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TELECOM Digest     Mon, 10 Jan 94 00:43:00 CST    Volume 14 : Issue 21

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: California ANI Question (Clive D.W. Feather)
    Re: California ANI Question (Ed Ellers)
    Re: California ANI Question (Jon Edelson)
    Re: Hayes' New Modem (Michael P. Deignan)
    Re: Hayes' New Modem ([e-mail])
    Re: Info on Cellular One NACP (Dave Levenson)
    Re: Info on Cellular One NACP (Gib Henry)
    Re: How to Phone US 0800 Numbers From the UK? (Mark Brader)
    Re: How to Phone US 0800 Numbers From the UK? (Lars Poulsen)
    Re: How to Phone US 0800 Numbers From the UK? (Clarence Dold)
    Re: How to Phone US 0800 Numbers From the UK? (Laurence Chiu)
    Re: Federal Telemarketing Laws (John Palmer)
    Re: Surcharge for Tone Dialing to be Dropped (Scott Dorsey)
    Re: Surcharge for Tone Dialing to be Dropped (Chris Labatt-Simon)
    Re: Surcharge for Tone Dialing to be Dropped (John R. Levine)
    Re: Surcharge for Tone Dialing to be Dropped (Dave Niebuhr)

TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
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                 * [e-mail] *

The Digest is compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson Associates of
Skokie, Illinois USA. We provide telecom consultation services and
long distance resale services including calling cards and 800 numbers.
To reach us:  Post Office Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690 or by phone
at 708-329-0571 and fax at 708-329-0572. Email: [e-mail].

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TELECOM Digest is gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: California ANI Question
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 1994 20:47:10 GMT
From: Clive D.W. Feather <[e-mail]>


In TELECOM Digest: Volume 14, Issue 17, Message 5 of 15, Jon Edelson
says:

> For a small monthly fee, your 800 calls will go through, but _you_
will have to pay for them.

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But they do this already. You simply
> dial the regular ten digit number for the person or company; you pay
> for the call; everyone is happy.   PAT]

SCREAM.

Some of us would *love* to be able to call US 800 numbers and pay for
the calls. Or have a way to find out the POTS number. Even in UK-only
publications, I *still* see US companies only quoting their 800
numbers.


Clive D.W. Feather     | Santa Cruz Operation
[e-mail]          | Croxley Centre
Phone: [phone] | Hatters Lane, Watford
Fax:   [phone] | WD1 8YN, United Kingdom


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But those are stupid companies run by
stupid people. Why would you want to purchase any of their stupid
products? Anyone who cannot figure out that they have to provide a
valid dialing sequence for the location in which their advertising
appears deserves to lose whatever money they spent on the adverts.
If you must begin your relationship with some firm by fighting with
them trying to figure out how to reach them, then find someone else
to do business with. Lots of companies in this country are run by
intelligent people and many are run by stupid people. Choose to do
business with the former.   PAT]

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

From: Ed Ellers <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: California ANI Question
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 94 16:33:28 EST
Organization: Delphi Internet


So what if a given state orders telcos to allow per-call blocking on
800 calls using the same code (*67 or whatever) as is used for Caller
ID?


Ed Ellers, KD4AWQ


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is a moot point simply because the
state cannot issue such a directive. They lack the jurisdiction to do
so. Individual states do not control interstate commerce or communica-
tions. I suspect most telcos would simply refuse to implement this.  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Jon Edelson)
Subject: Re: California ANI Question
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 1994 05:38:03 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail].
edu (Jon Edelson) writes:

> [About paying for 800 number calls]

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But they do this already. You simply
> dial the regular ten digit number for the person or company; you pay
> for the call; everyone is happy.   PAT]

Actually this has already come up in the context of international
callers who cannot use the 800 service.  Some companies would publish
_only_ their 800 numbers, and thus reduce the value of your
suggestion.  I suppose that most folk have wised up to the fact that
some customers cannot or will not use the 800 service, and provide
both 800 and regular numbers in their ads.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my earlier message. The companies
which cannot figure this out don't deserve your patronage.  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Michael P. Deignan)
Subject: Re: Hayes' New Modem
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 1994 15:44:31 GMT


[e-mail] (Jakob Hummes) writes:

> Yes, it is. But there is an absolute limit (Shannon's Law).  The
> question was about the transmission over a *real* phone line. And that
> means there exists *noise*.  The limit of bps is proportional to the
> logarithm of the signal to noise ratio. Unfortunately I don't remember
> the constant factors.

