TELECOM Digest Wed, 6 Jan 93 16:30:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 10 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson North Carolina Area Code 919 to Split Into 919 and 910 (Bob Goudreau) 800 Number Troubles (Mike McNally) 976 Fraud in Toronto (Tony Harminc) Asia-Pacific Engineering Journal - Call For Papers (Chua Kee Chaing) Out of Town Businesses on Local Numbers? (lunatix!chelf@ms.uky.edu) UUCP Through Multiple Carriers (Michael Hamilton) Hunt Groups (Rob Boudrie) Does a CNID Device List Exist? (Don Wegeng) A Minor Nit With the Telecom FAQ (Pat Turner) Colorado Gets Caller ID (Tim Gorman) Do-It-Yourself Caller ID (Thomas K. Hinders) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 11:55:48 -0500 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: North Carolina Area Code 919 to Split Into 919 and 910 David Esan, in the January V&H report, notes: > Other NPAs that are candidates for a split include eastern North > Carolina (714) [sic], Philadelphia (215), and 602 (Arizona). Someone else recently posted an article describing 215's split into 215 and 610. Well, we can now add 919 (which is what Dave *meant* to say above when describing the crowded area code that covers all of eastern and northern North Carolina; 704 covers just the southwestern portion of the state) to the list of splitters. Today's _News_&_Observer_ (Raleigh's daily) announces that a new area code 910 will be created out of 919 later this year. The new area will encompass the northwestern and north-central areas of the state (including the "Triad" area of Greensboro, Winston Salem and High Point), and will cut a diagonal corridor through the middle of the state on its way to the coast, where it will also pick up the entire southeastern portion (including Wilmington and Fayetteville). The 919 code will be reduced to the central and northeastern parts of North Carolina, starting at Sanford and stretching north and east to include the Resarch Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) area all the way to the Outer Banks and the eastern part of the Virginia border. The "permissive dialing" phase (when 910 is first activated, but when 919 will still also work for 910 numbers) will begin November 14th of this year. The cutover will be complete on February 13, 1994, when 910 will be required for all numbers in the new area. The newspaper article notes that "... it is expected that the 910 area code will cause some confusion because it is so similar to 919". (Incidentally, has any area code split ever used a new code so similar to the old one?) Of course, we TELECOM Digest readers know the reason for this, and so does the article, which mentions that "... the 910 area code was the only one available to North Carolina." So that's it folks: all the N10 area codes have now been exhausted, given that the US government is apparently not going to relinquish its secretive 710 code. If there are any other splits within the NANP before the NXX era begins next year, they'll have to burn one of the N11 or N00 codes. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: mcnally@wsl.dec.com (Mike McNally) Subject: 800 Number Troubles Date: 6 Jan 93 19:16:15 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Palo Alto, CA Here's something a little strange, to me anyway. I've been trying all morning to call Equifax and find out how to get a copy of my credit information. I got through once to their robo-phone system, and after about five minutes of menu navigation it just dropped me in the middle of a recorded message. Fine. I tried to call back, however, and got the message "Due to technical difficulties, we cannot complete your call. Please try again later." Hmm. I repeatedly dialed and got the same result. The AT&T operators told me that the number is an MCI number, and they directed me to MCI 800 service (888-1800). There, I was told that the number was indeed working, but that the customer (Equifax) had set up the account such that only 45% of the calls originating rom my area code (415) would succeed. The rest get the "technical difficulties" message. Two separate MCI people told me this same thing. Well gee, I'm a little miffed at this setup; why don't I just get a busy signal? MCI would save themselves a lot of time if they'd do that instead of the clearly bogus message; if I got a busy signal, I would interpret that to mean that my call couldn't get through because the capacity had been exhausted. Alternatively, the message could tell me exactly what's going on: "We're sorry, but you lose; we only accept 45% of the calls from area code 415, and you're in the unlucky 55%." Mike + Software + Digital Equipment + Western Software + mcnally@ McNally + Laborer + Corporation + Laboratory + wsl.dec.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 06 Jan 93 00:56:39 EST From: Tony Harminc Subject: 976 Fraud in Toronto This past November, a company I consult for had three unauthorized calls to (416) 976-9467 made on one of its lines. Each call was one minute long and was billed at $24. Thinking back, we remember the likely perpetrator -- a man claiming to be serving legal papers on someone who supposedly used to work at the office address. There were several small discrepancies to his story, but he seemed just as puzzled as we were. He asked to use the phone, and I remember that he did a lot of dialing, but when challenged he showed a pager with display and claimed he was calling his voicemail. Bell Canada has agreed to remove the charges, but will not tell us the name of the owner of this number. We are not eager to pursue it with the police, because of the small amount of the fraud, but we are concerned that this may be part of an organized scam (else how would the 'process server' benefit?) and others may also have been hit. The $24 charge is quite a bit higher than the usual sex and sleaze lines which -- according to the ads -- are mostly $10. We have cleaned up our act for handling of future visitors who want to use the phone (for now we dial it, and toll restrictors are coming soon), but I would like 1) suggestions for how to pursue this, and 2) to hear from anyone else in 416 who has been hit with calls to this number. Perhaps someone in an adjacent NPA could dial it and let me know who answers. Many thanks. