifty hackers abused the crap
out of the entire system and it went away ... they had literally
everything.  Even a radio that could be controlled via touchtones! :)
(I've always wanted that for call waiting and the like ... entertain
your friends while they wait and let them pick the station!  Or give
me a hook up to my stereo ... :)) But anyway one of these services was
an area code listing by NPA-XXX.  Does anyone know of a similar
service that exists today?


Mark E Daniel  (Loving SysOp of The Legend BBS)
Inet: [e-mail]


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There was a discussion at one point about
adding 'music on hold' as an auxilliary service to 'call-waiting'. If
you put a call on hold via call-waiting, the CO would dump background
music to the caller while he was sitting there. I think the monthly fee
was going to be something like 95 cents or one dollar. Every so often
a recorded voice would tell the caller he was still on hold waiting for
his party to flash and reconnect.  Anyone know whatever happened to that
proposal for a service enhancement, or if it ever got off the ground?  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Nathan N. Duehr)
Subject: Re: LD Carrier's Message Delivery Service
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 06:56:21 GMT


Mark E Daniel ([e-mail]) wrote:

> In article <[e-mail]> is written:

> I just tried delivering a message on my voice line which has an
> answering machine on it using Sprint's service.  It was in the middle
> of the message by the time the machine started recording.  It did
> however repeat the message from the beginning after completing it.  So
> as long as the greeting isn't LOOOOONG you should have no problems.
> Mine runs about ~20 seconds.  I guess they figure we're all capable of
> leaving messages on answering machines ourselves. :) And they're
> right.  But it would be nice if they did it intelligently enough to
> wait until the answeree stopped speaking before they delivered the
> message.

Even better would be to require the callee to press a digit on a touch
tone phone before the system were to play the message to them.  This
might be a problem for those without touch tone phones, (ahem, excuse
me ... DTMF phone to keep the folks at AT&T happy ...) but there aren't
too many people who don't have them anymore.

This would make it a positive and cheap way to assure that the message
was being delivered to a live human being.


Regards,

Nate Duehr    [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Wes Leatherock)
Date: 06 Jun 94 21:45:18 -0600
Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway
Organization: Fidonet


> There is a considerable amount of personal
> unhappieness among USPS employees over the entire country. What other
> organization has had three instances of employees turning into
> mass-murderers on the job and killing several co-workers on the spot,
> ie, Highland Park, Michigan a few years ago and Enid, Oklahoma a few
> years ago to name two examples?

         It was Edmond, Oklahoma (not Enid, Oklahoma).  Edmond is a
suburb of Oklahoma City, and a co-worker was driving by the post
office to work when a wounded and bleeding man staggered into the
street.  She loaded him into her car and drove him to the hospital.
The shooting was still going on and she may have been in considerable
danger.

         She was certainly shook up when she came to the office
several hours later, or maybe it was the next day.  She became friends
with the wounded man and his family (he recovered).  As I recall, she
was awarded a Vail Medal.


Wes Leatherock    [e-mail]
[e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 13:34:25 EDT
From: Carl Moore <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway


I also normally get mail addressed this way:

my name
PO box number
city, state, zipcode (-xxx)

where the xxxx includes the PO box number.

I do have some Postal Service work experience, and in cases of a
mistake and/or illegible writing, it helps to have some redundancy in
the name and address so that a context exists in which the correct
address can be figured out.

I have lived in an apartment where it and about five other apartments
had the same nine-digit zipcode, and another nine-digit zipcode was
available for ANYWHERE in that complex.  I can understand mail headed
for someone in one of those nine-digit zipcodes getting bounced for
insufficient address; the carrier doesn't necessarily know what
apartment to send it to.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is true, however in the case that
the nine-digit zip (that's the acronym for <Z>one <I>mprovement <P>lan
by the way) code is unique, then why not just deliver as addressed?
If it is undeliverable as addressed then return it to the sender. That
would not be the fault of the carrier. By the way Carl, when you were
working for the post office did you notice or experience the anger and
disenchantment that seems to be so pervasive there?  I won't ask you if
you ever woke up one morning angry and went to work with a gun and shot
everyone you saw. :)   I assume you did not do that ...    :)  In the
case in Highland Park, Michigan that was just a young kid, somewhere in
his late teens who had just started working for USPS I think. He had
worked there about a month and they fired him.   PAT]

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End of TELECOM Digest V14 #274
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