You are correct. Shannon's Law is defined as C=W * LOG [1 + (P/N)]
                                                      2

Where P is the power in watts of the signal through the channel, N is
the power in watts of the noise out of the channel, and W is the
bandwidth of the channel in hertz.

One typical values for a voice-grade analog circuit are: W=3000hz,
P=.0001 watts (-10dBm), N=.0000004 watts (-34dBm). This would yield:

        C = 3000 * Log2(1+250) = ~24,000 bits per second.

Due to the nature of the Log function, its easier to increase the
value of C more easily by increasing the value of W , rather than P or
N.


Michael P. Deignan
Population Studies & Training Center
Brown University, Box 1916, Providence, RI  02912
[phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (ssatchell on BIX)
Subject: Re: Hayes' New Modem
Date: 8 Jan 94 18:55:38 GMT
Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation


Actually, if you really want to find out how the Hayes Optima 288 and
the GDC V.F modems work, get Draft Recommendation V.34 ...

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

From: [e-mail] (Dave Levenson)
Subject: Re: Info on Cellular One NACP
Organization: Westmark, Inc.
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 03:02:29 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Phil
Wherry) writes:

> The talk about automatic cellular call delivery raises an interesting
> question: under what circumstances can a cellular telephone transmit
> when "on-hook." The response to a poll (ring) message is one obvious
> example where this happens -- what are the others?

The cell site can send a mobile audit request -- basically a 'ping'
of a mobile unit which does not result in a ring.

The cell site typically sends an autonomous registration request
message from time to time, causing all mobile units which receive it
to respond.  Roamers and home-system mobiles are addressed separately
for this one.

This is one of the ways in which the system attempts to keep track
of which mobiles are turned on, and where they are ... so it knows
where to page them in case it has in incoming call.


Dave Levenson           Internet: [e-mail]
Westmark, Inc.          UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Stirling, NJ, USA       Voice: 908 647 0900  Fax: [phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (Gib Henry)
Subject: Re: Info on Cellular One NACP
Organization: Community_News_Service
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 15:13:12 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Peter
Gregory) wrote:

> The secret is this: as soon as you turned on your phone in Austin, the
> local switch picked up your ESN; when a local database lookup failed,
> it requested your profile from the main database, which was then sent
> to the local switch.

Whooh! This has some scary implications of the Big Brother variety!
If Cellular One keeps this info, it could be a real invasion of
privacy.


Gib Henry


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now come on and try to be for real!
What do you expect the rest of us to do who roam, manage somehow
to get by when a call is made to us while the switches fumble around
at some later point trying to exchange information?  If you think
this is such a darned invasion of your privacy then either quit
roaming, don't turn on your phone (when roaming) until you get ready
to originate a call, or get out of cellular altogether. Exactly what
do you find so 'scary' about cellular companies attempting to coord-
inate with each other in an effecient way?  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: How to Phone US 0800 Numbers From the UK?
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 94 20:26:05 GMT


> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... If you mean 800 (toll free
> numbers), the answer is that generally you cannot call them from
> outside the USA.  Most of the subscribers to 800 service only pay to
> accept calls from places inside the USA.

As has often been pointed out, this is only half an answer.  The caller
might be willing to pay for an overseas call, after all.  And the other
half of the answer is that even in if you're willing to pay, you *still*
can't do it.  As was noted,

> ... One exception to this is that you can call the 'home direct'
> services of the various carriers and some of these carriers will
> handle it so that you pay for a call to the USA and the 800 subscriber
> on this end pays only for the portion of the call which is in the USA.
> You need to match carrier with 800 number...

