Phoenix Rising BBS/phoenixrising.zip/phoenixrising/tele-dig/td14-062.txt

Text File | 1994-02-06 | 25KB | 565 lines

TELECOM Digest     Sun, 6 Feb 94 04:27:00 CST    Volume 14 : Issue 62

Inside This Issue:                         Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    USA Senate Establishes FTP Server (EFF and CPD via [e-mail])
    Harrassing One-Ring Calls (Bill Garfield)
    Merg-O-Mania (Van Hefner)
    ISDN in USA and Electronic Highways (Vermijlen Tom)
    Two Stories on MCI (Paul Robinson)
    MCI Joins Mexican Phone Venture (Paul Robinson)
    Book Review: "Crossing the Internet Threshold" (Rob Slade)
    Designing Local Phone Number Access to Regional BBSs (Lloyd Brodsky)
    ROA Can't Cover All My Lines - NYNEX's Fault (Barton F. Bruce)
    Lebanese Get Drunken Phones (was Re: Lebanon Telephone) (Linc Madison)

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: USA Senate Establishes FTP Server
Date: Sun,  6 Feb 94 00:26:19 PST


From the Computer Privacy Digest:
=================================

 From: "Prof. L. P. Levine" <[e-mail]>
 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 11:28:00 -0600 (CST)
 Subject: US Senate FTP Site On Line
 Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

The following is taken from the EFFector Online, issue 07.02, Jan.  25,
1993, A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ISSN
1062-9424:

Senate FTP Site Online

A new FTP site has been put on line to hold the publicly available
documents and press releases of our Senators.

Chris Casey <[e-mail]> of the office of Sen.
Edward Kennedy says "Some progress is being made here on the Hill. The
Senate now has an anonymous ftp server running.  It's sparsly
populated, only Kennedy and Stevens have posted anything so far, but I
imagine the rest will find their way shortly. At least it's a start.
The fact that the Senate has an anonymous ftp server is not a secret,
but I don't think it's widely known either."

You can access the server by FTPing to ftp.senate.gov, logging in as
"anonymous" (without the quotes) and giving your email address as
password.

The site's general information bulletin is as follows:

Welcome to the United States Senate's Anonymous FTP Server
(ftp.senate.gov).  This service is provided by the Office of the U.S.
Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Senate Committee on Rules and
Administration.

This server contains general information files about the United States
Senate in the directory "general".  Directories are also provided for
specific Senators' offices, in alphabetical order by two-letter state
abbreviations, and for Senate committees and other Senate offices.  If
an office is not included in the directory, this indicates no files
have been posted by that office.

No files can be uploaded to this system.  Please direct questions
about a specific Senate office's use of this service to the Senate
office in question.  General inquiries not involving a specific Senate
office can be directed via Internet e-mail to: [e-mail]

Subdirectories for Senator's offices are structured as follows:

/member/state_abbrev./senator's_name/releases/filename
   or
/member/state_abbrev./senator's_name/general/filename

The "releases" subdirectories contain press releases and related
materials, and "general" subdirectories contain information of
long-term interest such as office contacts.

As of Jan. 24, 1994, the site was not being used very extensively, but
individual Senators' directories contained various informational files,
such as the following:

Ted Stevens (AK):

member/ak/stevens/releases
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           1321 Jan 21 16:16 Childhood_Immunizations
 -rw-r--r--   1 1            828 Jan 21 16:16 Inman_Statement
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           3152 Jan 05 11:45 Ketchikan_Subcontractors
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           3488 Jan 21 16:16 Seafood_Inspection
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           1910 Jan 21 16:17 new_staff
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           1661 Jan 21 16:17 tongass_timber

Edward Kennedy (MA):

member/ma/kennedy/general
 -rw-r--r--   1 1         138842 Jan 13 13:49 S1150_Goals_2000
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           1011 Dec 13 15:04 on-line_access
 -rw-r--r--   1 1         133477 Dec 27 10:08 s1040.txt

member/ma/kennedy/releases
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           3591 Jan 14 15:23 Human_Radiation_Experimentation
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           1664 Jan 05 11:11 Statement_on_Firearms_Proposal
 -rw-r--r--   1 1          16188 Dec 15 14:19 major_accomplishment_93
 -rw-r--r--   1 1          14523 Jan 13 11:58 national_health_reform_debate
 -rw-r--r--   1 1           1298 Dec 15 14:18 worker_retraining_grant

Please express your interest in this first small step, and encourage
your Senators to utilize this new Congressional Internet resource.
Ask your Representatives to look into the possibility of a similar
system for the House.

