Software Vault: The Diamond Collection/The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO/cdr16/tc14_474.zip/TC14-474.TXT

Text File | 1995-01-22 | 13KB | 333 lines

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

> Now my son is one of those adult children who happened to return to
> our empty nest.  He takes full advantage of his return to the nest
> including the use of MY telephone, he doesn't now have a phone he
can
> call his own, nor for that matter has he ever been a customer of any
> phone company.  But still Ray Drake in his generosity has decided to
> give him 40 bucks for Christmas -- hold on there are strings seems
when
> the kid cashed the check he changed _MY_ LD carrier from MCI to
AT&T!
> This annoyed me because I'm happy with MCI and don't want AT&T as my
> LD carrier!

WAIT, where your LD goes is a matter between you and your local
telephone company.  They will presubscribe you to whomever you direct
them to.  All you have to do is contact them and tell them you want
MCI.  There may be a charge for the change.  They are not in a
position to arbitrate any dispute between you and AT&T (or you and
your son 8^).  There should be no problem from them, and if there is,
just contact your state Public Service Commission.

Let AT&T sue you for the contract.  They will only find out that their
contract is with your son, who, if he is like my live in, gone and
back son, is judgment proof.


John,   National Regulatory Research Institute

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

From: [e-mail] (Luke J. Smithwick)
Subject: Re: Christmas Greetings From AT&T
Date: 29 Dec 1994 14:25:58 GMT
Organization: EE Dept at UF


I think you have a much more serious problem in that your son clearly
has little or >>>NO INTEGRITY<<<.

Try fixing this problem before you worry about AT&T.  AT&T is one of
the few companies that believes people can still be trusted.  They
treat ALL people with dignity and respect, which your son does not
warrant by his activities.


LJS


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except you are wrong. AT&T believes you
can be trusted if you are of certain nationalities and making
international
calls to the 'right' countries. If you are making an international
call
to the 'wrong' country, and your voice sounds 'funny' to the operator
handling the call, AT&T will refuse to accept *even their own credit
card* as payment. You can put twenty dollars in quarters in the phone
box or you can forget it. No extensions of credit from pay phones if
your
home is in a part of the world that AT&T doesn't like.

Aside from AT&T's illegal and highly discriminatory credit practices
where the use of their own calling card is concerned, its insulting
how
ignorant they assume their customers to be when said customer
questions
why his calling card -- the one he pays for every month without fail,
never late on his bills -- suddenly is unacceptable for calls to his
native country. The operator says the card cannot be used to pay for
the call, and she hopes you will just hang up and go away. When you
scream loud enough, and get downright obnoxious and demand to be
connected
to a supervisor at the Pittsburgh IOC (international operating center)
she'll put you through to someone who gives you this rap about how
" ... the telephone company in Israel won't accept the AT&T card ... "
as if the Israel telco had anything at all to say about how some other
telco collects for its outbound paid traffic to that country!

So you respond to the supervisor (if you can keep from smirking and
laughing) it has nothing at all to do with how some telco in [middle
east country of your choice] chooses to bill. This is *paid* traffic.
What it has to do with is AT&T's unwillingness to close up the
security
flaws in their calling card. They find it easier to take it out on
their customers instead, and make broad, sweeping statements about the
likelyhood of people from one country or another to cheat. So you take
a case like the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago where a very large
number of people from Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India
live. AT&T will not handle calling card traffic to those countries
from
payphones in certain neighborhoods of Chicago.

