Software Vault: The Diamond Collection/The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO/cdr16/tc15_029.zip/TC15-029.TXT

Text File | 1995-01-22 | 26KB | 740 lines

TELECOM Digest     Thu, 12 Jan 95 16:56:00 CST    Volume 15 : Issue 29

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: 800 Numbers From Overseas (John R. Covert)
    GIF Tax Rumors - Threat or Menace (Brad Hicks)
    Re: "Jitter" as a Quantity (Moritz Farbstein)
    Looking For Used Phones (Steve Harris)
    Re: Planning to Purchase a Voice Mail System (Steve Samler)
    Re: Seeking Canadian Telco WWW Addresses (David Devereaux-Weber)
    Re: Cell Phone PINs (John R. Covert)
    Help Locating Telephone/PC Interface Board (Tony Kwong)
    Re: ETSI Standards - Where? (John Combs)
    CTI on NEC 2000 Switch (Chaz Holmes)
    Address Wanted For French Telecom (Stephen Warner)
    More on Teleport (Steve Samler)
    Re: ISDN Over Wireless (Jeff Hersh)
    ISDN BRI Lines (John Combs)
    LD ISDN Service (John Schmerold)
    Re: Israel Rate Information (Steve Samler)
    Address Wanted For KPN (Stephen Warner)
    Where is PicturePhone II Now? (David Gingold)
    Inter-LATA Rates in California (Linc Madison)
    B8ZS, AMI, Bipolar Line Coding? (Phillip Schuman)
    Where to Get Text of the ECPA? (Wilson Mohr)
    Re: Wireless CO's Challenge New NPAs? (Bob Goudreau)

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 16:12:03 EST
From: John R. Covert  <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 800 Numbers From Overseas


[e-mail] (Phil Ritter) wrote:

> I also wonder how the billing is handled on the US side.  Since the
> carrier is receiving revenue for this call on the originating side,
do
> they still bill the 800 number owner (the terminating party) for the
> calls?

I am speculating, but I think what is going on here is that one
particular carrier (with an office in Nevada) has told the countries
from which this is working to hand them all 800 traffic and to pay
them their portion of the international call revenue.

They then drop it on the local exchange carrier, who routes it to the
called customer via the appropriate LD carrier.

[e-mail] (Julian Thornhill) wrote:

> Well I just tried [a Canadian 800 number] from the UK via British
Telecom
> and got the usual message "800 numbers from outside the **US** are
not free
> ..." and then I got the ringing tone, so I guess it works. Didn't
stay on
the
> line to see who answered though!

You guys have message rate calling and would have risked only a single
message unit, but you weren't willing to wait ...

The ringing you heard was the ringing tone for the recording that
would have told you that the 800 number you are calling cannot be
reached from your calling area.

Can someone who has a meter on their phone please verify that the
carrier handling these calls is only returning answer supervision at
the point the 800 number actually answers, and not at the point of
providing the recording.


/john

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 14:12:31 -0600
From: Brad Hicks <mc![e-mail]>
Subject: GIF Tax Rumors - Threat or Menace?


For those of you who haven't been reading your email lately, or who
have managed to escape the net's Crisis of the Month Club, on December
28th CompuServe issued an unnecessarily tangled, poorly worded press
release that contained the words "patent," "GIF," "royalty," and
"CompuServe."  Pat Clawson, the President and CEO of TeleGraphix
Communications Inc., spread the word to the world, along with his own
interpretation.

For the next two weeks, all "the usual places" on the net
(CompuServe's
GRAPHSUPPORT forum, TELECOM Digest, Computer Underground Digest, and
various UseNet newsgroups) exploded with scads of non-lawyers'
interpretations of a document that was clearly written (or at least
approved) by lawyers.