[Computer Privacy Digest Moderator's note: Rather than logging in with
the userid 'anonymous', this system (and many systems like it) permits
a login with the userid 'ftp'.  This is a small difference, but it
does not contain the (incorrect) presumption that no one knows who you
are.]

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

Subject: Harrassing One-Ring Calls
From: [e-mail] (Bill Garfield)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 94 22:32:00 -0600
Organization: Ye Olde Bailey BBS - Houston, TX - 713-520-1569
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Bill Garfield)


OK all you telephone company techno-jocks, I need some help with this.

We are being besieged by single-jingle (one ring) calls.

My MITEL SX2000SG PBX is served by Houston's "National" CO (SWBT).  We
have all of the 989-xxxx number block plus the 4000-6899 block in the
627 exchange.

Fiber DS-3 terminates in a Rockwell Muldem adjacent to the PBX.  Among
the numerous facilities therein, there are 96 DINA trunks dedicated to
the 4000-6899 block on 4 spans (21DINA7136275401). Here is the problem:

For several months, various users have called the PBX room complaining
about 1-ringer/single jingles.  The offending source, whatever it is,
will single out one or two DID extensions to "annoy" and then pound on
only these extensions for a day or so, then gradually diminish in
frequency of annoyance before moving on to another extension or two to
pound on. During the cycle of peak annoyance, call frequency will vary
from 3 to 15 calls per hour, per extension, at fairly regular intervals.
So far, no extension has ever been singled out to endure this punishment
more than once.

They're always single jingles ... in other words, if my user doesn't
answer, the phone only rings once.  If they do answer, the incoming
seizure has already released - gone -.

We have the incoming SMDR records & have scanned them for repetitious
inbound traffic of seven seconds duration or less.  Result: The
offending traffic is spread fairly evenly across all DID trunks.
Hypothesis: Some type of automated dialing equipment has gone awry and
is driving us crazy. I would really hate to think something like this
would be malicious or intentional.  :-(

I really don't think we're being scanned.  We've been scanned several
times over the past four to five years and we recognize -those- calls.
Whatever is pounding on us this time locks into one or two extensions
and stays there, finally moving on to pester someone else after a day
or so.  SMDR logs indicate this is only happening during normal
working hours, and seldom at nights or on weekends. Also ... this seems
to only be hammering on the 627 exchange. None of my 989 group has yet
complained.

Our local SWB account rep claims SWB is -helpless- in getting this
tracked down, due to the extremely short duration and something about
it being DID trunk calls and not POTS. Why would that matter?

Is the local telco -REALLY- that helpless in putting a lid on this?

In some of the really persistent cases, I've been able to mask the
problem by programming front-end ring delay against the targeted
extension(s). This eats the first two ring cycles before presenting the
call, but this is _not_ an acceptable long term fix.  I need some help.

Has anyone experienced any harrassing calls like this?  Any suggestions
on what it might be and/or how it could be traced back to its origin?


Bill Garfield <[e-mail]>
The PBX guy...  Panhandle Eastern Corp.
Houston, TX  Voice: [phone]   FAX: [phone]
Ye Olde Bailey BBS Zyxel 713-520-1569(V.32bis) Hayes 713-520-9566 (V.FC)
   Houston,Texas             yob.com           Home of alt.cosuard

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

From: [e-mail]
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 94 01:33:24 EST
Subject: Merg-O-Mania


U.S. Long Distance announces intent to acquire Call America  Riverside

SAN ANTONIO, TX
Feb. 3 /PRNewswire/ --

U.S. Long Distance Corp. (NASDAQ NMS: USLD) today announced that it
signed a letter of intent to acquire Inland Call America, Inc., d/b/a
Call America Riverside, a privately owned direct dial long distance
services company based in Riverside, California.  U.S. Long Distance
anticipates that the acquisition will be completed by March 1, 1994.

