The World of Computer Software/The World of Computer Software.iso/tc13-017.zip/TC13-017.TXT

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TELECOM Digest     Mon, 11 Jan 93 22:19:00 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 17

Index To This Issue:                     Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY (David G. Lewis)
    Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY via AT&T? (Andy Sherman)
    Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY via AT&T? (Gordon Burditt)
    Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY (John R. Levine)
    Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY (John Higdon)
    Re: Additional Phone Charges (Richard Lucas)
    Re: Additional Phone Charges (Mike Gordon)
    Re: The Future of Wired vs Wireless Services (James Hanlon)
    Re: The Future of Wired vs Wireless Services ([e-mail])
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (david.g.lewis)
Subject: Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY
Organization: AT&T
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 19:09:31 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> tim gorman <71336.1270@Compu
Serve.COM> writes:

> John Higdon <[e-mail]> writes:

>> Bob Yazz <[e-mail]> writes:

>>>  The PUC will order that numbers not be delivered, period.

>> But the PUC cannot order this, just as it cannot prevent any carrier
>> from passing realtime ANI to end users.

> Actually the PUC could order this and make it stand.

Actually, to my knowledge (the Mother of all Disclaimers), the PUC
could *not* order this, nor make it stand.  The FCC could, but state
PUCs have no jurisdiction over interstate telecommunications, and the
FCC tends to take a dim view of state PUCs attempting to claim
jurisdiction over interstate matters.  The FCC, as far as I know, is
considering this issue even as we speak.

>> In SS7, the calling number is ALWAYS transmitted as part of the
>> data packet, although there is a bit that identifies it as a "blocked"
>> number if such is the case.

> The Network Interconnect package needed to allow SS7 interconection
> between the LEC and the IXC's makes provision for the calling number
> to be deleted from any IAM message sent to the IXC. This is true in
> every central office switch type I am aware of. This includes NTI,
> AT&T, and Ericsson.

I believe Bellcore TRs specify that this must be provisionable on a
per-IXC basis in each CO, FYI.

> SWBT policy is that this feature is invoked in all central offices
> with SS7 interconnection to IXC's until calling number delivery is
> tariffed and sold in that CO and all subscribers have been fully
> informed (through bill inserts, etc.) of the impacts they will see.

> So the PUC could order this be done in PB-land and also require that
> PB negotiate with the switch vendors to insure the capability is
> retained from this day forward.

It's technically feasible, but outside their jurisdiction for
interstate calls.

> *opinions are mine, any resemblance to official policy is coincidence*

Ditto.


David G Lewis                              AT&T Bell Laboratories
[e-mail] or !att!goofy!deej     Switching & ISDN Implementation

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

Date: Sat, 09 Jan 93 11:57:20 EST
Subject: Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY via AT&T?
From: [e-mail] (Andy Sherman)


John Higdon <[e-mail]> writes:

> But what people do not understand is that those preciously
> private telephone numbers will soon be displayed out of state on
> a wide scale.  It is only other CALIFORNIANS that will not see
> the number displayed.

[e-mail] (Bob Yazz) replied:

> You don't seriously believe such a state of affairs will stand,
> do you John?  The PUC will order that numbers not be delivered,
> period.  I can even see the potential for lawsuits against Pac
> Bell over this.

Californians may *think* they control everything, but in reality NOT.
The California PUC has absolutely no jurisdiction over the carrying of
telephone calls in interstate commerce.  That is the exclusive
jurisdiction of the FCC.  In fact, this genie is already out of the
bottle.  All of the major carriers are right now happily delivering
your billing number to their 800 and 900 customers who subscribe to
ANI.  The PUC is allowing it, one assumes because they know they have
no authority to stop it.  Unless, of course, you mean to imply that
the most egalitarian California PUC would allow number delivery to big
bad business but not to "da people".  :^|

yazz> Sounds like an incentive to switch to a long distance company
yazz> that does not use SS7.  How do you think AT&T might feel about
yazz> this?

Go and find one.  Do you *really* think that AT&T is the only carrier
with SS7 on its mind?  It may be ahead in its deployment, but it is
not alone.  Now I know why John and others have been referring to some
of the arguments in this thread as Luddite.  Do you really think that
LECs and IECs expect to make enough money from CNID and ANI to pay for
the tremendous investment in SS7?  Dream on.  SS7 is being deployed
because it promises to provide *much* faster and more robust call
setup than its predecessors.  I doubt you will get any company to drop
SS7. A more realistic, and less technically ignorant, campaign would
be to persuade one or more IECs to drop calling number delivery over
SS7.  (A campaign which I would oppose, but one that at least is not
just plain stupid).

Since you want to kill SS7 to stop CNID and ANI, may I assume you
intend to deprive the rest of us of ISDN as well?  You can't do that
either witout SS7.