Serveral days ago, CompuServe issued another statement, clarifying the
whole mess.  If I may abstract it:

  1) The GIF image format, which CompuServe invented and promoted,
uses
     LZW compression to bring down the image size.
  2) At the time, CompuServe was under the impression that LZW was
public
     domain.  In fact, it was (being?) patented by Unisys.
  3) Unisys wants its dough.  Any package which uses LZW compression
or
     decompression, including anything that can make or display a GIF
     image, infringes on their patent.
  4) CompuServe negotiated a pass-through agreement: for a nominal sum
per
     copy sold, you can sublicense the LZW/GIF code from CompuServe.
  5) However, the terms of CompuServe's agreement with Unisys require
that
     they only sub-license software that was written specifically to
     communicate with CompuServe.
  6) If that =isn't= what your software is for, then you need to
negotiate
     your =own= agreement with Unisys for the offending LZW routines,
or
     stop selling software that uses them.

In his January 2nd screed, Pat Clawson of TeleGraphix misinterprets
points four through six above.  His interpretation, which is now
ricocheting around the net, argues that GIF is now legally restricted
to CompuServe only.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Of course, Pat Clawson is not without fiscal interest in this
controversy, either.  Within a day or so of his first call to arms,
his company had offered a competing spec, called GEF.  Of course, at
first his would be the only software that could read it, which is
always good for the ol' market share, eh Pat?  Oh, except now he's
promoting yet another graphics standard, RIPScript ... as evidenced by
the fact that his Internet email address has changed from PATCLAWSON@
telegraphix.com to [e-mail].

On top of that, four days later Unisys' Public Relations department
made an announcement in CompuServe's GRAPHSUPPORT forum that is even
better news.

  7) Unisys only wants to charge royalties from communications
software
     vendors who are charging a fee for software intended to connect
to a
     commercial online service.
  8) Unisys explicitly says that they will not charge a royalty for
"non-
     commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications, including those
for
     use on the on-line services" or for "non-commercial, non-profit
     offerings on the Internet, including +Freeware+."
  9) They also made it pretty clear that they won't charge for selling
     images, whether via World Wide Web pages, CompuServe fora, or
local
     bulletin boards.  It's the software vendors whose software
=makes=
     the images who'll have to pay.

In other words, unless you =sell= =communications software=
specifically
for connecting to =commercial online services= such as CompuServe or
America Online, and your software displays GIFs, you'll not have to
pay a
royalty.  CompuServe estimates that the royalty will work out to
around 11
cents per copy of the software sold.  If you want to explore
alternatives
to sub-licensing from CompuServe, or you want to make sure that you
are
covered, email [e-mail] and =ask them=.

Everybody else can relax, sit back down, and let this month's Panic of
the Month ebb away.  There is no FCC modem tax, there is no FCC
proposed
rule to outlaw religious broadcasting, Craig Shergold doesn't want
more postcards, and there is no conspiracy to tax, license, restrict,
or outlaw GIF files.

P.S. Thank all holy Gods that everyone involved is including a date
and an email address in their messages on the subject. Hopefully, we
won't be hearing about this "new threat" in five years.

P.P.S. Come to think of it, the FCC Modem Tax memetic infection
started
with a CompuServe public announcement, too. "CompuServe Public
Relations:
Threat or Menace?"  Nah, it's probably just a coincidence.


J. Brad Hicks     Internet: mc![e-mail]
X.400: c=US admd=ATTMail prmd=MasterCard sn=Hicks gn=Brad

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

From: [e-mail] (Moritz Farbstein)
Subject: Re: "Jitter" as a Quantity
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Swiss Bank Corporation
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 20:45:34 GMT


In comp.dcom.telecom article <[e-mail]> you
wrote:

> I need a solid reference for "delay jitter" as quantity w.r.t.
> frames arrivals.  Much of the material that I've read defines jitter
> as the variation interarrival times, but what I really want is a
> quantitative definition that's effectively "the jitter for two event
> arrivals is difference between the expected and observed
interarrival
> times."

> I found an example of the use of "jitter" as a quantity recently in
> a paper that I was reading: ".. The conference origination
application
> delivers frames to the network adapter at an aggregrate rate of 1
> frame every 33 seconds (with a measured jitter of +- 2 ms)."

