Software Vault: The Diamond Collection/The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO/cdr16/tc14_435.zip/TC14-435.TXT

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TELECOM Digest     Mon, 5 Dec 94 12:11:00 CST    Volume 14 : Issue 435

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? (James Madsen)
    Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? (Peter M. Weiss)
    Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? (Larry Schwarcz)
    Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? (John Higdon)
    Re: MCI's Announcement (Pat Binford-Walsh)
    Re: MCI's Announcement (Stanley Ulbrych)
    MCI and the Future of Internet (Newsbytes via [e-mail])
    Re: Direct Inward Dialing on Voice Mail Card; Other PC Card?
(Barton
Bruce)
    Re: T3 or T1 Demux'd to RS-232 or TCP/IP? (Barton F. Bruce)
    Re: Meaning of Line Build Out on CSU (Russ Bryant)

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

Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 23:27:50 -0800
From: [e-mail] (James Madsen)
Subject: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone?


California is the only state which forbides bundling cellular service
with the handset purchase.  The law is you pay them no more than $25
more for a handset without activating service, than you would if you
had service activated at the same time.  So at least in CA, one need
not even choose a limited package to get a phone for 911 only usage
and get the phone at a reasonable price.


Jim Madsen


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is a legal way around the
situation
in California. Too bad none of the retailer's are using it. See my
response to John Higdon later in this issue.  PAT]

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

Organization: Penn State University
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 11:09:47 EST
From: Peter M. Weiss <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone?


Another thing to consider: not all "911" numbers are accessed by 9+1+1
i.e., there are various star (*) codes.  You sometimes see these on
highway markers, or via promotional literature.

How does this affect your plans for unactivated emergency access?


/Pete, Penn State


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are probably thinking of services
such as we have here in northern Illinois:  'star nine nine nine' is
a coalition of the emergency services which accepts calls dialed to
that number, takes the information and forwards it to the appropriate
emergency service such as Chicago 911, or that of the various suburbs
in the area.  I know when we dial 911 from a cell phone here in this
area we get an intercept 'cannot be completed as dialed, if this is
an emergency, dial the operator or star nine nine nine ...'    PAT]

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

Subject: Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone?
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 94 11:50:12 -0800
From: Larry Schwarcz <[e-mail]>


> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You probably could do it, but you
must
> bear in mind that to purchase an unactivated cell phone in most
places
> you will wind up paying $200-400 more for the phone than if you have
it
> turned on to some carrier.

Correct you are, but, I live in California.  Here, bundling is
illegal.  Cellular stores can only discount the phone by the amount of
the activation fee.  So, we see ads for phones at cost less the $25
activation fee.

So, we still pay $200-$400 for phones here :-(.


Thanks,

Lawrence R. Schwarcz, Software Design Engr/IND      Internet:
[e-mail]
Hewlett Packard Company                               Direct:  (408)
447-2543
19420 Homestead Road MS 43UK                            Main:  (408)
447-2000
Cupertino, CA 95014                                      Fax:  (408)
447-2264
Internal-only WWW: http://hpisrhw.cup.hp.com/~lrs/homepage.html

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

Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 23:20:56 -0800
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone?


Larry Schwarcz <[e-mail]> writes:

> I'm trying to see if it's possible to have a cellular phone that is
> NOT activated with any carrier and still use it to call 911 in
> emergencies.

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You probably could do it, but you
must
> bear in mind that to purchase an unactivated cell phone in most
places
> you will wind up paying $200-400 more for the phone than if you have
it
> turned on to some carrier.

Not in California. Service providers and phone vendors are
specifically prohibited from in any way linking the sale of the phone
to the activation of service. Although a number of dealers have tried
some sleazy tricks to avoid selling phones without activation ("sorry,
I just looked and we are out of stock -- someone must not have taken
the last one out of the computer..."), I have inside information that
even as we speak there are some undercover efforts to bring the big
foot down on them.

It is amusing to note that some of the big chains in southern
California have implemented elaborate ruses to either discourage
customers from buying a phone without activating it, or con the amount
of the commission from the carrier out of the customer himself. One
such trick is to have the salesperson produce the phone, saying,
"let's make sure everything is here". He opens the box and surprise!
the charger, extra battery, etc.  happens to be missing.

"And this is our last one, too. If you really want it, I could sell
you the [charger, battery, etc.] from our accessory stock." One
undercover person phoned a store pretending to be a salesman from
another store in the chain.  He asked what to do with a customer that
wanted a phone without service. He got an earful of sleazy tricks to
kill the sale or to get some extra money out of the customer.

As I mentioned, this is being cleaned up. That means that if you are
in California, you need not worry about weighing the cost of getting
or not getting service vs the price of the phone. It should not make
any difference.


