Software Vault: The Diamond Collection/The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO/cdr16/tc15_133.zip/TC15-133.TXT

Text File | 1995-03-12 | 23KB | 582 lines

TELECOM Digest     Sat, 4 Mar 95 08:04:00 CST    Volume 15 : Issue 133

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Local Competition in North Carolina (Donald E. Kimberlin)
    Major UK Network Failure (Richard Cox)
    PacBell Offers a "Taste of Interop" in LA, March 28 (Cherie Shore)
    Dialing the Falkland Islands (Richard Cox)
    IVR Application, Northern Telecom SL1 PBX (Chris Daniels)
    Questions About Format of Printed Telephone Numbers (Jeff Wolfe)
    Re: Pizza Hut Consolidated Phone Number - All Locations (Tony
Harminc)
    Re: Pizza Hut Consolidated Phone Number - All Locations (Ian Angus)
    Looking for Remote Control Solution (Mark Breman)
    Question on Setting up Internet Users Group (James E. Law)
    Oh Yeah? (Cole Cooper)

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

Date: Fri, 3 Mar 95 20:56 EST
From: Donald E. Kimberlin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Local Competition in North Carolina


        Observers of U.S. telecommunications demonopolization history
may recall that in early days of events like Hush-a-Phone and
Carterfone, significant news focused on the Mebane Home Telephone
Company of North Carolina.

        Mebane was the battleground upon which the North Carolina
Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Communications Commission
did battle concerning whether or not the public could own and attach
its own telephones to lines of the local telephone company.  At one
point, the NC PUC even issued a widely-ridiculed decision that it
would permit the public to connect its own telephones for interstate
traffic only -- but that in order to do so, users would have to rent a
separate telephone line to be used for interstate calls only.  Saner
heads eventually prevailed, and the matter was resolved by other
means.

        Today, North Carolina appears to be among the earlier states
contemplating statewide demonopolization of local telephone service,
perhaps beginning as early as July 1, 1996.

        A bill was introduced into the North Garolina legislature only
several weeks ago, with nearly enough co-sponsors to assure passage at
introduction.  Here's a story from the March 3, 1995 Charlotte, NC
<Observer) indicating its movement and some of its provisions:

               BILL TO OVERHAUL LOCAL PHONE SERVICE
               CLEARS N.C. HOUS UTILITIES COMMITTEE
                   By Foon Ree, Raleigh Bureau

        RALEIGH -- With more safeguards for real competition added in,
a proposal to overhaul N.C. local telephone service cleared its first
major hurdle Thursday.

        The state House Public Utilities Committee unanimously
endorsed a bill that would allow competition in local phone service
starting July 1, 1996.  Customers could pick their local phone company
like they now do for long distance calling.

        The bill would also let local phone companies compete on
price.

        Today, about two dozen companies have monopolies in different
areas of the state.  All charge customers based on profit margins
approved by the N.C. Utilities Commission.

        The full House could vote on the bill as soon as next
week.

        The proposal has high stakes for consumers, and for companies
that want a piece of the local phone business.  The state's local
phone companies reap about US$ 2,500,000,000 in revenue from
long-distance access fees, Yellow pages advertising revenue and local
charges.

        Backers of the bill, which include existing local phone
companies, say it will lead to better technology and service and to
lower rates for many homes and businesses, most likely those in major
cities.

        The phone companies hope to make more money by expanding into
new territories and offering advanced technology services.

        Opponents, including long distance carriers and cable TV
firms, say the bill would let local phone companies squeeze out
competitors and maintain some of the Southeast's highest local phone
rates.

        They note that the proposal allows local phone companies to
keep their monopolies for at least one year, without the current
limits on rates.  That could let local companies raise rates in rural
areas that wouldn't attract competitors, and use the money to lower
rates in cities like Charlotte, where new competitors want business.

        On Thursday, the committee approved changes suggested by N.C.
Attorney General Mike Easley to make it clear that companies can file
complaints over "anti-competitive activity."

        "They're helpful," said Wade Hargrove, a lobbyist for the long
distance and cable firms.  But he said the long distance firms want a
specific provision in the bill telling the commission to watch out for
local companies trying to stifle competition.

        Several committee members also wanted reassurance that the
bill won't lead to huge rate hikes in rural areas.  The bill keeps
companies with 200,000 or fewer phone lines -- which serve about 10%
of the state -- off-limits to competition, unless they want to compete
to serve other areas.