Andy Sherman   Salomon Inc  -  Unix Systems Support  -  Rutherford, NJ
[phone]  -  [e-mail] or [e-mail]
"These opinions are mine, all *MINE*.  My employer can't have them."

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

From: [e-mail] (Gordon Burditt)
Subject: Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY via AT&T?
Organization: Gordon Burditt
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 07:20:27 GMT


>> You don't seriously believe such a state of affairs will stand, do you
>> John?  The PUC will order that numbers not be delivered, period.  I
>> can even see the potential for lawsuits against Pac Bell over this.

> But the PUC cannot order this, just as it cannot prevent any carrier
> from passing realtime ANI to end users.

Why?  Federal law?  What's so special about SS7?  Has it been enacted
into law by Congress or the FCC?

I don't see anything prohibiting a sufficiently provoked PUC (or the
state legislature backing the PUC) from doing any of the following
(except perhaps common sense on the part of the PUC?  Naaaah.  Not if
the voters are out for blood.) downright silly things:

- Prohibiting the inclusion of any equipment that uses SS7 in the rate base,
  or otherwise fiddling with the formulas so the only profitable
  thing to do with it is decommission and destroy it.
- Prohibiting the use of SS7, especially for in-state calls, with anything
  but the phone company's own customer service number in any
  "originating number" or "billing information" field.
- Requiring a new tariff for every SS7 packet transmitted.
- Making all phone service flat-rate and prohibiting charges for
  individual calls, thereby eliminating the need for per-call
  "billing information" except for one billing number for each
  in-state phone company.  Local phone companies eat charges from
  MCI, Sprint, AT&T, etc.
- Abolishing phone numbers (in-state) and using names and addresses.
- Threatening the phone companies that if they don't quit sending
  phone numbers out of state, the PUC will set the rate for local
  calls at negative five dollars a minute.  Customers will then figure
  out that two more lines with a call permanently connected between
  them is better than a welfare check, and that pretty soon they can
  work up to thousands of lines.


Gordon L. Burditt    sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon

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

Subject: Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Date: 9 Jan 93 11:23:05 EST (Tue)
From: [e-mail] (John R. Levine)


[The question is whether Pac Bell will ship CLID data via SS7 links to
LD carriers for out of state delivery.]


I doubt it.  The biggest obstacle to long distance CLID delivery isn't
technical.  It's money.  The local telcos claim on the one hand that
the CLID data they can provide to LD carriers on their originating
calls is valuable and proprietary stuff and the LD carriers should pay
them for it.  On the other hand, the CLID data passed from an LD
carrier to a terminating telco is just part of the standard set of SS7
features and should be passed along for free.  I imagine the LD
carriers have a somewhat different view.

So this means that you're not likely to get CLID any time soon on
calls that aren't carried end-to-end by your local telco.  Within the
US, I haven't heard of any reports of CLID being delivered across a
LATA boundary.  (Note that LATA boundaries are largely unrelated to
area code boundaries.  In particular, 201 and 908 are the same LATA.)


Regards,

John Levine, [e-mail], {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl

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

Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 09:44 PST
From: [e-mail] (John Higdon)
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY


tim gorman <[e-mail]> writes:

> So the PUC could order this be done in PB-land and also require that
> PB negotiate with the switch vendors to insure the capability is
> retained from this day forward.

Boy, are you giving the CPUC an order of magnitude credit more than it
deserves! You have to understand that the CPUC is absolutely brain
dead. I could give you a list of things that are wrong with CA
utilities as long as your arm that the CPUC shrugs off routinely.
Fortunately, the marketplace provides a modicum of inherent
regulation, even in monopolies.

In any event, I can guarantee you that the California
excuse-for-a-regulatory board has not a clue regarding the switch
features, technological ramifications, or in fact anything more
complex than dialing a call. Check that -- the commissioners have
secretaries place calls.

Example: Remember the matter that I brought up a couple of years ago
about the fact that all cellular prefixes in the Bay Area should carry
no toll and be available for $.20 from utility phones? I checked and
this is indeed the tariff. Six months of griping to Pac*Bell and the
PUC has never resolved the problem of inconsistent charging from PB
payphones. Our PUC at work.


John Higdon  |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]     |       FAX:
[e-mail] | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | [phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (Richard Lucas)
Subject: Re: Additional Phone Charges
Organization: Boulder Valley School District
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 02:02:14 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> I may have mentioned this before, but the simplest way to get the
> equivalent of an unlisted number is to ask for the phone to be listed
> {without address} under your roommate's name of Zyagur Xeanamux.  When
> someone calls asking for him, you know that it's a telemarketer.
> What, you mean you don't have a roommate by that name?  Exactly ...