Parris H. Holmes, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated,
"The acquisition of Call America Riverside is an important strategic
move for U.S.  Long Distance because it expands our direct dial
origination capabilities into California.  Call America Riverside has
provided service in Southern California for eleven years and has an
excellent reputation in that region.  Mike Vaughn, Vice President and
General Manager of Call America Riverside, and his staff will remain
with the company, ensuring a smooth transition and providing Call
America Riverside's existing client base with the same level of
service and support they have been receiving."

The letter of intent provides, among other things, that U.S. Long
Distance will acquire Call America Riverside for 175,000 shares of
U.S. Long Distance Common Stock.  This acquisition is subject to
certain conditions, including, among other things, the negotiation,
execution and delivery of a definitive acquisition agreement and the
satisfactory completion of due diligence.  Call America Riverside's
revenues for calendar 1993 were $3.5 million.

Vernon Hall, Chairman of Call America Riverside, said, "We are excited
about joining the U.S. Long Distance team.  By combining forces, we
will increase our technological capabilities and broaden our product
line.  Our California customers will directly benefit from this
partnership."

U.S. Long Distance is a fully integrated long distance
telecommunications and information services company with three primary
areas of business: direct dial (one-plus) long distance services in
areas of the Southwest and Pacific Northwest; national operator
service for the hospitality and pay telephone industries; and billing
clearinghouse and information management services for operator
services and direct dial long distance companies.  For fiscal 1993 the
Company reported $134.1 million in total revenues.


Van Hefner - Vantek Communications - DLD Digest - [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Vermijlen Tom)
Subject: ISDN in Usa and Electronic Highways
Date: 5 Feb 1994 14:35:19 GMT
Organization: Brussels Free Universities (VUB/ULB), Belgium


Hello, is there someone who will converse a bit with me about the
electronic highways in the USA and its advantages and disadvantages?


[e-mail] (Vermijlen Tom) Student Communicatiewetenschappen
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

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

Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 11:46:22 EST
From: Paul Robinson <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: Paul Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Two Stories on MCI
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA


The following two items appeared on page F1 (The front page of the
Business Section) of the {Washington Post}:

1. "MCI Communications of Washington received a three-year, $38 million
   contract to provide 800 service to Home Shopping Network, Inc."

2. For those of you confused over MCI's ad with some little girl with an
   English accent, speaking gibberish, you're not alone.  The girl is
   11-year-old Anna Paquin of New Zealand, who was in the movie "The Piano".
   As for the ad itself, 'When pressed, [Jerry] Taylor [of MCI] and
   Tom Messner of Messner Vetere [Berger McNamee Scheterer, MCI's ad
   agency] explain that "NetworkMCI" is the company's corporate name
   for services MCI plans to offer someday, such as local phone connections,
   portable digital communications, and "interactive multimedia"
   telecommunications such as video phone calls and home shopping.'

What it really means is that this is MCI's equivalent to AT&T's "You
Will" campaign.  Now AT&T can run a sniping ad with Tom Seleck, "Did
you ever think one of our competitors would do an ad like this one and
make it so you can't understand it?  You will, err, or rather, you
won't."  :)


Paul Robinson - [e-mail]

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

Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 12:00:29 EST
From: Paul Robinson <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: Paul Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: MCI Joins Mexican Phone Venture
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA


The article of this title appeared on page D3 of the 1/26 {New York
Times}.

Capsule:

MCI and the largest bank in Mexico will form a joint venture to build
an upgrade to the phone service in Mexico.  This is a part of MCI's
plan to build a seamless phone network throughout North America.
They're not the only American Telephone company interested or who has
investments there, due to less than two years remaining on the Mexican
telephone company's phone service monopoly.

