TELECOM Digest Mon, 11 Jan 93 23:47:10 CST Volume 13 : Issue 19 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Rutgers Exchange-Changing Mayhem (birchall@pilot.njin.net) Want Info on Ringing Voltages/Cadences Around the World (Steve Pershing) US Losing Lead in Telecom - USC Report (UPI via Ang Peng Hwa) Call for Volunteers at INTEROP 93 Spring (Ole J. Jacobsen) Bellcore NPA/NXX Information (Al Varney) Use a Phone, Go to Jail (Paul S. Sawyer) Canadian Competition Full Steam Ahead; Enter AT&T (Andrew M. Dunn) Visual "Bell" For a POTS Line (Kristobal Pedregal Martin) Re: Colorado Gets Caller ID (John Higdon) Re: Colorado Gets Caller ID (Conrad Kimball) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag) Subject: Rutgers Exchange-Changing Mayhem Date: 11 Jan 93 22:16:32 GMT Organization: Screaming in Digital, the Queensryche Digest Rutgers University has an outlying campus in Camden, NJ. The campus is in exchange 609-757, with some businesses. Since that exchange has become full, the campus is being moved to a new exchange, 609-225, which went into service on Friday (1/8/93). Banners to this effect were placed on the campus dialins early this week. Within a day, several users of a public system at Rutgers had left posts saying that they would no longer be able to call in for free, because NJ Bell had told them the new exchange wasn't local to them. Naturally, since the "localness" of a call is based on the distance between CO's (at least in NJ), and the CO's were quite obviously right where they'd always been, this caused a lot of confusion for the rest of us, who were quite certain it would be a free call, as always. It turned out that a scenario like this was being repeatedly carried out: User calls the operator to ask about 225. Operator keys 225 into the computer. Since 609-225 doesn't _exist_ yet, the computer decides that they must (of course) mean 908-225, which is some 60 miles away (and, coincidentally, a local call from a _different_ Rutgers campus). Operator tells user that it's not local. User panics. When I called NJ Bell, and explained to the operator that it was a Rutgers campus changing exchanges, the operator's response was, "Oh, I remember when they did that up here in New Brunswick, it'll still be local." Convincing all the users who had been told by NJ Bell that it _wasn't_ local was a bit of a challenge, though! When I mentioned this to a friend in Rutgers Telecom (T.P. Brisco), he pointed out another bit of trivia: "I understand when we split from 908-932 to 908-932 and 908-445, that originally NJB proposed that we take the newly available 809 exchange (instead of 445). We rescinded that proposal on the grounds that a phone number like 908-809-xxxx would lead to too many typographical errors, and confusion with the newly minted 908 area code. Maybe we should've asked for 923 instead of 445?" T.P. also posted a followup message mentioning that people had better specify 609-225 when they called the operator. I think all the users have caught onto the idea now, but there's bound to be a few who stop calling in (particularly people from outside Rutgers who just dial in to use the public system). Of course, those few who continue believing it's a toll call after all our explaining are probably modem-incompetent anyway. Shag birchall@pilot.njin.net, shag@glia.biostr.washington.edu, birchall@njin.bitnet Operator of ShagNet - Rutgers/NJIN dialup access for Burlington County, NJ Happy and informative user of a PPI 14400 FaxModem and GeoWorks Pro Editor of the Queensryche E-mail Digest - "Screaming in Digital" ------------------------------ Subject: Want Info on Ringing Voltages/Cadences Around the World From: sp@questor.org (Steve Pershing) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 15:08:01 PST Organization: Questor|Free Usenet News|Vancouver, BC: +1 604 681 0670 I have sold a good few ZyXEL modems to various happy clients around the world via our mail-server. In one instance (and I suspect there are many more) the modems worked fine, but would not answer when a call was incoming. This particular instance was in Japan. After a call to ZyXEL's tech support, they had a hidden register which had to be set, and voil`a, everything worked just fine. Recently, I noticed a posting in comp.dcom.modems in which a Swedish ZyXEL user seemed to be having similar problems. Is there such a great diversity in ringing current and ringing cadences, other than the ringing in country code 1 and country code 44? If there is a FAQ describing this, please let me know about it and I will get hold of it. Thanks! Steve Pershing, SysAdmin The QUESTOR Project FREE access to Environ, Sci, Med, & AIDS news, and more. [also UUCP] on a ZyXEL-U1496S+ => v.42bis, v.32bis, v.33, up to 16,800bps. -=- -=- -=- -=- Fones: (+1 604) Data: 681-0670 Telefax: 682-6160 Voice: 682-6659 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 10:38:51 SST From: Ang Peng Hwa Subject: US Losing Lead in Telecom - USC Report This report is from UPI: Los Angeles -- America's traditional