John Higdon  |    P.O. Box 7648   |   [phone]     |       FAX:
[e-mail] | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264
4407



[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two comments here. At least Radio Shack
(the stores in the Chicago region) does open the boxes for customers
on
lots of products 'to see if everything is here', and if something is
missing that is intended to come with the purchase, RS replaces it for
free with other stock in the store. For example, you are to get a
battery charger as part of the purchase and it is not in the box, then
the clerk gets a battery charger from the collection of same (for
sale)
in the store, changes the price on the register to 'zero' for the
battery charger and 'sells' it to you for 'zero' in order that you can
walk out of the store with a complete unit of whatever it was you
bought. He has to account for it on the register so that the store's
quarterly inventory balances correctly, and the unit he 'sold' to you
for 'zero' is then charged back to the distribution center so the
store
gets its money (each company owned RS -- there are also franchise,
privately owned RS stores -- is considered a profit center in its own
right; corporate RS expects each store to account for its stock, etc).

For next: I hear a rumor that in order to bring California more in
line with other states where cell phones are concerned, instead of the
stores giving reduced prices with activation -- illegal there -- the
carriers will begin offering a 'gift to new subscribers' equal to the
discounted amount. And really, that is what is happening now in other
parts of the country. RS and the other dealers are not *really* giving
you a phone for free or for $25 or whatever ... yes, that's what they
ring at the register, but the fact is the carrier they go through is
paying them the difference after the fact. So the stores in CA cannot
say to you, 'this phone is $25 with activation and $300 without
activation.'
What they can say is 'all phones are $300 ... and upon your decision
to
sign up with the carrier, the carrier will give you a gift of $275
in exchange for your one/two year contract with their service.'

That is all that is happening anyway elsewhere in the country. The
carriers reimburse the *dealers* for the phones they are giving away
at very low costs as part of activation ... the carriers will simply
start giving the money to the *customers* instead once the customer
signs
with them direct rather than go through the dealers with the rebate.
The customer will have to come up with more money upfront, but will
be able to get most of the money back the same day, just hours later,
when the carrier turns on the phone and authorizes the dealer to write
the customer a check for the 'free gift to new subscribers'.

Now it becomes legal: all phones cost the same, activated or
unactivated.
This nice bag phone costs $200, period. Buy it and leave the store if
you wish ... should you decide to have Ameritech activate it 'at some
later time' they will give you the $200 you paid for the phone. If you
decide as a matter of convenience to have the phone activated right
now,
the carrier has authorized me (as the dealer) to write you a check for
the $200 once you have made certain commitments. The check would look
sort of like one of those you get from long distance carriers for
switching service, with lots of fine print on the back. Should you
wish to get it activated at some future time, at least this one
carrier
(the one the dealer works with) has agreed to send you the $200 direct
once you sign up.

I'd like you to know that when the Chicago City Council, in its wisdom
many years ago decided that it was illegal for landlords to make
tenants
pay a 'late fee' for rent not paid on time, the landlords' response
was
to simply raise *everyone's* rent by the amount of the late fee
effective
with the next lease being signed; and they built a new provision in
the
lease offering a 'discount' (of the late fee amount, whatever it was)
for 'prompt or early payment' of rent. Then they proceeded to
advertise
their apartments for rent at the 'discounted' (usual) amount of money.
When the tenants came to sign the lease, they of course saw the higher
amount of money stated on the lease and if they questioned this they
were
told about the 'discount' if they paid on time ... 'we assumed you
were
the sort of person who pays his bills on time ... that's why we
mentioned
the lower rate in our advertising ...'  That also was legal. How is a
city council or any government going to punish someone for selling at
*less* than the contracted price or giving 'discounts' to customers?

So if California really begins to crackdown on cell phone dealers,
watch
them change the wording and terms: the cost of all phones will go up
and the generosity of the carriers -- once an iron-clad contract has
been signed -- will be noted in 'free cash gifts' to customers, but
from
the carrier itself, not from the dealer.     PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (pat binford-walsh)
Subject: Re: MCI's Announcement
Date: 3 Dec 1994 18:26:28 GMT
Organization: Netcom


Does anyone know of any of MCI's dedicated (56kbs, 128 kbps, 256 kbps,
and T-1) and frame relay (56 kbps, 128 kbps, 256 kbps, T-1) access
charges for internetMCI.  I don't believe that the following info is
correct for 9.6 kbps and 4.5 mbps, which is probably 45 mbps (T-3).
The service has been sold commercially since October.  Does anyone
have any rates that have been quoted to them or seen a price list?
Their 800 number for questions are not staffed with very knowledgeable
people.

