TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Jan 93 14:54:50 CST Volume 13 : Issue 12 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Calling Canada From Italy - Answers (Wm Randolph Franklin) Canadian Competition Full Steam Ahead; Bell Canada Loses (David Leibold) Bell Canada Proposes Extended 911 Service (For a Price) (David Leibold) Calling 1-800 Can Cost You a Fortune (Udi Manber) 16550 UART Request (Randy Zagar) FAQ Update on the Way (David Leibold) Equivalence Charges (Tony Harminc) Bellcore Documents Phone Number Wanted (Daniel Drucker) TSR Comm. S/W (Dave Dunwoodie) Cellular Phones: CLI, VOICE & SHORT (Rudolf Usselmann) What is Junk Fax? (Ron Herff) What Should I Know if I'm Buying a Cellular Phone? (Joel M. Hoffman) Possibility of Interstate Closed-User-Group of Dial-up Modems? (Mike Brown) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: wrf@speed.ecse.rpi.edu (Wm Randolph Franklin) Subject: Calling Canada From Italy - answers Reply-To: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 00:52:21 GMT In December I asked how to call Canada from Italy since AT&T and MCI didn't do it (with US cards). Several people said that there is a "Canada Direct" number from Italy, 172 1001. It charges, roughly, $6 for 3 minutes, then $1 per minute, and say that they take AT&T calling cards. Thanks to: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) Tony Harminc Samuel Ho The Italian PTT prints a wallet card giving direct numbers like this for many countries. It's available at some visitor centers and international airports. I mentioned about using MCI to call from Italy to Germany. That's a real example, they have large ads for the service. They charge $2/minute, which suggests that the call is routed via the USA. Calling Germany directly from Italy is only (!!) $1/min. Italy is apparently one of the more expensive European countries for international calling. International directory assistance from Italy can be complicated. They try to use their own copies of the foreign directories instead of connecting you to a foreign operator. When I tried to get a number in Zurich, the Italian operator who could talk to me in English could not easily read the German phonebook to look up the really obscure number I wanted, that of the Swiss Post Office. On the plus side, the newer pay phones have an LCD display for messages, and the messages are available in four languages. Italy has variable length phone numbers, even within one city, such as Genoa. Area codes are also variable. I'm available for questions about phones in Italy since I just came back from three months over there. Wm. Randolph Franklin, wrf@ecse.rpi.edu, (518) 276-6077; Fax: -6261 ECSE Dept., 6026 JEC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst, Troy NY, 12180 USA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 00:02:45 EST From: David Leibold Subject: Canadian Competition Full Steam Ahead; Bell Canada Loses CFRB Radio in Toronto reported today that Bell Canada will not pursue any further appeals with respect to the decision last June which opened up public long distance competition in Canada. Bell appealed portions of that decision relating to the level of compensation that competitors to Bell would have to pay to gain trunk-side access to Bell's local network. That is, while Unitel was able to offer a local number port service (Feature Group A type service), the enhanced services such as equal access, 10xxx+ dialing, 950 access and 800 services were on hold while the appeal was being processed. In December, the appeal court found that the CRTC did not overstep its authority in issuing the long distance decision, and that the CRTC's decision could stand. At that time, Bell could have made another, final appeal to the Supreme Court of Ca nada but as of today's announcement, such an appeal is not proceeding. Some time will elapse as preparations for full trunk-side access are made. The prevalence of Bell Canada DMS digital switches should make the switch to equal access relatively straightforward on a software scale (those DMS switches have to work in the U.S. environment in any event). The costs seem to be in the hardware and trunks necessary to connect to the carriers. At least we're not getting any COCOTs ... yet :-) dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 00:15:05 EST From: David Leibold Subject: Bell Canada Proposes Extended 911 Service (For a Price) {The Toronto Star} reports that Bell Canada has applied to bring 911 service throughout Ontario (and not just certain municipalities that elect to have the service, as is currently the case). Bell proposes that customers be charged 30 cents per month as part of the local monthly service, though. 70% of residences in Ontario have access to 911 at present, paid for by municipalities involved. If approved, the extended 911 service would be installed within five years. Municipalities would still have to staff response centres and connections to emergency services, if they join the 911 service. There are occasional cases outside of 911-serviced territory where calls to 911 are attempted, but fail. In those areas, the operator is normally able to handle emergency calls, but the lack of universal 911 service can be dangerous for the unwary. dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 00:57:37 -0800 From: udi@cs.washington.edu (Udi Manber) Subject: Calling 1-800 Can Cost You a Fortune If you always thought that 1-800 numbers (in the US) are toll free, think again. With new technology and the lack of regulations, people are finding new ways to make money. I learned this the hard way after being charged for (apparently) dialing the wrong 800 number. It took me a month and a half and probably 20 phone calls to find out this story. I'll try to make it short. It is possible, and apparently perfectly legal, to set an 800 number such that when you call you hear a recording that tells you that there will be charges for the call. The call is then transferred to a "station to station" call (quote from someone I talked to, but probably the wrong term) with arbitrary charges. That domain was reserved until recently to 900 numbers but through call forwarding (or some other mechanism) it can be done from any number! (If