> But the paper does not define jitter.  It's obvious what is
> meant, but I really need a solid definition from a solid
> source.

As with many words, this one has more than one meaning. I have
collected a number of definitions from different sources, although I
don't always keep track of where I got the definitions. There are a
number of good telecom dictionaries.  Your best source would be the
reference librarian at your local library if you absolutely have to
have the source citation.

[from Digital Webster]
1jit ter \'jit-er\ n
[origin unknown]
(1929)
1: the state of mind or the movement of one that jitters
2 pl: a sense of panic or extreme nervousness  had a bad case of
the jitters before his performance
3: irregular random movement (as of a pointer or an image on a
television screen);
also: vibratory motion

2jitter vi
(1931)
1: to be nervous or act in a nervous way
2: to make continuous fast repetitive movements

[from multimedia tech documentation, source unknown]
1) The breakup of a digital video stream caused by underrunning
buffers.
2) Variation in the average delays between sending and receiving
data.

[from ftp://lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives]
1) Short term instability of the amplitude and/or phase of a
signal. Also called phase jitter.

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

Moritz Farbstein <NeXTMail: [e-mail]>
Swiss Bank Corporation, 4225 Naperville Road, Lisle IL 60532
Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (Steve Harris)
Subject: Looking For Used Phones
Organization: MCI Telecommunications
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 21:51:36 GMT


Is there any source out there for very old phones, speaker phones or
telemarketer headsets?

My wife has Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) and is highly
allergic to the outgassing of plastics. Talking on the phone makes her
ill. This outgassing diminishes over time so older equipment is not
such a problem.  Speaker phones or headsets are good since they don't
put a big piece of plastic in your face but they still outgas when
new.

If there is a source for these, please let me know and I will post the
info to Internet groups that discuss this.


Thanks in advance,

Steve Harris   Colorado Springs

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 10:48:33 EST
From: Steve Samler <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Planning to Purchase a Voice Mail System


The point you should explore most heavily is the message waiting light
function.  In my experience this is the most problematic area for any
voice mail package.  Here is what you want to know:

 - assuming that the MWI signalling is in-band, what happens
   when the signal is sent and the phone is off-hook? (ask both
   the vmail vendor and your switch vendor).  Is it legal to
   send the signal then?  If it isn't, does the voice mail
   system know this and will it try to send the signal again
   later?

 - What happens if the phone is in the middle of a flashhook when
   the signal is sent?

We had many problems with Compass vmail and the NEC 1400 switch.  My
experience is that the voice mail people do not often write the serial
interface to the switch themselves.  Therefore the PBX interface in
the Compass system could be the same as that in other systems.

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 15:07:19 CST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Seeking Canadian Telco WWW Addresses


On Wed, 11 Jan 1995 15:22:37 MST [e-mail] (Helen
Vanderheide) asked about WWW addresses of Canadian companies.  One
place to find WWW addresses of communications companies is the Telecom
Information Resources page at the Institute of Public Policy Studies
at the University of Michigan:

http://www.ipps.lsa.umich.edu/telecom-info.html

Unfortunately, there were no references for the companies Helen
requested.


David Devereaux-Weber, P.E.            [e-mail]
(Internet)
The University of Wisconsin - Madison  [e-mail]
(Bitnet)
Division of Information Technology
Network Engineering                    [phone](voice) (608)262-
4679(FAX)


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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 15:51:05 EST
From: John R. Covert <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone PINs


[e-mail] (A. Padgett Peterson) wrote:

> Sorry but I seem to be missing something here. If the PIN is sent in
> the clear then anyone grabbing the cell phone number off the air
will
> also get the PIN.

You are correct, however:

The current scheme only requires a single receiver sitting listening
to the transmission of MIN+ESN on the mobile-to-land setup channel.
Set your receiver to one channel and pick up all the phones as they go
by.

To get the PIN, your receiver would have to listen to the mobile-to-
land
setup channel, simultaneously listen to the land-to-mobile setup
channel for the command to go to a voice channel, then listen to that
particular voice channel and get the PIN.