Also, when will the local sites be available and where?  MCI is
providing 7 hours of local access for $20/mo. and $3/hr. afterwards,
but only 3 hours of 800 access for $20/mo. and $7/hr. afterwards.

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

Subject: Re: MCI's Announcement
From: [e-mail] (STANLEY ULBRYCH)
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 94 07:56:00 -0500
Organization: Eagle's Nest Communications, Inc.  PVD, RI US  401-732-
5290
Reply-To: [e-mail] (STANLEY ULBRYCH)


I admit I goofed. Can someone please repost either the 1-800 number or
better yet the EMAIL address for internetMCI.

I saw it, wrote it down, and promptly lost the paper.


Thanks.

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

From: [e-mail] (RAPME)
Subject: MCI and the Future of Internet
Organization: RAPME
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 09:39:06 GMT


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This was sent in by [e-mail]
without indicating *where* the comments by Kennedy Maize appeared.
It appears to be Newsbytes, but I wish the sender had stated that
explicitly in some sort of introductory comment. Please do this in
the future.   PAT]


WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1994 DEC 2 (NB) -- By Kennedy Maize.

I have seen the future of the Internet and its name is MCI.  The
Washington-based long-distance carrier recently gave reporters a tour
of its new Net offering, including the online shopping mall it plans
to begin rolling out in January. As one MCI executive told Newsbytes,
"We are going into cyberspace commercial real estate."

For most of its brief, 25-year history, the Internet has been a
government project. Access has been free, which is to say, subsidized
by the taxpayers through Defense Department and National Science
Foundation appropriations. Populated mostly by academics and students,
the Net has been a free-form, chaotic, sophomoric, but incredibly
powerful new way of communicating.  But the future of the Internet is
in commerce, which the federal government recognized some time ago.
And, based on what I saw in MCI's plush conference room this week, MCI
has a major head start in the race to commercialize it.

"MCI is making the Internet as easy to use, as accessible and as
critical to businesses as today's global phone network," says Timothy
Price, recently elevated to executive vice president of MCI.

MCI brings some major assets to the table as it tries to turn the
Internet into a routine business tool and a new way of shopping for
the average consumer. As an aside, 80 percent of catalog shoppers are
women, which means MCI will have to make its Internet shopping
attractive to women.

The biggest head start MCI has on the new Internet is its existing
presence on the net. NSFnet is essentially MCI. MCI's high-speed,
digital data network currently handles 40 percent of all US domestic
Internet traffic.

With its long-distance capability available to virtually any American
with a phone, and its Internet backbone, MCI can easily offer access
to the net from dialup to ISDN to, eventually, ATM.  More important,
MCI seems to have the human resources necessary to transform the Net
into a well-behaved service. It starts with Vint Cerf, rightly called
"father of the Internet." Cerf, at Stanford, and Robert Kahn at DOD,
developed the TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol)
that is at the heart of the network of networks.

Cerf provides the "vision thing" for MCI's Internet ventures.  Cerf
has also assembled an impressive team and forged important significant
alliances, especially with Netscape Communications, the new software
firm Jim Clark put together after leaving Silicon Graphics. Clark
basically hired the entire programming team that developed Mosaic, the
World Wide Web browser, and turned them loose on making it a
commercial product. "I was blown away by Mosaic," Clark told
reporters, "by its potential to enable commerce and enable anybody to
be on the net."

Realizing that security was a key to commerce on the Net, Clark turned
to RSA to integrate its encryption technology into Netscape for MCI
Internet users. Shoppers at MCI's virtual shopping mall will be able
to make purchases with the knowledge that their credit card data is
inviolable.

MCI also turned to FTP Software to provide the TCP/IP software that
will be the foundation for the Netscape application. That means users
won't have to fret over TCP/IP issues, but can simply surf the net
painlessly. (MCI's demonstration of its virtual mall included a stop
at Vint's Surf Shop, complete with a picture of the bearded Cerf on
the beach in a Hawaiian shirt, to pick up some boards and routers.)

The shopping mall is also a brilliant idea. MCI will essentially rent
cyber floor space to businesses that will offer goods and services
online. This allows a business to get on the Net and into a Web site
without the need to create a full-fledged WWW interface. MCI takes

·
care of that.

The evolution of the Internet has been fascinating, especially the
emergence of the WWW, invented at CERN, the European high energy
physics lab. In 1992, according to Cerf, Web traffic was in 127th
place in terms of traffic on the NSFnet backbone. By last year, he
added, Web traffic had risen to 11th place and today, Web traffic
consumes 10 percent of the capacity of the backbone. Mosaic's
graphical interface is responsible for that phenomenal growth.

Now, MCI and Netscape are taming the interface and the Internet.  When
MCI's $49.95 package goes up for sale in January, I'll be one of the
first in line to buy it.