you haven't already guessed, most of these numbers are adult phone lines.) The idea (if there ever was one) is that you will have a fair warning and can hang up, but this is not enforced and is not always done. There are such numbers out there that will charge you whatever they feel like when you happen to dial them, and they are regular 800 numbers, and maybe even regular local numbers (not 976 or other special prefixes). The possibilities for scams are endless (I list some below for your reading pleasure), and the most scary thing is that it is so difficult to do anything about it. I talked to the billing company (INTEGRETEL which is an umbrella billing company for lots of outfits), US West (more on that later), ATT (who really has nothing to do with that and hate it just as much as I do), and the Washington state utilities commission. Everyone essentially said "just pay it, nothing we can do about it." Only after several conversations with the commission, and calls from them to US West (initially US West would not even take my complaint), I was told that US West now has a policy of removing such charges (coming from INTEGRETEL) for anyone who complains. When the next bill came, I found that they didn't. I called again, and no one knew anything about that policy. After more calls I was finally put in touch with someone probably higher up at US West who seemed to know what he was talking about. According to him (and two people at the commission), there is nothing really they can or going to do (besides handling complaints). They will remove the charges -- and he apologized for the operators and supervisors who did not know about that policy -- but will not prevent this from continuing. (He also told me that he got hold of some of those 800 numbers and indeed some charge you from the first second no matter what you do.) Washington State has a recent law regulating 900 numbers, but there is nothing about 800 numbers (they're free, right?). I don't know if this is a local idea or whether it is all over the place. I was told several times that there are no rules anywhere that say that 800 numbers are toll free. It's just something that everyone "knows". US West feels that they cannot discriminate against businesses that use their lines, and cannot prevent that use without a specific law. Since in this case the 800 number led to an out of state call, the utilities commission can't do anything. Everyone agreed that this is probably a great scam, but ... The beauty of this scam is that you are so far away from the people who are making it (you can't even find out who they are). They get your local phone company to bill you and the phone company feels they have to do it. Complaining is so hard, most people would prefer to pay the charges (I definitely spent more time than it was worth), not to mention that it is part of the phone bill and many people wouldn't notice (it appears as a long-distance call). And in the worst case they will not get your money. So here are some scam ideas (these are all fiction; do not try it at home): You can get an 800 number that is one digit away from a widely used 800 number and rip off anyone who makes a mistake (maybe that's what happened to me, they would not tell me the number). How about setting your own 900 number so that you can forward calls to it by all those who try to sell you something. Wouldn't that be great? They: "How are you doing this evening Mr. Manber?" Me: push a button and voila "You have reached the toll line explaining why unsolicited calls are bothering me. You will be charged $15 per minute starting 15 seconds ago. Please stay on the line..." (I think, by the way, that this is possible...) I was told that there were cases where people's calls got transferred *out of the country* after making local calls. You can put ads for information on how to make $10 a minute - just call 1-800-747-6337. That's 1-800-rip-offs! [This is an imaginary number - don't call please!]. How about tricking modems into calling those "local" numbers? Or going into lots of public places and asking "can I use your phone for a local call?" (You wouldn't block 800 numbers or local calls!) I have never seen this mentioned anywhere. I am really curious to know how this forwarding is physically done and whether anyone knows of any discussion on that at the FCC (who is probably the only agency that can do anything about it). Since I spent quite a bit of time already, I'd like to know any additional information anyone can give me about this (and similar) scams. Udi Manber (udi@cs.washington.edu) [Moderator's Note: We have discussed this here on many occassions in the past. Integretel will give you the name of the client they are billing for if you are persistent enough. The bad thing about outfits like Integretel and their clients are they make it hard on the honest operators of information and (yes, even phone sex) services. They don't seem to care that the public paints all such services with the same brush. PAT] ------------------------------ From: zagar@chester.cms.udel.edu (Randy [Java Man] Zagar) Subject: 16550 UART Request Reply-To: zagar@chester.cms.udel.edu Organization: Marine Studies, University of Delaware Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 17:51:10 GMT Okay folks ... if you'll e-mail me the names of vendors that sell computers with the 16550 UART on the motherboard, I'll summarize and re-post to the net. Thanks, Randy Zagar Internet: zagar@Chester.CMS.UDel.Edu Bell-net: 302/831-1139 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 22:04:20 EST From: David Leibold Subject: FAQ Update on The Way Some corrections and comments have arrived with respect to the FAQ which was re-posted to start the year off. Since the FAQ hasn't been touched in a year, I am about to get an update out of the way. This is the last chance to send in any corrections or other ideas for the version 4 FAQ which is expected to be available by the end of January. so ... send those cards and letters to: dleibold1@attmail.com or ... dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jan 93 01:36:49 EST From: Tony Harminc Subject: Equivalence Charges I was reviewing the phone bill for a company where I am consulting, and realized that Bell Canada is