But as I understand it, this requires you to have a USA phone number
yourself, so that it can be billed to.  Is that still true?

Actually, in all of the foregoing, "USA" should read "USA and/or
Canada, as appropriate for the particular number".  Some 800-numbers
in each country can be called from the other in the usual way.  In
fact, some can *only* be called from the other country.


Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, [e-mail]


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can get a calling card from some
carriers like AT&T without having a phone in the USA, and use that
for 'home direct' style calls.   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Lars Poulsen)
Subject: Re: How to Phone US 0800 Numbers From the UK?
Organization: CMC Network Products, Copenhagen DENMARK
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 94 22:53:39 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> MAARUF ALI  <[e-mail].
kcl.ac.uk> writes:

> Could someone please tell me how to phone US 0800 numbers from the UK?

The short, general answer is "You can't get there from here !!"

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We do not have '0800' numbers. If you
> mean 800 (toll free numbers), the answer is that generally you cannot
> call them from outside the USA. Most of the subscribers to 800 service
> only pay to accept calls from places inside the USA.

> If you otherwise see (in advertising or whatever) a number in the
> USA marked 800-something, you *cannot* call it from outside the USA
> under normal conditions. They don't want to accept your call and have
> to pay for it. One exception to this is that you can call the 'home
> direct' services of the various carriers and some of these carriers
> will handle it so that you pay for a call to the USA and the 800
> subscriber on this end pays only for the portion of the call which is
> in the USA. You need to match carrier with 800 number for this
> however; the carrier of the 800 number is the carrier who's 'home
> direct' service you need to connect with, *and not all of them will do
> this*, although I think AT&T and MCI will.  PAT]

1) There is no way that a customer in a foreign country can find out
   which carrier services a particular (800) number.

2) Only the "big three" carriers have "home direct" services.

3) All of the people asking this question are quire willing to pay
   USD 5.00 + USD 1.50/minute (or whatever the operator-assisted rate is)
   to talk to these companies (who then will often gladly leave the call
   on hold for 5 to 15 minutes before answering it.

About ten years ago, AMerican industry started telling people, that
for our own good, they were moving manufacturing to South East Asia.
The American workforce would henceforth be retrained for jobs in:

(a) Service
(b) Development and Engineering
(c) Sales and Marketing

In the meantime, the marketing departments of America's "Fortune 500"
companies are now staffed with people who have difficulty thinking
straight (to put it VERY politely). How else can I describe my
experience last October, when I was attending a large international
trade show in Paris with 400 American companies displaying their
products to 23,000 visitors, and many of them were handing out product
data sheets with only an 800-number for contact information?  A dozen
(American) trade magazines had printed special editions for the show,
filled with glossy color ads and press releases, which generally had
only the company name (no mailing address, no city name) and an 800
number?

Given that the IXCs fall down on their face and refuse to route calls
to these numbers, I have only two pieces of advice:

I.   To the customers: Don't buy anything from a company that has
     an "International Marketing Manager" who orders up such ads.
     If they treat customers this way in the "buttering-up" phase, how
     will they treat you after the sale ?

II.  To the telecom gang: There should be a business opportunity in
     setting up a (toll restricted) call diverter line to route calls
     to 800-numbers. Maybe make the caller listen to a 30 second blurb
     for TelePassport before giving them a dial tone good only for 800
     numbers, or for long distance calls paid for with Orance cards.
     (Which "home direct" service will accept calls from Europe for
     800-numbers served by Orange ?)

In light of the inflammatory content above, I should explicitly say
that my employer, Rockwell International is very unlikely to agree
with these opinions!