        Rural areas won't immediately benefit from competition, said
Robert Gruber, who looks out for consumers as director of the N.C.
Utilities Commission's public staff.

<end quoted story>

 ... And so there you have it, Dear Moderator.  I coincidentally note
it was five years ago and less that my posts forecasting the demise of
local competition in the U.S met with replies of incredulity in this
forum, mostly from those who were certain the long-standing claims of
massive capital cost would maintain the once-sacrosanct "natural
monopoly" concept of 1913 in perpetuity.  Yet, today, we see instead
the telephone companies in North Carolina seizing the initiative to
change their own status.  Clearly, they have gotten the message as
demonstrated in places like England and New Zealand that it's no
longer such a massive, capital-intensive task to construct and
maintaim a functioning local telephone plant.

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

Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 17:03:14 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Major UK Network Failure


On the morning of Thursday, 2 March, workmen accidentally cut into a
major fiber-optic cable near Banbury, which contained BT's main
telecomms link between London and Birmingham.  Details of the incident
are not yet completely clear, but it is reported that approximately 18
fibres, each carrying 540Mb, plus the associated maintenance spares,
were broken by the damage.  Serious congestion followed - not only on
BT's network, but also on other networks as customers and service
providers tried to reroute their traffic by other means.  Several of
the mobile networks, who lease bulk capacity from BT, also suffered
consequent disruption: as did JANET, the "Joint Academic NETwork" in
the UK.

This incident has raised some significant questions about BT's claims
to have a resilient network, and to be able to reroute around a single
point of failure.  It took BT until late in the afternoon of the
following day (Friday, 3 March) before service on the route was fully
restored.


Richard D G Cox

Mandarin Technology, PO Box 111, Penarth, South Glamorgan CF64 3YG
Voice: 0956 700111;    Fax: [phone];    VoiceMail: 0941 151515
e-mail address: [e-mail]; PGP2.6 public key on request

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

From: [e-mail] (Cherie Shore)
Subject: PacBell Offers a "Taste of Interop" in LA, March 28
Date: 4 Mar 1995 09:32:51 GMT
Organization: Pacific Bell


Your time is extremely valuable, and Interop is over 300 miles away in
Las Vegas.  Why go?  Pacific Bell will demonstrate cutting edge
network interoperability applications right here in Los Angeles on
March 28.

Our 'A Taste of Interop' event will feature exhibits of:

 Telemedicine
 Multipoint Desktop Videoconferencing
 The Studio of the Future
 High Speed Internet Access
 Cupertino's CityNet
 Caltech's Real-Time Earthquake Monitoring

We'll be showing examples of applications running on the following
digital comunication technologies:

 ISDN
 Frame Relay
 SMDS
 Advanced Broadcast Video Service

No reservations required; exhibits will be open between 12:00 and 5pm
on March 28, at 1010 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles.  Parking is provided.


Cherie Shore [e-mail]
ISDN Technology Manager, PacBell

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

Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 07:37:39 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Dialing the Falkland Islands


The TELECOM Digest Editor noted:

> It does not matter how many digits the place has.  If the number is
> direct dialable, then it can be used. In most places where the local
> numbers are less than seven digits, you will find the city code and
> country code are longer, to fill in the blanks.

The country originally referred to (the Falkland Islands) now has five
digit numbers.  Until recently there were only four digit numbers, and
then they all changed to five digit by prepending all numbers with
"2".  International dialing to the Falkland Islands has been on +500
for as long as I can remember; before that it was operator-only
connection via Cable and Wireless.  Some of you may recall that the
failure of the Cable and Wireless link just before the Falklands were
invaded, was a point featured in a film made subsequently about the
Falklands war.  Obviously the service has since been improved --
possibly as a result of improvements in funding?

There are no "city codes" for the Falklands Islands.  It is unlikely
that there is even more than one CO.  So the Falklands have some of
the shortest (international) numbers in the world, and from the UK
dialling the Falklands takes less digits now than most inland numbers.
Oddly enough, calls to the Falklands are also the most expensive calls
(apart from Satellite and Ships calls) that can be made from the UK.

As in the US, 500 has a special purpose in the UK -- it is one of our
freephone (toll-free) codes, like 800.  So if the initial digit 0 is
repeated by accident, a call that should be free (such as 0500 224466)
turns into one of the most expensive calls (00500 22446) that can be
made.