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: eleckc@nuscc.nus.sg (Chua Kee Chaing (Dr)) Subject: Asia-Pacific Engineering Journal - Call For Papers Organization: National University of Singapore Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 02:11:13 GMT ASIA-PACIFIC ENGINEERING JOURNAL PART A - ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING December 1993 Issue on Communications Engineering CALL FOR PAPERS The Asia-Pacific Engineering Journal (APEJ) provides within the rapidly changing Asia-Pacific region a unique source of information on current international research activities and trends in technology. It aims to keep its readers fully briefed with major papers, reports and reviews on state-of-the-art technologies and products. The journal is published in separate parts that cover the disciplines of Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, Chemical and Industrial Engineering. Part A is devoted to Electrical Engineering, and covers the four main areas of Communications Engineering, Computer Engineering, Control and Automation, and Microelectronics. The December 1993 issue of Part A of the APEJ is devoted to Communications Engineering. The issue will be a special issue concentrating on the field of High-Speed Networking, and original contributions in all aspects of this field of research are now solicited. In particular, relevant topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: * Broadband ISDN and ATM networks * Gigabit/s networking * Lightwave networks * High-speed transport protocols * Management of high-speed networks * Flow and congestion control in high-speed networks Prospective authors are requested to submit four (4) copies of their manuscripts, written in English, and including a 100-word abstract, to the following by 1 April 1993. Dr. Kee C. Chua Department of Electrical Engineering National University of Singapore 10 Kent Ridge Crescent Singapore 0511 Fax.: +65 777 3117 Email.: eleckc@nuscc.nus.sg ------------------------------ Subject: Out of Town Businesses on Local Numbers? Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 0:32:59 EST From: lunatix!chelf@ms.uky.edu The other day, I saw the number for a business located in a nearby town (which is not normally in the local calling area), however, the prefix was a local one. I tried calling the number, but could not get through. I tried the operator and she connected me, and after asking why the 'number' was in my town, and the 'business' was in another, she only said, 'It's in the computer, but it is connected to a different town.' Any ideas as to what's happening here? [Moderator's Note: Businesses (actually, anyone, but it is mostly businesses) can have a 'foreign exchange' line -- commonly known as an FX. When they use that phone, or receive calls on it, it is as though they were in the place where the phone exchange is located. There are various reasons one might do this. One reason is the company makes a large volume of calls to that town, and the cost of the FX line plus local calling charges, if any, are less than the cost of the same number of calls dialed as long distance. Other times an FX line is intended to give a company a 'presence' in the town where it is located. They wish to make a convenient way for their customers in that town to reach them, and find the call volume is sufficient to warrant a dedicated FX line rather than hundreds (or thousands) of calls on 800 lines. Whether or not an FX line makes better sense than (for example) a IN-WATS line is an applications problem. With the cost of long distance and/or 800 calls being less than ever before, FX lines are not nearly as common as they used to be. PAT] ------------------------------ From: pacific!mkh%jato@jato-news.jpl.nasa.gov (michael hamilton) Subject: UUCP Through Multiple Carriers Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 18:13:34 GMT I am currently taking a newsfeed through a university (which shall remain nameless, but Thank God John Robinson is back) in Los Angeles. To do this, I must go through my local carrier GTE, and through the carrier that services the university area, Pac-Bell. Further, the University has an Instanet Data PABX port selector that I have to navigate through, before I finally reach the system I want. To do this, I'm using a Telebit T2500, and going through what I believe is a Micom modem on the university side. My question: is all this routing through various switches causing my horrible throughput? I should be getting on the order of 1200 cps, and I get more like 400, if and when I don't time out waiting for the other end. I have tried every combination of register settings, disabling V.42, MNP, etc., but nothing improves this performance. I know it's not the modem, because talking to another T2500 (in the same GTE area) I got >4X what I'm getting now. Thanks for any thoughts on this. Responses through e-mail are preferred, but if you post here I'll eventually see it. michael hamilton mkh@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov / oceanography from space ------------------------------ From: rboudrie@chpc.org (Rob Boudrie) Subject: Hunt Groups Organization: Center For High Perf. Computing of WPI; Marlboro Ma Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 11:10:33 GMT Is it possible for two numbers serviced by the same physical CO to be placed on a hunt group even though they has different exchange prefixes? I don't want to have either of my numbers changed since one is my old number everyone knows, and the other is a xxx-xx00 number (had to pull some strings to get it). When I ordered service and made various inquiries, I run into folks who don't know what terms like "POTS line" and "demarc" mean, and offered me services excluded by tariff (the sales rep initially told me they could offer me a metered line, though this is prohibited if you have an unmetered line in the same house). [ After answering his questions about the various telco terms, he asked if there was anything else he should know about the fone system, saying that they had obviously not trained enough. I told him he should learn all about area code 710, and to keep asking until he finds someone who can explain what it is for. (Wish I could be there for that :) :) ) ]. rob boudrie rboudrie@chpc.org [Moderator's Note: I've never heard