Summary:

MCI and Grupo Financiero Banamex Accival, the holding company for
Banco National de Mexico, over a three-year-period, will add a
fiber-optic network linking Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara,
with long-term plans to cover the whole country.  This deal would
primarily give MCI access to the bank's customer base, although the
bank is putting up some (unspecified amount of) money.  The deal is
valued at $1 billion, with MCI putting up about $450 in startup
capital and will direct operations.

The local phone company, Tele'fonos de Mexico has a monopoly on all
local and long distance service, which by law ends in 1996.  American
Companies have been very interested; Southwestern Bell put $458
million in 1990 into Tele'fonos for 5% ownership.  Bell Atlantic paid
$1 Billion last fall for a stake in cellular phone company Grupo
Iusacell.

MCI will have to get Mexican Government permission (likely), and in a
manner similar to Equal Access in the US, will have to negotiate with
Tele'fonos over the charges to connect to the phone system.  This is
part of MCI's long term plan to have a "seamless communication system"
over all of North America, since it is already invested in Canada's
Stentor.  MCI may even be able to use the same brands and perhaps the
same equipment in all three countries.

Estimates are that of Mexico's $6 billion a year in telephone service (10%
of the U.S. Market), 45% is international traffic, 90% going to the U.S.

According to an accompanying map, the following are the number of hours of
calls traveling among the three countries:

Mexico To USA: 10.1 Million;  USA to Mexico: 21.3 Million;
Canada To USA: 25.2 Million;  USA to Canada: 37.1 Million.


Paul Robinson - [e-mail]

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

Date: Sat, 05 Feb 1994 14:38:57 MDT
From: Rob Slade <[e-mail]>
Subject: Book Review: "Crossing the Internet Threshold" by Tennant/Ober/Lipow


BKCRSTHR.RVW  931229

Library Solutions Institute and Press
2137 Oregon St.
Berkeley, CA   94705
510-841-2933   510-841-2636
or
1100 Industrial Road, Suite 9
San Carlos, CA   94070
fax: [phone]
"Crossing the Internet Threshold", Tennant/Ober/Lipow, 1882208013, U$45.00
[e-mail] [e-mail]
[e-mail]

This book is useful for newcomers to the Internet.  This book is
useful for trainers.  This book is useful for librarians.  Ultimately,
this book is most useful for those training librarians who are new to
the Internet.

The contents cover the basics as an introduction to the Internet.
There is an "Internetworking Overview" which is a bit long for a
beginner but helpful for a trainer.  "Important Information for
Beginners" is important, but primarily to those needing either to get
a connection to the Internet or to keep current with Internet
developments.  The bibliography is generally sound and with helpful
annotations.  (There are some gaps, such as no mention of O'Reilly and
Associates "!%@::" (cf BKDEMAC.RVW), but most of the other references
one might name are more recent publications.)  Three chapters cover
email, remote login and file transfers (ftp).  There are very helpful
"fact sheets" on the basics of related functions, such as archive and
gopher, as well as projects such as Freenet.  In addition, there are
trainers' aids, and appendix materials.

A newcomer to the Internet might find this material a bit disorganized,
but very definitely helpful and useful.  It is heartening to see the
very strong emphasis on Internet etiquette and culture which all too
often gets short shrift, even in introductory guides.  The grouping of
discussion lists and electronic journals with email is a logical
extension which is not always made.  The work is not limited to the
novice, though; many Internet users would find the fact sheets to be a
handy quick reference.

The material here was originally developed for a workshop and,
unfortunately, it is all too obvious at some points.  The Internet
maps and certain other materials could be useful in seminars, but have
no associated explanatory materials.  The exercises are useful but
missing information at certain points.  For example, the list of
special databases to try out does not always have full information on
how to log in.  This would, of course, be supplied in the workshop,
and can be figured out by an experienced "net surfer," but it would be
nice to see more help for novice users.  The training resources, as
well, would require some work.  The "Introduction to Networking"
overhead, for example, is far too cluttered, and, realistically,
should be subdivided into at least five parts.  This is, however, the
first of a series of related works.  As the material is subdivided,
and the different audiences defined, the material will undoubtedly
improve.  The work shows a fundamental understanding and promise which
bodes well for future editions, once organization and isolated
materials are improved.