lead in telecommunications is eroding very rapidly as other nations promote new technologies, according to a study released Wednesday. "The potential of new information communication technologies and services is widely appreciated around the world and many nations are making aggressive steps to promote their deployment," said the University of Southern California study. The study, produced by the USC's Center for Telecommunications Management and covering 24 nations, found that the US lagged in a number of key technologies compared with other nations, such as converting analog networks to more efficient digital networks and investment. It said digitalization of the US network stood at just over 50 percent at the end of 1991, which ranks ninth of 18 reporting countries, while US investment in public network infrastructure was 12th among the 18 countries. It also said other nations were retiring used equipment much faster than the US. "While a number of other nations have dramatically increased their capital investment in infrastructure, US investment is flat or declining," it said. "Furthermore, depreciation trends in the US show a shocking pattern." The study added: "During this remarkable period of rapid technological progress and obsolescence, asset lives for public network equipment of local exchange companies have actually increased in the US. Nations like Japan, the United Kingdom, Singapore and others write off and replace equipment twice as fast as most US carriers." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 18:52:32 PST From: Ole J. Jacobsen Subject: Call for Volunteers at INTEROP 93 Spring Please distribute as widely as possible: Call for Volunteers: The INTEROP Conference Assessment Team (CAT) Interop Company is seeking student volunteers to serve as quality control monitors for INTEROP 93 Spring, to be held in Washington, DC, March 8-12, 1993. This is a unique opportunity for students to attend the industry's premier networking conference and tradeshow, while helping us improve the quality and consistency of the conference. As a CAT member you will receive: * Complimentary conference registration for all three conference days; * Complimentary conference notes; * Complimentary registration for an INTEROP tutorial on Monday/Tuesday [NEW!] (You may be assigned to a tutorial that is not your "first choice", but we will make every effort to acommodate your requests.) * Complimentary lunch all three days; * Special INTEROP CAT T-shirts; * A complimentary copy of the book "Exploring the Internet"; As a CAT member you will be asked to: * Monitor preassigned conference sessions on one of the three conference days, by submitting written reports and acting as the "eyes and ears" of the conference organizers. We will provide you with a basic evaluation form to aid the preparation of the reports. (You will be free to attend any conference session and the INTEROP exhibition on your "days off.") * Provide an accurate count of the number of people attending the sessions you are assigned to. ("Clickers" will be provided!) Successful CAT candidates will be students currently enrolled in a computer science or electrical engineering course at undergraduate, graduate or post-graduate level. Applicants should have some understanding of (and interest in) computer networking issues. All applications must be received by February 15, 1993. Please note that Interop Company cannot cover any travel or accommodation costs associated with the CAT program, however as a CAT member you will be elligible for the standard conference discount rate at a number of Washington, DC hotels. To apply, send e-mail to: ole@interop.com with a brief biography and relevant contact information. Don't forget to send a POSTAL address as we will need to send you some hardcopy material. *** PLEASE: Do not include my message in your reply. If you must include it, please do so AFTER your reply rather than before it. Thank you very much.*** Ole J Jacobsen, Editor & Publisher ConneXions--The Interoperability Report Interop Company, 480 San Antonio Road, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94040, Phone: (415) 962-2515 FAX: (415) 949-1779 Email: ole@csli.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 08:31:03 CST From: varney@ihlpl.att.com Subject: Bellcore NPA/NXX Information Reply-To: Al Varney Organization: AT&T Patrick, Several folks have asked for information available in some form from Bellcore -- and my e-mail to them failed. Perhaps you could post this AND include it in FAQ or archive. Thanks. To Bob Larribeau at , asking for NPA/NXX information: Information about which LEC "owns" an NPA/NXX, and lots of other data you might want, is in several Bellcore "products". For example, the NPA-NXX V&H Coordinates Tape (primarily for billing) contains the OCN (Operating Company Number) for each NXX -- you can translate that to an LEC (or equivalent in Canada/Caribbean). To Richard Cox, who asked for information on the NPA/NXX activity guide: I tried to reply, but both