Lars Poulsen               Internet E-mail: [e-mail]
CMC Network Products       Phone: (011-) [phone]
Hvidovre Strandvej         72 B Telefax:      [phone]
DK-2650 Hvidovre, DENMARK  Internets: designed and built while you wait


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Bravo! Bravo!  You are absolutely
correct. They spend *millions of dollars* in advertising with all
sorts of glossy full page ads then are too stupid to include a phone
number people can call. To heck with them! I hope their stupidity
causes them to go into bankruptcy and close their doors. To Clive
and others: don't worry about the fact that you cannot call these
idiots. So what! As Lars says, if this is how they act when you are
a new prospect, how will they act when you are an old customer?   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Clarence Dold)
Subject: Re: How to Phone US 0800 Numbers From the UK?
Organization: a2i network
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 22:35:11 GMT


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We do not have '0800' numbers. If you

> the call which is in the USA. You need to match carrier with 800 number

With portable 800 numbers, that strikes me as being nearly
impossible, short of calling the company on its regular business line,
and asking what their long distance carrier is.  And while you're on
the line, you might as well ask them whatever you wanted in the first
place ;-)


Clarence A Dold - [e-mail]
                - Milpitas (near San Jose) & Napa CA.

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

From: [e-mail] (Laurence Chiu)
Subject: Re: How to Phone US 0800 Numbers From the UK?
Date: 9 Jan 1994 20:24:15 -0800
Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access, California
Reply-To: [e-mail]


In article <[e-mail]>, MAARUF ALI  wrote:

> Could someone please tell me how to phone US 0800 numbers from the UK?

MCI will, but AT&T will only connect you if it's their 800 number. I
don't know about MCI.


Laurence Chiu         | Walnut Creek, California
Tel: [phone](wk) | Internet: [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (John Palmer)
Subject: Re: Federal Telemarketing Laws
Organization: John Palmer's Private Box
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 20:37:50 GMT


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

>> I just read through the archives from late 1991 looking for info on
>> congressional action regarding automated telemarketing.

> The current {Privacy Journal} has a lead article entitled "Can the
> telemarketers' autodialers be controlled at all?". It details court
> action all over the country against both the federal law and 22
> similar state laws.  Judges in Oregon and New Jersey found such laws
> to be an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech, while in
> Minnesota it was upheld.

> The issue appears to be that restrictions on time, place, and manner
> of speech are OK, while restrictions on content are not.  The federal
> law permits the FCC to exempt some types of calls such as random
> surveys and political calls, but that's a content distinction.
> Presumably a law that outlawed all unsolicited robot dialing would be
> constitutional.  We can only hope.

Thats probably why the NSFNet's Acceptable Use Policy is widely held
to be unconstitutional. The part which says that "no commercial use
allowed" restricts speech based on content. Last I heard, the
attorneys general from nine states (MI included) have given opinions
that the policy is unenforcible. Its really a moot point since the
policy is going away in the spring anyhow, last I heard.

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

From: [e-mail] (Scott Dorsey)
Subject: Re: Surcharge for Tone Dialing to be Dropped
Date: 9 Jan 1994 02:08:51 GMT
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center and Reptile Farm


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chris
Labatt-Simon) writes:

> I have a friend in Islip (Nassau County) who has touchtone.  I though
> this was a capability that was in all switches manufactured in the
> last umpteen (how much is an umpteen anyway?) years, and that if a
> customer wanted pulse service, the phone company had to disable
> touchtone.  Anyone?  Anyone?

We got it last year when they upgraded our crossbar to some sort of
1ESS system.  I figure we should have ISDN here some time around 2030,
if the installation of other features is any example.  This is in
southern VA.


scott

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

From: [e-mail] (Chris Labatt-Simon)
Subject: Re: Surcharge for Tone Dialing to be Dropped
Date: 9 Jan 1994 18:37:29 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY, USA


[e-mail] (Chris Labatt-Simon) writes:

> I have a friend in Islip (Nassau County) who has touchtone.  I though
> this was a capability that was in all switches manufactured in the
> last umpteen (how much is an umpteen anyway?) years, and that if a
> customer wanted pulse service, the phone company had to disable
> touchtone.  Anyone?  Anyone?

Oops ... my mistake.  Islip is in Suffolk County.  How about Garden
City?  Anyone?  Anyone?