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Direct Inward Dialing on Voice Mail Card; Other PC Card?
Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society
Date: 5 Dec 94 03:02:17 -0500
Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc.


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Koos
van den Hout) writes:

> I was approached by someone who is interesting in providing a system
> where people use direct inward dialing to select information items.

> Something like:

> Allocating block 555-xxxx. When someone dials 555-1234, the number
1234 is
> used as selection of information.

> Somehow the selection 1234 would have to be passed to the voicemail
> system.

> All of this on the Dutch phone system.

> Can this be done?

I don't see why not. the 1234 is just an extension number. The voice
mail system gets a call that effectively is just a call to 1234 that
is busy and so got forwarded.

But skip the PBX. The voice mail systems can have cards that take the
DID directly. There is no need for the PBX. If you only have a few
dozen lines, the PC card stuff is fine. If you have hundreds or
thousands of lines all on T1 or E1, get something like Excel's
products (they are XL.COM, try a WHOIS). Excel also makes PC cards,
too, but their big boxes are what you need if you are making an
airlines reservation switching system or a telco CO grade voice mail
product. Excel sells the hardware to their OEMs that write the s/w for
special applications.

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: T3 or T1 Demux'd to RS-232 or TCP/IP?
Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society
Date: 5 Dec 94 03:14:33 -0500
Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc.


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mark
Silbernagel) writes:

> I am interested in your opinion on how to best manage a point-of-
sale
> card swipe application. The plan calls for ~4000 sites, each having
> ~10 devices. At any given moment in the day, they expect about 700
> calls to be 'in progress'. Each device is one of those small boxes
you
> see at the store which calls and authorizes card transactions.

Each store should have ONE controller handling all POS terminals and
it can use x.25 over the D channel on an ISDN BRI line to handle all
terminals at that site, whether 10 or 500.

The x.25 carrier wil deliver ALL your traffic on a single x.25 line if
you
want at 56kb or perhaps faster.

If there is other traffic, then this is not the way to do it, and
maybe look at LEC frame relay where available and a mix of other
things for other sites.  Pure dialup is still viable but when you look
at the stupidity of 10 phone lines per site, spending those dollars
other ways is easy. Even using an elcheapo tiny PBX (Panasonic 6x16
size) to pack a smaller number of phone lines is possible but also a
hassle.

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

From: [e-mail] (russb)
Subject: Re: Meaning of Line Build Out on CSU
Date: 5 Dec 1994 13:57:22 -0700
Organization: XMission Public Access Internet (801-539-0900)


Dennis E. Miyoshi ([e-mail]) wrote:

> Hello.  I hate to ask such a simple question but, I am to the point
of
> total confusion.  I am in the process of connecting two TyLink
ONS150
> CSUs.  After several attempts at getting the CSUs to sync I was
> successful.  However, my routers seem to be confused.  The last
> setting that I have is the LBO.  The manuals state that this must be
> specified by the carrier.

> My two questions are:

> 1.  What is the meaning of the LBO?
> 2.  What would the results be if the LBO is set to the wrong dB
level?

Dennis:

LBO is defined as "Line Build Out".  It is very simply how much gain
you want to have transmitted to the T1 network.  Most T1 CSU/DSU have
ALBOs for receiving a DS1 signal from the T1 network; ALBO (Automatic
Line Build Out).  Normally, you have three settings, 0, -7.5, and -15.
The 0 setting sends out a DS-1 (digital signal at 1.544 Mbps or T1) 4
to 5 kfeet over normal 100 ohm impedance, 22 guage PIC twisted pair
cable, (PIC: plastic insulated cable).  The -7.5 pads down the gain of
the transmitted signal to approx.  2000 feet and -15.0 pads down the
gain to a very small distance ... 655 feet or less.

What all this mumbo jumbo really means is if the telco has a NID
device (network interface device) real close to your ONS150s you could
be overdriving the T1 signal and causing some major errors.  The NID
device is also a digital regenerator and looks for an incoming T1
signal at a certain peak to peak signal level.

My advice is to go to a -7.5 LBO setting and see if it improves your
transmission.  That setting usually works with a variety of
situations.  If it doesn't, look for a small rectangular box in your
telecomm closet that has the words WESTELL or WESCOM on it; this is
the NID device.  If it is really close to your ONS150; (within a
couple feet), set your ONS150 for -15.0 LBO.

If this still doesn't help ... consider returning your ONS150s for
Txport
310 T1 CSUI/DSUs and our technical support people will have you up and
running in no time!  (Just kidding ... sort of!)


Russ Bryant [e-mail]
Txport Inc.  T1 Transmission Products

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

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #435
******************************