> Don't understand the last part, the ESN is what needs to change, not
> the phone number, guess someone does not understand the difference.

The FCC has ordered phones to be built such that it is "very
difficult"
to change the ESN (obviously this is not the case with those being
used as clones, but it is the case with most good equipment on the

·
market).  Thus changing the ESN without an entire new phone is
impossible,
and the MIN must be changed.

My gripe about this PIN business is that most laptop terminal emulator
programs and many modems don't support waiting for tone, flashing and
dialing.  (Note that when you have an RJ11 adapter plugged in to a
cellphone, you reverse the order of dialing and flashing from what
you usually do on the cellular phone.  You flash, the RJ11 generates
local dialtone, you dial the digits, the RJ11 adapter recognizes the
Touch-Tone, times out (or accepts a #), and then pushes SND for you.)

[e-mail] (Steve Seydell) wrote:

> The PIN is sent as DTMF across the voice channel.

Not necessarily.  Although many phones will send the DTMF across the
voice channel as you dial the PIN, the PIN feature works even if DTMF
dialing is turned off.  The cellular switch has no DTMF receivers,
thus you dial the PIN and press SEND.  The digits you just entered are
sent as a data burst on the voice channel.


/john

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

From: [e-mail] (Tony Kwong)
Subject: Help Locating Telephone/PC Interface Board
Date: 12 Jan 1995 01:44:14 GMT
Organization: Bell Communications Research


Hi,

    I need to locate an "IBM" PC peripherial board that will let me
answer the phone, play audio prompts and accept touch tone input from
the caller.  Multiple lines per card and multiple cards per box will
be better.  Any leads will be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks in advance.


tony kwong [phone] [e-mail]
FAX [phone] Bellcore 4C-742 444 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ,
08824

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

Date: Wed, 11 Jan 95 15:06 EST
From: Testmark Laboratories <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: ETSI Standards - Where?


Compliance Engineering, in Boxboro MA, carries many ETSI standards in
print
as well as many other standards, US and international.

Voice number: 508-264-4208, ask for Patty LeBlanc


John Combs, Project Engineer, TestMark Laboratories,
[e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 10:59:08 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: CTI on NEC 2000 Switch


I work for a NEC distributor in Oregon and Washington and often find
more product ideas from customers and other switch technicians than
from the PBX maker.

I would like to know if anybody out there has designed or installed a
working interface using the NEC 2000 ethernet card to provide switch
to LAN conection and if so, what is the application?

Please post response or email to [e-mail] (Chaz Holmes).

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

From: [e-mail] (Stephen Warner)
Subject: Address Wanted For French Telecom?
Date: 11 Jan 1995 18:53:24 GMT
Organization: Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames.


Hi,

Can someone tell me the address of French Telecom in France.


Thanks,

Steve

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

Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 11:17:12 EST
From: Steve Samler <[e-mail]>
Subject: More on Teleport


They operate not only in NYC but also Boston, CT (Hartford?), New
Jersey, Florida, TX (Dallas I think), Mich, Wisconsin, Illinois,
Missouri (St.  Louis?), Nebraska, Arizona California and Washington.

160 communties in 19 metropolitan areas.

There is a good five page summary in Phillips Business Information's
Telephone Directory on page 515ff.

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

From: Hersh Jeff <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 95 16:06:00 PST
Subject: Re: ISDN Over Wireless
Organization: Booz, Allen & Hamilton


John Lundgren ([e-mail]) wrote:

> Find out if the phone company has a newer 5ESS switch.

To be fair to other companies, it should be noted that Northern
Telecom, Siemens, and other switch vendors also offer ISDN switches
that can act as central offices.


Jeff Hersh

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 12:37:00 EST
From: Testmark Laboratories <[e-mail]>
Subject: ISDN BRI Lines


GTE South has offered ISDN service here in Lexington, KY for the last
two years.  However, when I enquire about a BRI line, they tell me I
must PREDETERMINE what I want to do with the two B-channels.  For
example, B1 will always be used for voice calls, and B2 will always be
used for switched 56 data.  I don't consider this true ISDN.  Has
anyone else run across anything like this?