Still, the book is useful to all those parties mentioned in the
opening paragraph.  For those serious about Internet training, or the
use of the Internet in a library situation, this should definitely be
on your bookshelf.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993   BKCRSTHR.RVW  931229. Resdistribution
permitted only via TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists.

======================
DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters
Editor and/or reviewer [e-mail], [e-mail], Rob Slade at 1:153/733
DECUS Symposium '94, Vancouver, BC, Mar 1-3, 1994, contact: [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Lloyd Brodsky)
Subject: Designing Local Phone Number Access to Regional BBSs
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 21:49:26 GMT


I would appreciate pointers and info about reasonable approaches to
provide local phone number access to an on-line service where there
are several medium-sized population centers all of which are a toll
call from each other and where the service needs to plug into an
Internet POP someplace.  Given the regulatory complexities (clusters
of there are within the same LATA, giving only one choice without
running a leased line a long ways away to get inter-LATA pricing,
while others are not) and the desire to be able to have a system that
is scalable (since it will take a while to build demand) what's the
best way to go about this. Pay the telco for central office services
and feed the calls into a leased line? Set up a small PBX in each
town? Give up?


Lloyd Brodsky          Internet: [e-mail]
President, RockSolid Communications
P.O. Box 101804        Voice: 303-758-7030  Fax: [phone]
Denver, Colorado 80250-1804, USA

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

From: [e-mail] (Barton F. Bruce / CCA)
Subject: ROA Can't Cover All My Lines - NYNEX's Fault
Date: 5 Feb 94 17:24:01 -0500
Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc.


AT&T promised me all my lines could be on my ROA plan.

NYNEX bills folks individually bills for multiple phone lines.

AT&T says "Whoops, NYNEX's multiple bills precludes ROA covering all
lines (but you can order a second ROA plan if you like ...)"

NYNEX says that since their multiple billing does not aggregate all
the ten per line free DA calls you are allotted into one pot, *AND* if
and ONLY if you have been charged for excess 411 calls on one line but
had unused on another and COMPLAINED, they *might* try to get you on a
'combined' billing program.

Of course, the 1,000s of trees and $s of postage they waste could
concern them less, since every dollar they waste means more they get
to markup and have the regulators let them milk out of the customers.

So I would be willing to make excess 411 calls on ONE line and NONE on
others to be able a month later to scream and get combined billing
(since polite reasonable requests are ignored), but they still
can't/won't give me combined billing because my classes of service are
a tad different even though my lines are all residential and IN ONE
HUNT group with adjacent numbers, even.

So I have now decided to try another route.

What if they could use my MAIN mumber as ANI for any other lines!?
That would get ALL LD calls onto the ONE bill that has ROA.

The residence business office decided I needed to call the business
business office.  So I stuck it to someone that was also taking DID tk
and other commercial orders from me for work. She understands
wink-start and all sorts of other fairly obscure stuff, but when I ask
about fixing my home line ANI, sho is **STUCK**.

So on to executive appeals ("hello - office of the president"). Normally
they do get back in one day. Not this time.

ANY useful war stories or suggestions?

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

Date: Sun, 6 Feb 1994 00:02:06 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Linc Madison)
Subject: Lebanese Get Drunken Phones (was Re: Lebanon Telephone Infrastructure)
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)


In article <[e-mail]> Alex Cena wrote:

> The Lebanese government has approved contracts to buy one million
> telephone lines from Alcatel Alsthom NV, Siemens AG and AB L.M. Ericsson.
                       ^^^^^^^

Well, here in Oakland, "Alcatel" is a liquor store (near the corner of
ALCAtraz and TELegraph), so I can't get away from images of phone
lines arriving by the keg ...


Linc Madison   *   Oakland, California   *   [e-mail]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #62
*****************************