     In an earlier message in this issue of TELECOM Digest, John
Higdon (I think) mentions Pat's problems with repair and comments
about IBT having a touch of Ma Bell still with them.  Having worked a
few years ago on the class action lawsuit against what is now US WEST,
I was astonished in my research to discover just how much of Ma Bell
was still present in the business office practices of different Baby
Bells.  With that experience in mind I hope that the following
comments on Paul Robinson's message will apply in most parts of the
country.  These comments are made as a former service rep.

     Your basic account record/service order is likely to carry two
distinct sets of information - listing and billing.  They do NOT have
to match each other, which provides the method of avoiding the non-pub
charge.  Request that the LN (Listed Name) be some made-up name (I've
seen listings in people's dog's name, and one employee had hers
entered as Raggety, A.), and the billing lines to read:

BN1     John Smith for
BN2     A. Raggety

     The key question to the company when I worked for them was
billing responsibility.  As long as the first line of the billing info
(the BN1) was the responsible party, we really didn't care too much
about the LN.  The CI (Credit/Contact Information portion of the
order/record) was tied to the responsible party.  The closer to a
`real' name your LN request is, the less trouble you'll have getting
it by the service rep; more unusual combinations may simply involve
more haggling if the rep is in his/her God mode.

     It's your phone line and you don't want to be listed, but your
roommate does?  Avoid the additional listing charge by giving them the
LN/BN2, and you take the BN1 responsibility.  Works great!

     Other codes to consider: Our listing has the (OAD) and (OCLS)
codes in the listing line -- the first translates to Out Address
Directory and keeps us out of the listings by address book the company
produces, and the second translates to Out Customer Listing Service
and keeps us off the customer listings lists that they sell to other
companies.  For an address we simply list our community name
(Boulder); our service record shows that for the LA (Listed Address -
which can also be completely blank) and then has a SA (Service
Address) for the actual physical location.  There's all sorts of
listing tricks available, but the ones that don't generate revenue are
rarely mentioned.  Pressing the service reps for additional details is
completely legitimate, and even serves as a reasonable test of whether
or not the rep knows what they're doing.

     As a footnote to the listings question, I audited the service
records of the individuals specifically named in the class action
lawsuit's initial filing.  One of them, a doctor, had both a non-pub
listing (his name) AND an additional listing (roommate's name), with
the corresponding monthly charges (almost $3/month total).  Besides
being a stupid way of doing it (give her the LN/BN2 and him the BN1,
for NO monthly charge), it was against the tariff rules in place at
the time.  While the subsequent lawsuit settlement returned to him the
overcharge for the inside wire maintenance agreement, that overcharge
was only a tiny fraction of the listings overcharge.  I did notify one
of the telco's attorneys about the listings problem, but didn't have a
current letter of authorization to follow up on the matter.  I
wouldn't be surprised to find the charges still in place today,
particularly since a number of service reps had probably accessed his
records between the lawsuit filing and my audit without ever
mentioning (much less correcting) the listings problem.

     Footnote 2: Linebacker is an ENHANCED wire maintenance agreement,
NOT the basic agreement. One poster a few months ago mentioned getting
service in the northern midwest, with Linebacker mentioned in a way
that indicated that it was presented as the basic maintenance
agreement. It isn't in Colorado, and I doubt it is elsewhere either.


Rick Lucas ([e-mail])
Debate Coach, Fairview HS, Boulder, CO

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

From: [e-mail] (Mike Gordon)
Subject: Re: Additional Phone Charges
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 08:07:50 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> I may have mentioned this before, but the simplest way to get the
> equivalent of an unlisted number is to ask for the phone to be listed
> {without address} under your roommate's name of Zyagur Xeanamux.  When
> someone calls asking for him, you know that it's a telemarketer.
> What, you mean you don't have a roommate by that name?  Exactly ...

    Good luck trying to get the number listed under a name that's
different than the billing name!  Our local telco won't do it, which
can be quite annoying when you have a few people sharing a house.
(Another college town telecom woe :( ) And forget about being billed
under a different name!

    I've heard that you can get your name trademarked (or something
like that) as it refers to you.  This supposedly is what stars use to
keep their names from being used by unethical retailers, etc.  (For
example, the Mel Gibson line of sportswear at Sammy W's Superstores.)

    Now, couldn't a Joe Regular do the same sort of thing?  Something
like "All businesses are forbidden to use the name Joe Regular (when
refering to Joe Regular of 123 Average St. blah blah) in any
advertisments or publicatio without the express written permission of
Joe Regular."  Then write the telco a certified letter saying that
they are expressly forbidden from using your name in their
publication.  Of course you would include a copy of the "trademark"
document.  The same tactic could be used for those nasty (and
brain-dead) junk mailers that love to fill our mailboxes and trash
cans.

    I know it is expensive to get any sort of legal documents created,
but maybe some of our readers are lawyers (or have friends or family
members who are) and thus can get a free opinion on this.