I believe there may still be shorter numbers than those in the
Falklands,
but until recently some of them could not be dialed in the normal way
as Telco's equipment could not handle them correctly.  Callers had to
dial a dummy digit *after* the called number, to convince the COs that
the digit string is valid.  Either the numbers have been lengthened,
or the COs have been fixed ... we no longer have to dial dummy digits.


Richard D G Cox

Mandarin Technology, PO Box 111, Penarth, South Glamorgan CF64 3YG
Voice: 0956 700111;    Fax: [phone];    VoiceMail: 0941 151515
e-mail address: [e-mail]; PGP2.6 public key on request

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

From: [e-mail] (Chris Daniels)
Subject: IVR Application, Northern Telecom SL1 PBX
Date: 3 Mar 1995 16:33:42 -0500
Organization: 24 Hour Computers, Greenbelt, MD USA


I am working on an IVR application which sits behind a Northern
Telecom SL1 PBX and appears as an analog 2500 set; the problem is that
the SL1 does not drop the loop current when the calling party hangs
up, causing the IVR system to stay offhook and tie up the incoming
line until a timeout occurs in the application.

Does anyone know of a programming change that can be made to the SL1
which will return some form of call progress signalling, such as
reorder or other tones?

The voice board used is a Dialogic D41D, and the NT PBX is a SL1-XT
release
19 issue 32.

Please email your response to me, my provider is having news problems as
usual.


Thanks,

Ken WIlliams   Voicelink Communications, Inc.
202-541-9009   [e-mail]

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

Subject: Questions About Format of Printed Telephone Numbers
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 1995 18:01:52 -0500
From: Jeff Wolfe <[e-mail]>


I got involved in a debate with some friends about the 'correct' way
to write a telephone number.

Is there an 'international standard'?  Is it official or just commonly
accepted?

The guy I was debating with said that [phone] was the 'offical'
way.  What does the '+' mean?


Jeff Wolfe
Sysadmin, Newsadmin    -    Penn State - College of Earth and Mineral
Sciences


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The '+' means 'international access code
if
required plus'. In other words, to dial a country in Europe for example,
we dial 011 plus the country code and number. In the USA, '1' is by
coincidence both the access code used internally when dialing long
distance
and it is the international access code for the USA and Canada when
dialing
here from elsewhere. So the way you would read your example is 'dial
whatever
you dial to place an international call, followed by 1 for the USA and
then the area code 814 and local number 555-1212'.    PAT


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

Date: Fri, 03 Mar 95 18:05:40 EST
From: Tony Harminc <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Pizza Hut Consolidated Phone Number - All Locations


[e-mail] (Eric Canale) wrote:

>> "No other food service company in Canada offers this level of
>> convenience for its customers," says Corbett. "Our goal now is to
make
>> 310-1010 available across the country so no matter what city our
>> customers are in, they dial the same number for a Pizza Hut pizza."

> It's been a while since I lived in Canada, but Toronto based Pizza
Pizza
> has had the single [phone] delivery number for all its
locations
> since the early 80s.  I really don't see how Pizza Hut's system is any
> different, other than the fact it's 10 years late.

The problem with Pizza Pizza's system is that the famous 967-1111
works only from within the 416 area code (Metro. Toronto).  Local
callers in the surrounding 'burbs have to dial 416 967-1111, and
callers further out have local numbers (e.g. Oshawa 905 567-1111) to
reach their local dispatch centre.  In fact I think there is only the
one central dispatch site for all of southern Ontario.  It's
interesting to see the different approach taken by the chains.  Pizza
Pizza has all calls go to one place, and then sends the orders to the
geographically appropriate store on a data network.  This lets them
track how busy each store is and avoid overloading by farming orders
out further afield when necessary.  I doubt that any phone-network
based routing scheme will have such flexibility.

Pizza Pizza has an overwhelming market presence in the Toronto area,

·
to the point that customs people at the airport are reputed to ask
suspicious travellers claiming to live in Toronto "what's Pizza
Pizza's number?", or even to ask them to sing the little jingle "nine
- six - seven -- eleven -- eleven".  A number of other local chains
have catchy numbers (Two-for-One Pizza is 241-0241 Get it: 241- oh -
you did get it...), but nothing has close to the recognition of Pizza
Pizza.


Tony Harminc

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

Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 18:42:19 EST
From: Ian Angus <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Pizza Hut Consolidated Phone Number - All Locations


Eric Canale wrote:

> ([e-mail]) wrote:

>> "No other food service company in Canada offers this level of
>> convenience for its customers," says Corbett. "Our goal now is to
make
>> 310-1010 available across the country so no matter what city our
>> customers are in, they dial the same number for a Pizza Hut pizza."