On the other hand, the Good Citizens of the very same neighborhood,
with their War on Drugs intimidated Illinois Bell into making all the
pay phones in the area 'no-coin' during evening and overnight hours;
the very same hours when it is daylight and business is being
conducted
in the above countries.  So Illinois Bell and the Good Citizens say
use your calling card when at those payphones at night so we can keep
better track of you; but AT&T says you cannot use your calling cards
at
those payphones to call many international places.  Neat huh?  And if
you really complain; write to AT&T or the FCC or whoever, you get back
a letter from AT&T apologizing for the 'mixup' and including a couple
of
'Pay to the Order of the Telephone Company' five dollar credit
vouchers
(gift certificates) to appease you. They blame the operators, saying
the one who handled the call must have not been correctly trained!
<grin>
And so, LJS, that's how AT&T trusts their customers: provided you are
calling the right place, from the right neighborhood and you sound the
right way, they trust you; all others pay cash provided the Good
Neighbors
still allow payphones to be installed in the McDonald's parking lot.
PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (John Lundgren)
Subject: Re: Information Needed on Digital Interfaces/Protocols
Date: 29 Dec 1994 07:44:30 GMT
Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network


For information on X.25, get it about the amateur version, AX.25, from
ham radio sites.  Try the newsgroups rec.radio.amateur. (whatever) to
get some FTP sites.  The one I can remember is arrl.org.

Also, try com.dcom.lans for the sites where you might find X.25.


John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs
Rancho Santiago Community College District
17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706
[e-mail]\[e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 18:52:05 -0500
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Lunatic Haven Information Systems
From: [e-mail] (Lawrence "The Dreamer" Chen)
Subject: Re: Flat Rate Cellular Phone Service


In comp.dcom.telecom, article <[e-mail]>, was
written:

> Does anyone know why somebody hasn't started a flat rate cellular
> phone service?  I seems to me that this kind of business would do
> really well, since the users wouldn't have to pay air time.

I don't know how wide spread the service is, but up here (Canada) they
have packages where you get unlimited weekend calling, and for $10 a
month more you get unlimited evening calling (7pm-7am).  They probably
figure the amount of traffic by business users is low enough during
these times that they can manage.  Though I have friends where the
bulk of their cellular usage is during evening.  Actually, if I were
to ever fall into the cellular trap, it would be weekends and
evenings.  During the day, I'm in the office where I have easy reach
of a phone.  Sometimes I really question the value of my pager, but
that's another story.


Email: [e-mail]    or    "Lawrence Chen" @ 1:134/3002
PHONE: [phone]      FAX: [phone]       CIS: 74200,2431
Praxis Society K12 BBS: [phone] Lunatic Haven: [phone]
Packet: VE6LKC @ VE6PAQ.#SEAB.AB.CAN.NA - Coming Soon, Praxis Free-Net

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

From: [e-mail] (Sean Leviseur)
Subject: Re: Buying GSM-Phones Abroad - a Comment
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 17:10:18 GMT
Organization: Novell UK


In article <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail].
Unisys.com> wrote:

> In some countries GSM service providers subsidize the phones:  you
can
> buy your phone at a very cheap price but at the same time you have
to
> sign a contract with the service provider -- and they charge you
extra
> for a year or two.

In the UK the price doesn't change from one year to the next. I cannot
really see why it isn't a good idea to get a new phone every year and
to sell the old one. If there is a subsidy you may was well take it :-
)


sean

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

From: [e-mail] (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: Britain-Japan Fiber Cable
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700
guest)
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 17:40:03 GMT


[e-mail] (Wm. Randolph U Franklin) writes:

> AT&T will build a cable from Britain to Japan for $1.2G.  It'll be
> 17,000 miles long, 5Gbps, and carry 320,000 "voice and other
messages".
> That looks like only 16Kbps per circuit (which looks low).  The
> current longest cable is a 9,000 mile one from France to Singapore,
> completed a year ago.

> Fun math: That works out to a capital cost per circuit of only
$3750.
> Assume that a phone call from Britain to Japan costs $2/minute.  If
> all 320,000 channels were in continuous use, then the cable would be
> paid for in the first 31 hours.

> Alternatively, if we assumed that the cable is good for ten years,
> or 100,000 hours, then amortizing the capital cost would be three
> cents per hour, or $5e-4/minute.  This is a factor of 4,000 less
> than the price of the call.