    Any opinions about this out there?

   By the way, I feel that being charged monthly to protect (in one
small way) our right to privacy is extortion!  What real cost is there
associated with being left off of a list?


Mike Gordon   N9LOI  [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (James Hanlon)
Subject: Re: The Future of Wired vs Wireless Services
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 20:04:07 GMT
Organization: ddsw1.MCS.COM Contributor, Chicago, IL


[e-mail] (adams,john) writes:

> I suspect that outside sociological, economic, and political pressures
> will do more to answer the posed question than mere technology alone.

After much experience, both painful and rewarding, I have to agree.

> other "softer" sciences.  At least from my perspective, the softer
> sciences are indeed *MUCH* harder to master than those we use daily.

And are applicable far more often than we'd care to admit. Just what
is the ratio? I have my own judgments -- any other opinions?

> Will the current industry infrastructure (Don't you just love the way
> we can beat this politicisms to death :-) ) remain viable by 2010?

US, yes; the LECs and the Inter-LATA carriers make money with zero
incremental thought on their parts. Such an easy life will be
perpetuated by all sorts of rationalizations -- after all, there's
still a Western Union!  The international picture will reflect a more
entrepreneurial orientation, as formerly nationalized administrations
get, first, privatized, then, overlaid with only nominally national
wide-band high-connectivity networks. I base my reasoning on the fact
that non-US administrations have fewer intrinsic constraints upon them
 -- they largely limit themselves. It only takes one executive of
vision to get the ball rolling, once freed from bureaucratic concerns,
and enjoying the support of the Prime Minister/President/King.

Network architecture is no longer mysterious these days, and
comm/compute hardware is notoriously commoditized. There are numerous
non-US telco administrations with the know-how to pull off e.g. a
wide-band wireless point-to-point variable bandwidth overlay network
for large geographic areas, that considers the PSTN a relatively small
component.

I am disposed to wireless because, in the foregoing scenario, it
permits the subversion of any existing wired network without directly
confronting any entrenched (sorry) bureaucracy. Wireless for the first
hop is a viable strategy as long as reasonably cheap broadband rf
modems are available, and spread-spectrum technology can make the
above-10 GHz area sharable. I am assuming that this will happen.

> venture.  Profit is not a dirty word!  I am convinced that rate of
> return regulation will die a natural death before the year 2000.
> While price cap regulation seems to be in vogue with our lawyer
> friends(?), I'm almost positive that zero regulation (price/cost only)
> will be in effect by 2010.

I predict that individuals in 2010 will have the option to contract
with global bandwidth/connectivity providers for any sort of frame
transfer, with various guarantees of delivery, ordering, delay, and
BER. And AT&T, and FCC, will have very little to say about it.


Jim Hanlon     [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Mark)
Subject: Re: The Future of Wired vs Wireless Services
Date: 10 Jan 93 00:29:55 GMT
Organization: Australian National University


Hi,

I was chewing the fat and heard about an idea I thought was cute.

Telecom Australia is working on a radio phone system that has a lot of
potential IMHO. The idea is you have slim compact handsets that are
basically a smart radio with a short range. Spread over the CBD at
first and then the suburbs are base stations that each phone user can
log into with the same handset.

When the user is at work they can log into their office station and
their calls are charged to their work or when they go home they are
charged to their home number. You have the ability of having a single
handset you can use at work and home, without having to reprogram it.
The idea of the short ranges of the base stations is to enable a high
density per area. The system doesn't allow one to roam from zone to
zone as such and keep the call going, you have to sit still or at
least stay in radio range. If you want to roam, get a hands free car
phone or a more sophisticated (and expensive) mobile phone.

One bonus for business is your facility phone can be transported
around the building with only a power lead needed wherever you set up
shop again. No reprogramming or rewiring needed. A business can have
their own station to save on call costs.

It was mentioned the possibility of the use of smart cards to automate
the logging onto the zone station. It would also authenticate the
caller if used with PIN numbers etc. Encryption is expected to be
encompassed in the system for added security.

What I like is you can remove your smartcard or switch off the unit
and then can't be tracked. If you want to recieve calls then you log
into a zone to let it know you're willing to be contacted. There will be
packages offered with these phones and pagers so you can save the
phone battery until someone pages you.

One problem is the listening in capability that is always there. At
work or home your on a radio link, most likely plain voice. It makes
taps easier, even with the different frequency assigned to you for
each call.

This system brings closer the concept of Personal Communication
Numbers (PCNs) so you can one day be contacted anywhere in the world,
just by anyone dialling your permanent number. The only problems I can
see immediately are those involved with the amount of frequencies, RFI
and the ease of monitoring.

Sounds like a nice system.


Mark     [e-mail]

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End of TELECOM Digest V13 #17
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