> It's been a while since I lived in Canada, but Toronto based
> Pizza Pizza has had the single [phone] delivery number for all
its
> locations since the early 80s.  I really don't see how Pizza Hut's
system
> :is any different, other than the fact it's 10 years late.

There is a big difference. Pizza Pizza pioneered the single number for
an entire city, covering multiple outlets. (Far in advance of Dominos
in the US, for example.) But the Pizza Pizza system has two limitations,
compared to the new one at Pizza Hut:

1. The Pizza Pizza number only works within the Toronto free calling
area.
Its long distance (or a different local number) from other areas.

2. The Pizza Pizza number goes to a central location, where the call is
answered and the order taken. The order is then transmitted to the
nearest
franchise store by a data link.

By contrast:

1. With the new service, Pizza Hut has the same seven-digit number (310-
1010)
over multiple area codes. The caller never has to dial a long distance
call.

2. The public network automatically routes the call to the nearest Pizza
Hut store, based on the caller's location. So there is no need for a
central answering location or retransmission of the order.

Actually, Bell Canada's 310-Service is just 800-Service in disguise.
The rates (to Pizza Hut) are the same as 800 rates, with a premium
charge added for using 7-digit access. The idea is to let multi-location
companies have a "local" appearance, but only one number to advertise.


Ian Angus    Angus TeleManagement Group   Ajax Ontario Canada
905-686-5050 ext 222       [e-mail]

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

From: Mark Breman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Looking For Remote Control Solution
Organization: NLnet
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 12:10:06 GMT


Hi there,

Currently we are using a NetWare connect modem pool. To communicate
with this pool we are using the windows nasi redirector (attnasi 1.0
loaded at windows startup) from NOVELL which redirects COM1 to the
modem pool. As remote control software we wanted to use ReachOut
because this supports Super VGA 1024*768. ReachOut doesn't seem to
work with the modem pool (COM1 is not redirected) because it makes no
use of the standard windows communications API.

Can anyone tell me which remote control solution supports SVGA
1024*768 or higher and is able to make use of a modem pool through the
windows nasi redirector mentioned above?

Because of memory problems we're not able to use the DOS nasi
redirector.
We are using NetWare 3.11, IPXODI 2.12, NETX 3.32, Windows 3.1 upgraded
to 3.11 (NOT WfW).

Please reply by email to: [e-mail]


Thanks in advance,

Mark Breman  [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (James E. Law)
Subject: Question on Setting up Internet Users Group
Date: 04 Mar 1995 02:56:33 GMT
Organization: Chattanooga Online!


I would appreciate any suggestions you can provide on how to organize
a successful internet users group. Such a group has just been
initiated in Chattanooga, TN (CHATNET) and is in the process of
getting organized.  Things seem to be off to a good start with 47 in
attendance of our Jan.  meeting. I know that some of you have been
through this start-up phase multiple time and can suggest how we do it
right. In particular, I would like input on:

1. Would you send me a copy of your charters/by-laws?

2. What kinds of officers are in place for your group?

3. What is the format of your meetings? What kind of meeting activities
do
members find to be interesting and/or helpful?

4. What activities (other than meetings) are your group involved in
(e.g.
training, communnity service projects, internet promotion)?

5. Are there any organizations that provide support to internet users
groups? Any industry sponsors out there?

6. Any other suggestions?

Please send your response via e-mail.


Thanks for your help.

Ed Law ([e-mail])

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

From: Cole Cooper <[e-mail]>
Date: 3 Mar 1995  9:49:02 EDT
Subject: Oh Yeah?


> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh go ahead, you can whisper it to me.
> I won't tell anyone who doesn't read the Digest or Usenet. You think
> Ma Bell is a bitch, is that it?    <g>     PAT]<<

More than likely -- if he told you -- he'd have to kill you.  (grin)
But I don't think he wants to - the paperwork afterwards can be
grueling.  It would be a RFT-PM007 (Request for Termination - Post
Mortem), and the last time I used one of those it took six months for
approval.


REPLY-TO: C.M. (Cole) Cooper - Stentor Resource Centre Inc.  3W 3030
2nd Avenue S.E.  Calgary, Alberta. CANADA T2A 5N7
Internet: [e-mail]
TN: 403-531-4205   Compuserve 73361,35
Fax [phone] or 1-800-269-7571
The Information Superhighway Construction Foreman's office

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

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #133
******************************