      The numbers for the newer transantlatic cables look like that,
too. You really should be able to buy a full-time transatlantic
circuit for about $100/month, and at the rate cable is being laid, you
probably soon will.

      Not having to acquire property rights is a big win. Fortunately,
the UN didn't think of this for the Law of the Sea conference.


John Nagle

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

From: [e-mail] (Michael Israeli)
Subject: Re: Long Dial Tone Holds [Was DMS-100 vs 5ESS]
Date: 29 Dec 1994 15:38:20 GMT
Organization: Net Access in Philadelphia, PA


> Here in Montgomery County, MD, dialing 1 301 *67 just gets silence
as the
> switch waits for more digits.

At my 5ESS switch in Pennsylvania 610-525 (served by Bell Atlantic),
if you try to dial 1 301 *67, the second you hit the *, you get a fast
busy.

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

From: [e-mail] (Gordon Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Watching The Area Codes Split
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 15:39:44 PST



>     Date       Event

> 1)  1/7/95     AC 630 overlayed on ACs 312 and 708 (Chicago metro
area)
> 2)  1/15/95    AC 334 splits from AC 205 (Alabama)
> 3)  1/15/95    AC 360 splits from AC 206 (Washington)
> 4)  3/??/95    AC 562 overlayed on ACs 213, 310 and 818 (Los Angeles
metro)
> 5)  3/1/95     AC 281 overlayed on AC 713 (Houston metro area)
> 6)  3/19/95    AC 520 splits from AC 602 (Arizona)
> 7)  4/2/95     AC 970 splits from AC 303 (Denver metro area)
> 8)  5/28/95    AC 941 splits from AC 813 (Florida)
> 9)  7/15/95    AC 540 splits from AC 703 (Virginia)
> 10) 9/1/95     AC 423 splits from AC 615 (Tennessee)
> 11) 10/??/95   AC 770 splits from or overlayed on AC 404 (Atlanta
metro
area)
> 12) 10/1/95    AC 441 splits from AC 809 (Bermuda & Bahamas)
> 13) 10/??/96   AC 803 splits from AC 203 (Connecticut)
> 14) ??/??/??   AC 954 splits from AC 305 (Florida)

snip

> 3) 360 will contain Bellingham, Olympia, Vancouver
>    206 will retain Auburn, Bellevue, Bremerton, Everett, Redmond,
Seattle,
>        Tacoma
>    Permissive period ends 7/9/95

 From The US West phone book for Olympia WA, the permissive dialing
ends May 21, 1995. From our company newsletter it had to be moved up
because of a critical shortage of phone numbers.

>> Area code 206 is now like the Chicago (312/708) situation.  360
will
>> surround 206.  Once 360 takes effect, 206 will become the Seattle,
>> Tacoma, and possibly Everett (and surrounding areas) with the rest
of
>> what was 206 becoming 360.  At least that's my understanding.

snip

> As for Seattle, I don't know; if places like Port Townsend and Oak
> Harbor will be in 360, then 360 will 360 around 206 the way 706 does
> around 404 or, for now, 409 does around 713.

Again from the map in the US West phone book Port Townsend and Oak
Harbor will be in 360. 206 goes from just north of Everett to just
south of Tacoma and includes Puyallup, Bellevue and it looks like
Vashon Island.  360 will cover the rest of the old 206 area code. 360
will cover about four times more land than 206. 360 will include
Bellingham, Bremerton, Port Townsend, Centralia and other points south
and west. 206 will be completely surrounded by 360 unless you count
the Puget Sound. There is a path to the ocean via Puget Sound that is
not defined to be in an area code (but 360 is on both banks).  Also to
the east of Seattle the towns of Issaquah, Redmond, and other points
east are divided somewhere. I don't know the exact line, but I would
bet that it is just east of Issaquah.


Gordon Baldwin   [e-mail]   Olympia Washington

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End of TELECOM Digest V14 #474
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