and didn't work; SMTP says 'compulink.co.uk' is unknown. ----- So, I've attached a canned response I use for questions about Bellcore, but the telephone numbers correspond to the normal TR/TA document center. The NPA/NXX information is maintained by the (somewhat) separate Traffic Routing Administration (TRA) group, at +1 201 829 3071. To complicate matters, there are three PUBLIC documents published by Bellcore's document center, but maintained by the TRA. These are available by contacting the document center as described in the attachment. - FA20: "Telephone Area Code Directory (TACD) Microfiche" Contains all customer-dialable points in the North American Numbering Plan with the corresponding NPA. Issued monthly. $50 - TR-EOP-000093: "TACD Paper Report" As above, issued annually around September. Ordered by State and Locality. Carrier Identification Codes are included. - TR-OPT-001843: 800/900 List on Paper, giving company name and telephone contact for each NXX assigned with the 800 and 900 codes. Issued quarterly. [Call the document HOTLINE in the attachment for prices of paper documents.] For all other TRA "products", or information about on-line access to a database of routing data, contact the TRA Hotline at +1 201 829 3071, or write to: Traffic Routing Administration Bell Communications Research, Inc. 435 South Street, Room 1J321 Morristown, NJ 07962-1961 These non-public documents and on-line access require signing a "Terms and Conditions Agreement" before purchase. You should ask for a complete list of products and prices. Some of the documents do not include Canada. Some of the more "common-use" TRA documents are: - NPA-NXX Vertical and Horizontal Coordinates Tape (the "V&H Tape") is primarily for billing purposes, and lists (for each NXX) the type of NXX, major/minor V&H coordinates, LATA Code, the ROA, Time Zone, Place Name, OCN (TELCO) and indicators for IDDD and "Non-Dialable". - NPA/NXX Activity Guide lists all NPA/NXX codes schedules to be added, removed or "modified" (monthly). There's also an Active Code List that lists all NPA/NXX codes that aren't planned to be removed or "modified" for the next 6 months. - Local Exchange Routing Guide (LERG) contains information on all USA/Caribbean destinations, switching entities, Rate Centers and Localities, Tandem Homing information, operator service codes, 800/900 NXX assignments, etc. (3 1600 BPI tapes!!!) Mostly useful to IXCs and other TELCos. Good Luck, Al Varney varney@ihlpl.ih.att.com ------ (canned response follows:) ------------------- Bellcore TAs and other preliminary "advisories" are only available by writing: Bellcore Document Registrar 445 South Street - Room 2J-125 P. O. Box 1910 Morristown, NJ 07962-1910 TRs and other "standard" documents can be ordered from: Bellcore Customer Service 60 New England Avenue Piscataway, NJ 08854-4196 or by calling the document HOTLINE (menu-monster) at 1-800-521-CORE (1-800-521-2673). They take AMEX, VISA and MasterCharge, International Money Orders, and Checks on US Banks. If you don't have a document number handy, they can send you a catalog of technical documents. International calls are on +1 908 699 5800. (If you want to order a document, press 2 at the automated greeting. If you want to talk to a person about availability, prices, etc, press 4 at the automated greeting) FAX on (908) 699-5800. If you want to talk to the "pub" folks, or a technical person, the numbers/addresses are in the front of any TR (and the "Catalog"). Al Varney - the above represents my opinion, and not AT&T's.... (And I do wish Bellcore paid commissions for these referrals!) ------------------------------ Subject: Use a Phone, Go to Jail Date: 11 Jan 93 10:02:32 EST (Mon) From: paul@unhtel.unh.edu (Paul S. Sawyer) Recently here (Strafford County, NH) a man was sentenced to four months in jail for telephone harrasment for making two "hang up" calls. With this type of precedent, couldn't we give telemarketers at least 30 days (first offense...) and 800- number billing converters 5-10 years? :-) :-) Paul S. Sawyer - University of New Hampshire CIS - paul@unhtel.unh.edu Telecommunications and Network Services - VOX: +1 603 862 3262 Durham, New Hampshire 03824-3523 - FAX: +1 603 862 2030 ------------------------------ From: amdunn@mongrel.UUCP (Andrew M. Dunn) Subject: Canadian Competition Full Steam Ahead; Enter AT&T Organization: A. Dunn Systems Corporation, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 14:46:36 GMT In article DLEIBOLD@VM1.YorkU.CA (David Leibold) writes: > At least we're not getting any COCOTs ... yet :-) No, but AT&T announced yesterday that they're entering the Canadian market via a modified partnership/investment arrangement with Unitel. Unitel is presently a joint venture of Canadian Pacific and Rogers Communications. Each will reduce their stake to 40% to give AT&T 20% of Unitel in exchange for investment, market development, technical expertise, and access to AT&T's American network. Unitel President George Harvey commented that it was the right move