charging for one more equivalence feature than I would expect, e.g. there is a hunt group of three lines - the one published number hunts to the second if busy, which hunts to the third if second is busy, and that's the end - busy signal. Bell charges for three equivalence features for this. The droid in the business office insists that there is an 'ending feature' that must be installed on the third line to make it all work. I believe this is complete nonsense, but just before I open my mouth wide, could someone confirm that technically there is no 'feature' that need be installed on the last line of a hunt group? It would seem that this scheme of charging penalizes small business and residential users who have only a few lines. Large users will barely notice the 'n+1' charge distributed over many lines. Tony Harminc [Moderator's Note: When I worked at the UC phone room about 1960, there was one group of incoming trunks with *97* lines in a rotary hunt. MUseum 4-6100 hunted 6101 which hunted 6102 and on up the line to 6196. Outgoing calls from the switchboard started the other way around, with the first outgoing call on 6196 then backward one at a time. In actual practice the incoming calls met the outgoing calls around 6150. I thought that many lines in a hunt group was pretty outrageous. One time I tried busying out all the lines from 6100 through 6195, then placed a call to 6100 ... it took maybe two seconds longer than usual to hunt that far before sure enough, it rang in on 6196. (This was about four in the morning.) PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Bellcore Documents Phone Number Wanted From: mertwig!daniel@uunet.UU.NET (Daniel Drucker) Reply-To: Daniel Drucker Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 11:09:41 EST Organization: Abnormalities of Reality I was just reading _The Hacker Crackdown_ (Bruce Sterling). It mentions an 800 number and a catalog from Bellsouth where you can order various telco documents. (For instance E911.) Does anyone know the number? Please reply by mail as I do not recieve this newsgroup. Daniel Drucker daniel%mertwig@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ From: Dave Dunwoodie 6042 Subject: TSR Comm. S/W Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 06:38:25 MST I need a TSR that will write to the CRT anything received from the modem. My modem has caller ID, but I'm not in the mood to leave the PC in terminal mode on the off chance that the phone might ring! Ideas? ------------------------------ From: rudi@netcom.com (Rudolf Usselmann) Subject: Cellular Phones: CLI, VOICE & SHORT Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 19:12:39 GMT I have a Motorola MicroTAC Lite pocket phone. It has three features which I still don't quite understend: CLI, VOICE & SHORT CLI - seems to be something like Caller ID, it will store the phone number of the last caller. VOICE - Some sort of mailbox support? SHORT - Some sort of mailbox for short messages? None of these feature are supported yet (at least according to the company I have my service with). Does anybody have more info on these features? When will they beocme available? I'm in the SF Bay Area. The two major cellular providers are Cellular One and GTE Mobilnet. BTW: Which is "better" GTE or C1? Thanks a bunch ! rudi rudi@netcom.com Phone: (415) 321-8692 x236 work; (510) 745-7834 home ------------------------------ Subject: What is Junk Fax? From: ron.herff@satalink.com (Ron Herff) Date: 7 Jan 93 14:00:00 GMT Organization: Datamax/Satalink Connection * Ivyland, PA (215) 443-9434 Reply-To: ron.herff@satalink.com (Ron Herff) The FCC has passed some new regulations regarding junk telephone calls and "junk FAXes." Does anyone have the text of these new regulations? I am particularly interested in what makes a FAX a "junk FAX." Are all unsolicited FAXes "junk FAXes?" Is an unsolicited FAX directly addressed to a person "junk?" and illegal? Ron Herff [Moderator's Note: An unsolicited fax sent to someone is not automat- icaly 'junk' any more than an unsolicited phone call is 'junk', despite what a lot of companies may claim about 'unauthorized' fax messages or 'unauthorized' email, etc. If a large company can call me on the phone and try to sell me something, I can send them a fax message telling them what I think. PAT] ------------------------------ From: joel@wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: What Should I Know if I'm Buying a Cellular Phone? Organization: University of Maryland, College Park Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 15:32:34 GMT I'd like to purchase a portable phone -- one that I can take with me and use in the car, but don't know anything about them. Is there somewhere I can look for info? Or, would some kind soul like to tell me what I should know? The phone will mostly be used in the New York City area (in the city and in the suburbs), if that makes any difference. Many thanks! Joel [Moderator's Note: You might want to get the back issues of the Digest from the Telecom Archives (anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu) and read over the numerous discussions we have had on this in the past. It is really an applications problem: how do you intend to use the phone, how often, etc. There are far too many deals in the market place at any given time to cover them all here. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Possibility of Interstate Closed-User-Group of Dial-up Modems Date: Thu 7 Jan 93 02:46:24 CST From: mb2452@swuts.sbc.com Reply-To: mb2452@swuts.sbc.com I have an application where I want to deploy about 200 dial up modems across several states that are only accessible from a few originating phone numbers. Is this possible with off the shelf services and equipment? Using dedicated lines to PADs on an X.25 network and configuring the ports as a closed-user-group will work; but I am searching for a cheaper solution. Regards, Mike Brown Communications Support / Wide Area Networks Information Services us-mail: Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. One Bell Center, Rm. 24-V-5 St. Louis, MO 63101 voice: 314-235-7863 fax: 314-235-1397 e-mail: mb2452@swuts.sbc.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #12 *****************************