Chris Labatt-Simon                     Internet: [e-mail]
Design & Disaster Recovery Consulting       CIS: 73542,2601
Albany, New York
PHONE: [phone]                       FAX: [phone]

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

Date: Sun, 9 Jan 94 12:31 EST
From: [e-mail] (John R Levine)
Subject: Re: Surcharge for Tone Dialing to be Dropped
Organization: I.E.C.C., Cambridge, Mass.


> Of course, the biggies (Compu$erve, Plodigy, etc.) will have 800
> numbers and just pass the cost along ...

Unlikely.  An 800 number costs at rock bottom ten cents a minute,
while message rates are usually more like two cents.  Even with
metered local service, calling direct is considerably cheaper.

Note that in New York City, the calls are metered, but local calls are
charged one unit (about a dime) per call, no matter how long the call
is.  If ever there were a rate plan that favors modem users, that's
it.


Regards,

John Levine, [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 9 Jan 94 19:06:23 EST
From: [e-mail] (Dave Niebuhr)
Subject: Re: Surcharge for Tone Dialing to be Dropped


In TELECOM Digest V14 #19 [e-mail] (Carl Oppedahl) writes:

> In <[e-mail]> Eric De Mund <[e-mail]>
> writes:

>> Dave Niebuhr <[e-mail]> in TELECOM Digest V14 #15:

>>> NYTel, as part of a multi-million dollar rate rollback has been
>>> ordered to reduce the cost of touch-tone dialing from $1.35 to $.50
>>> per month which is still not enough.

>> Given that backwards state of affairs, maybe my dad *is* telling me
>> the truth when he says that he can't even *get* touch-tone service at
>> his home in central Nassau County (Westbury), Long Island, New York,
>> telephone number (516) 333-xxxx. Incredible.

This might not be relevant but what type of phone does he have?
Rotary or tone dial?

> I don't know the situation now, but a few years ago a friend in
> Westbury had three lines in the house, one of which was a 516-333.
> The 516-333 had been in place for a decade or more, and he kept it
> because it was a flat-rate line -- no charge for local calls.

Flat Rate is available to all residence customers and maybe some small
businesses.

[e-mail] (Chris Labatt-Simon) writes:

> I have a friend in Islip (Nassau County) who has touchtone.  I though

Nope and Carl Moore is bound to comment on it; Islip is in Suffolk
County.

> this was a capability that was in all switches manufactured in the
> last umpteen (how much is an umpteen anyway?) years, and that if a
> customer wanted pulse service, the phone company had to disable
> touchtone.  Anyone?  Anyone?

There has never been a choice of pulse, rotary and tone; just the
latter two.  According to NYTel, the standard offering is rotary only
with a surcharge for tone even though most, if not all, lines can
handle tone quite nicely.

I intend to call the business office next week and make an attempt to
find out if 516-333 is tone enabled which I think it is.  I seem to
remember that 516-333 was mentioned in the first deployment of SS7
which, at least to me, means that it has either a DMS-100 or a 5ESS
switch and is able to handle either touch tone or rotary dialing.

I also find it hard to believe that tone isn't deployed in that
exchange since tone has been around on Long Island since 1965 or
before.

Here are the exchanges in the 33X series for Area Code 516:

             0     1     2     3    4     5     6     7      8    9
          -------------------------------------------------------------
      33X |     |PtJef|GdnCy|<----Westbury--->|Hksvl|GdnCy|Wstby|     |

Code: PtJef - Port Jefferson; Hksvl - Hicksville (a small tale here);
GdnCy - Garden City.

Note that all except 331 are in Nassau County and all are next door so
to speak from each other and there are a plethora of businesses and
government offices is that area.  I don't think that they'd put up
with rotary only dialing.


Dave Niebuhr      Internet: [e-mail] (preferred)
                            [e-mail] / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl
Senior Technical Specialist, Scientific Computing Facility
Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973  (516)-282-3093

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

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #21
*****************************