to make at the right time, that AT&T was a strong player in the world telecommunications market, and that the arrangement would benefit all parties. He particularly stressed that the move would lead to faster, cheaper communications throughout Canada, and that he expected rates to fall quickly as new arrangements were made. Unitel offers communications services in competition with Bell Canada in the long-distance market, as well as private circuit facilities to businesses (which has been their mainstay up until the present time). It will be interesting to see what this venture brings. It will, at the very least, be a significant change to the Canadian telecommun- ications marketplace. I don't work for Unitel, Rogers, CP, or AT&T. Nor am I a customer (yet). But I did once work for Unitel's predecessor... Andy Dunn or ------------------------------ From: pedregal%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Visual "Bell" For a POTS Line Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 11:51:05 EST Reply-To: pedregal@cs.umass.edu Greetings. I have a couple of applications for a device that flashes a light (maybe even a strobe) when a plain phone line rings. Such a thing must exist, but I can't find sources. Please email to me and I'll summarize. Thanks! Cristobal Pedregal Martin pedregal@cs.umass.edu Computer Science Department UMass / Amherst, MA 01003 [Moderator's Note: The easiest way to do this is get a neon test thing from Radio Shack (or anywhere else ...). Just wire it parallel to the phone line. It does not draw enough current to take the phone off hook but will flash in sync with the ringing of the phone. I have an appliation here where there are several lines going into a computer which is used for voicemail. No one wants to sit and listen to those bells on the incoming phone lines ring all the time, yet it is very important to know if for some reason the computer is not answering the line ... with no bell it would never be noticed if something had gone wrong. So, I have several 'beehive lamps' (the little plastic things with a dome on top and a neon bulb mounted within) mounted on the wall with double-sided tape. Wires run to each from the associated phone line. They flash on for a couple seconds each time a call comes in on that line. The only line with an actual bell on it is the final line in the hunt group -- when it rings, it serves notice that the computer has a full house, at least for the time being. I also have a little counter installed on that line which increments by one each time that line rings ... by viewing the register, one can see how often a full house occurred since the last time the register was reset. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 18:25 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Colorado Gets Caller ID tim gorman <71336.1270@CompuServe.COM> writes: > 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? Maybe so. I, for one, would buy Caller-ID even if blocking applied to 99% of the state's telephones on a per-line basis. For me, the telephone is an instrument whose purpose is to communicate with friends, business associates, and customers -- plus people who could potentially become one of these. ALL OTHERS are of no interest to me whatsoever. Those who fit into the desired category of callers would never block CNID to me; those in the undesired category can block all they like. I look at CNID as sort of a "wired PL". Just as there are many users on some commercial two-way radio bands who stay out of each others' hair by the use of "private line" encoding, CNID allows a similar enhancement when using the public telephone network. You know that when the phone rings, it is a "desirable" rather than a wrong-number- idiot, a mysterious one-ringer pest, a hangup-when-you-answer creep, a telesales slime, or even a former customer whom you wish never to hear from again. Now if I could just convince Pac*Bell that there are others like me out there. Perhaps I could show them my e-mail ... John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: cek@sdc.boeing.com (Conrad Kimball) Subject: Re: Colorado Gets Caller ID Date: 11 Jan 93 22:17:39 GMT Organization: Boeing Computer Services, Seattle, WA In article , rlucas@bvsd.Co.EDU (Richard Lucas) writes: > The best gauge of consumer opinion is how they vote with their > dollars, not with their words. If Colorado's first-day results can be > generalized to other areas, then John Higdon is quite correct that the > PUC decision in California gives the voices of a few more weight than > the desires of the majority. Sometimes that is quite proper. Tyranny of the majority, and all that. And that's assuming "the majority" is _fully_ informed of the issues, which I doubt is the case in this particular situation. Conrad Kimball | Client Server Tech Services, Boeing Computer Services cek@sdc.boeing.com | P.O. Box 24346, MS 7A-35 (206) 865-6410 | Seattle, WA 98124-0346 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #19 *****************************