of a hunt group including lines on different prefixes, even if they were in the same CO. Anyone? PAT] ------------------------------ From: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com (Don Wegeng) Subject: Does a CNID Device List Exist? Reply-To: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com Organization: Xerox Corp., Henrietta, NY Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 11:55:10 GMT With all of the requests for information about CNID devices, it occured to me that it would be useful if someone or some publication had assembled a list of the devices that are currently available. I appreciate that it may be very difficult to keep track of all of the products that are being introduced, but perhaps one of the consumer magazines has published a summary. Does anyone know of such a list? Thanks, Don wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com ------------------------------ From: turner@Dixie.Com Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 10:27 EST Reply-To: turner@dixie.com Subject: A Minor Nit With the Telecom FAQ I think Dave did an excellent job with the faq, but I would like to make a minor nit. > Q: What do "tip" and "ring" mean? > A: The conductors of a wire pair to a telephone set are referred to > as tip (T) and ring (R). Tip (T) is usually the more positively > charged of the two while Ring (R) tends to be more of a ground. This seems to be a common misconception. CO battery is -48, rather then +48 with respect to (WRT) ground. Thus tip is positive WRT ring, but is actually at ground, if current isn't flowing. Ring is then at -48 V, again assuming no voltage losses. The reasons for doing is galvonic corrosion protection. A conductor with a - charge will repel chlorine ions, as Cl ions are negative also. If the line were to have a posative charge, Cl ions would be attracted. This form of corrosion protection is called cathodic protection. It is often used for pipelines, bridges, etc. I don't know how important it is now, but it was very important in the days of open wire transmission lines. CO battery does not have to be 48 V. 24 V is often used for PBX and Key systems, long loops may have a higher battery voltage. > However, two wires normally suffice to complete a connection > between a telephone and the central office; any extra wiring > would be for purposes such as grounding or for party line ringing. Also to supply dial light for the Princess phones. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ Date: 06 Jan 93 10:04:04 EST From: tim gorman <71336.1270@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Colorado Gets Caller ID In TELECOM Digest V13, #8 I read the following concerning Caller ID penetration. Colorado (Richard Lucas): Heavy Demand at initial offering. Nevada (Centel) : 10% penetration IBT (Moderator) : Very popular service long term New Jersey (NJ Bell) : 4.6% penetration (no blocking available) Colorada has PUC mandated restrictions about blocking availability and, as I remember, so does IBT. I am unsure about Nevada -- does anyone know if blocking availablity is mandated there? I realize that initial demand in Colorado doesn't necessarily translate into similar long term demand, but for the sake of argument, assume it does. Let's also assume that Nevada has mandated blocking availability. That would mean that Caller ID penetration is higher in those areas with mandated blocking than in the area that doesn't have any blocking at all available. By more than double in the case of Nevada! Perhaps PacBell is making a marketing mistake by not offering caller id even though mandated blocking restrictions would apply? Perhaps their total revenues would be higher than if no blocking at all was available? Tim Gorman - SWBT *opinions are mine, any resemblance to official policy is coincidence* ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 93 11:25:11-0800 From: /PN=Thomas.K.Hinders/OU=CCMAIL/O=CHAN.IS/PRMD=MMC/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/@spri nt.com Subject: Do-It-Yourself Caller ID From the Dec 1992 {Telecommunications} magazine in the Technology Watch Page 14: Do-It-Yourself Caller ID "Caller ID hits the computer marketplace. While the Telcos roll out Caller ID systems and regulators wrestle with privacy issues, the consumer marketplace is offering its own form of call screening. One such product is offered through KES Communications Inc., which has released Friends Only, a device that picks up calls before the telephone rings. With it, users can dodge unwanted calls via a three-digit security access code." "When a caller initially gets through, an operator-like voice says: 'Thank you for calling; please enter your access code.' Callers who do not enter the code within ten seconds are disconnected. The device is FCC compliant, but users may encounter some procedural difficulties prior to using the product. KES notes that changes in telco facilities, equipment, or operation of the product. In addition, the local exchange carrier must be notified prior to connection in order to comply with state tariffs; and in some states, PUCs must approve use prior to connection. The device uses RJ-11C connectors which plug into telephone and wall receptacles. It is compatable with special features such as call waiting, call forwarding, and three-way calling. The price is $99.95." No address or phone number was supplied. Wonder if you need a access code to get them to answer the phone? Thomas K Hinder Martin Marietta Computing Standards 4795 Meadow Wood Lane Chantilly, VA 22021 703.802.5593 (v) 703.802.5218 (f) [Moderator's Note: This is just the old 'Priv-Code' device. It first came out in the middle 1970's and was manufactured then by the International Mobile Machines Corp. of Bala Cynwyd, PA. It sits on the line and grabs all incoming calls. Unless the person enters the proper code, your phone never rings. Certain codes are allocated to send calls direct to an answering machine you attach to the line. I had one about fifteen years ago; they are fun, but can be a nuisance for people trying to legitimatly reach you who do not have a code number. I think someone wrote me once to say IMM no longer was making the thing; someone else is doing it now. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #10 *****************************