[e-mail]
John Combs, Project Engineer, TestMark Laboratories

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

From: [e-mail] (Default Account)
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 08:36:32 -0600
Subject: LD ISDN Service
Organization: Katy Computer Systems, Inc.


At long last, Southwestern Bell is offering ISDN service in St. Louis.
We need to select a LD company, our current carrier LDDS says they
don't offer it.  Any recommendations from the crowd?


TIA,

John Schmerold   Katy Computer Systems, Inc.
86 Meramec Valley Plaza Drive   St. Louis, Missouri 63088
Internet Address: [e-mail]
Telephone Number: 314/230-8200   Facsimile Number: 314/861-2222

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 15:45:41 EST
From: Steve Samler <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Israel Rate Information


Can't help on the rates.  However, I do know that it was recently
announced that Bezeq will have two competitors for long distance
business.  Tenders will be offered prior to May.

Sprint has indicated that they'd be interested in participating in the
bid for one of these.

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

From: [e-mail] (Stephen Warner)
Subject: Address Wanted For KPN
Date: 12 Jan 1995 18:54:29 GMT
Organization: Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames.


Can someone tell me the smail address of KPN, a Dutch Telecoms
Company?


Thanks,

Steve

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 18:53:12 -0500
From: David Gingold <[e-mail]>
Subject: Where is PicturePhone II Now?


Can anyone tell me what ever happened to the PicturePhone II phones
manufactured by AT&T in the '70's?  I have heard a rumor that these
phones might have been given to Ameritech as part of the breakup, but
I have know idea where to start looking.


dg

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

From: [e-mail] (Linc Madison)
Subject: Inter-LATA Rates in California
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700
guest)
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 22:02:32 GMT


I've been watching the fray as "local toll(SM)" calls in California
have been opened to competition.  For the first time in decades, it is
actually cheaper to call from San Francisco to Santa Cruz than to
Boston.

However, I haven't heard so much as a peep out of AT&T, MCI, Sprint,
or any of the others, about any reduction in the inter-LATA long
distance rates within California.  As of December 31st, a call from
San Francisco to Los Angeles was only slightly less exorbitantly
over-priced than the "local toll" calls within a given LATA.

Have the IXC's reduced their rates on calls between LATAs in
California to be more in line with both the new intra-LATA and
interstate rates?


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

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

From: Phillip Schuman <[e-mail]>
Subject: B8ZS, AMI, Bipolar Line Coding?
Date: 12 Jan 1995 22:15:27 GMT
Organization: via CompuServe Information Service


I've been wrestling with the line coding issue ... B8ZS, AMI, Bipolar,
etc. for getting a full 64k DS0, and trying to find a simple
explanation
for these areas.

 ... and -- if the 8k is stolen from the 64k to yield 56k -- is that
8k
considered the same as 'bit robbing' as performed for voice?

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 16:20:44 -0600
From: Wilson Mohr <[e-mail]>
Subject: Where to Get Text of the ECPA?


I have been poking around the FCC's FTP server to no avail so I will
ask: Does anyone know where/how I can get a full text of the ECPA?

Thanks!


Wilson Mohr      [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 17:23:30 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Bob Goudreau)
Subject: Re: Wireless CO's Challenge New NPAs?


[e-mail] (James M. Roden) writes:

> The real reason wireless (read cellular) carriers do not want to
> switch their entire customer base to another NPA is (think about
this)
> _EVERY_ customer phone would have to be reprogrammed with the new
NPA
> number.  Going forward is one thing. Changing the base is quite
> another.

But didn't the first overlay area code (917 in New York City) manage
to get away with switching existing cellular customers?  If NY can do
it, why can't Chicago?


Bob Goudreau   Data General Corporation
[e-mail]  62 Alexander Drive
[phone]   Research Triangle Park, NC  27709, USA

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

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #29
*****************************