TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Jan 93 02:23:15 CST Volume 13 : Issue 26 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Apartment Security Stupidity (Elana Beach) OBT and Flat-Rate Service (Rob Knauerhase) Free Publicity on Telecommunications Issues (Tom Worthington) Calling Cards (was Calling 1-800 Can Cost You a Fortune) (Andy Sherman) Voice Mail With Call Back (Paul Robinson) Remote Call Forwarding (Paul Robinson) Paging -> SW Bell Gives Up (Guy Hadsall) Wiring For CSU/DSU Units (Doug Barr) Looking For Portable X.25/Frame Relay Imformation (L. Tzeng via Seth Dobbs) Telecom Management Degrees (J.D. Delancy) Still 0 + 7D For Local Within 713? (Carl Moore) 313 Split Not Being Well Publicized (Jim Rees) Another Teee Heee :-)) (Rich Greenberg) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: elana@agora.rain.com (Elana Beach) Subject: Apartment Security Stupidity Organization: Open Communications Forum Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1993 16:32:05 GMT I live in an apartment building. This place uses a system called Entraguard that lets tenants screen visitors. The visitor punches a three number code on the panel outside the front door, the tenant's phone rings, and if it's someone they want, the tenant hits 9 on his/her touch-tone phone. The tone triggers the front door to unlock. All this was fine and dandy until one day when I came home, I was taken aside by the assistant manager and told to get a new answering machine or else. Turned out that the beep tone on my answering machine was the same frequency as the tone that opened the door. It also turned out that the management of my building traditionally forced tenants to get answering machines instead of getting this Entraguard company to fix the original problem. I talked to the head manager, who claimed the company had come three times and tried to fix it, and there was no fixing it at all. I was supposedly required to get a new answering machine because unsavory types had discovered that my answering machine would let them in. Well, that sure explained the small number of blank messages on my machine that sounded like they originated at the front door ... When I heard I had to replace MY machine because of THEIR problem, I got MAD. Off the the head manager's office I go. The main manager claimed that since this was not a fancy high-income building, I should not expect them to be able to afford a high-tech security system. At the time I knew very little phone tech. I decided to fake it. I told that manager (I was bluffing here) that all that Entraguard had to do was install a certain electronic chip which cost less than $2 which would allow the system to know the difference between an answering machine and a touch-tone. I really did not know what I was talking about, but THEY didn't know that. Within a month, the system seems to have been fixed. They have let me keep my answering machine, and some tests I have run recently show no effect of my beep tone on that door. Another positive effect: when I consulted the net for a place to ask about this, I was directed to the TELECOM Digest. I have enjoyed reading it ever since. I threatened the apartment management that if they ever give me trouble about this door problem again, I was going to bore them with some REAL technical details until it made their heads spin. They seem to be fairly tech-allergic, and they haven't bugged me since. ;-) [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell offers apartment front door security service to grandfathered customers who had it installed prior to about 1983. They use a sort of hybrid centrex from the central office to run it. The pairs from the CO to the phones in each apartment have to be dedicated without any possibility of multiples on those pairs. This is done for security reasons, and other security techniques include having the front door opening device camp-on the line *after* decisions are made by the software to hunt, call-forward, bridge to an answering service, etc. This prevents the place where you forwarded your calls to or your answering service from opening the front door of your building ... the answering service will never see the call, and even with call-forwarding turned on, a front door call will ring through with an easily identified ringing cadence of its own. Likewise, the CO can tell the difference between a digit punched at the phone (4 to open the door, 6 to deny entry and disconnect) and something similar fed to it from a foreign source like an answering machine or pocket tone sounder. IBT called this product 'Enterphone', following the divestiture in the early 1980's, new customers were referred to a company called 'Interphone', a division of GTE in Canada which makes customer premises equipment which does the same thing but instead of being in the CO is wired up at the demarc where telco's pairs meet up with building house pairs. I'll elaborate in more detail on both systems here if anyone is interested. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rob Knauerhase Subject: OBT and Flat-Rate Service Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 10:17:34 CST From a local (to Ohio) news item: (COLUMBUS)--State Representative Mike Stinziano says he will introduce a bill prohibiting telephone companies from eliminating flat-rate service. The Columbus Democrat says he believes phone companies will try to force residential customers to pay based on a time, distance, length and number of calls formula. An Ohio Bell spokesman says the company will oppose such legislation. ---------------- I mailed an article here last Thanksgiving about Ohio Bell's sales pitches for their relatively new measured-service variants, commenting that my mother's phone bill listed an _increase_ if she switched to any of their new plans (based on her typical usage). Someone from this group mailed me privately warning that in Michigan there was now no option of flat-rate, and to watch out for the same thing in OBT-land. Well, from the above blurb, something appears to be going on. So far, Ohio's PUCO has been relatively good (or compared to CPUC reports here, stellar :) with respect to rates and features, so I assume (hope) that flat-rate pricing will not shoot up in the face of this legislation. Since OBT is guaranteed a profit (n'est-ce pas?), the Libertarian side of me has no trouble supporting the continuation of flat-rate service for those who choose it, even if some who so choose end up subsidizing high-usage families. Am I overlooking anything? As I am for the time being residing in central Illinois, I'd appreciate it if an interested party closer to Columbus would keep the Digest (and/or me) informed as to how (and if!) this legislation proceeds. Rob Knauerhase University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign, Dept. of Computer Science [Moderator's Note: I've never understood why people had such a big objection to simply paying for the service they use. We've had no flat rate service in Chicago outside a very small local area for many years, and for most subscribers, the cost for phone service actually went *down* when they were no longer forced to pay for all the modem users who went through thousands of units a month at flat rate. Naturally, the guys who spent hours every night on a modem calling BBS lines on the other side of the area code (or even inter-area code; our old flat rate plans took in 312/708 and parts of 815/219/414) squealed like pigs when the change was announced; *they* had to start paying their way ... the 90 percent plus of our population which does not use modems or make hundreds (or thousands) of calls each month was very pleased to see a reduction in their bills. When IBT ditched almost all the flat rate stuff a few years ago, the biggest objections came in the form of countless articles on BBS message bases from people talking about the greedy and awful old telco. Count me as one who approves of 'pay for what you use'; I don't like paying subsidies for my neighbor's use of the phone. I don't do it for the electricity, water or gas they use, why should I for their phone calls via flat rate, averaged out pricing? But then again, I don't run war dialers against entire CO's or call computer chat lines in the outer fringes of 708/815. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tomw@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Tom Worthington) Subject: Free Publicity on Telecommunications Issues Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1993 07:36:36 GMT Toula Mantis is from the Australian Telecommunications Users Group. She is looking for telecommunications stories to write about in the ATUG column in each Monday's Australian newspaper (in the communica- tions section). Toula is currently preparing an overview of Australian R&D in telecommunications for next Monday's issue (her deadline is tomorrow afternoon). She would like input from the R&D community on topics like: "How does R&D in Australia compare with the rest of the world?". Information for good news stores (like what a wonderful research project you are on) or bad news stories (like "what happened to the $13M for AARnet?") would also be welcome. Contact: Toula Mantis Australian Telecommunications Users Group ph: +61 2 957 1333 fax: +61 2 925 0880 She has an "AAP mailbox" (number 9243). If anyone knows how to send to it from the Internet, we would all be impressed. Posted by request by Tom Worthington, Director of the Community Affairs Board, Australian Computer Society Incorporated, as a service to the community. [Moderator's Note: Bearing in mind that as I write this, it is already Saturday in Australia, I'm not sure if submissions will reach her in time, but perhaps she will do a followup soon. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 11:36:33 EST Subject: Calling Cards (was Calling 1-800 Can Cost You a Fortune) Organization: Salomon Inc, Rutherford NJ From: andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) On 12 Jan 93 00:37:11 GMT, sullivan@geom.umn.edu said: > The other thing that has always confused me is why alternative > long-distance companies (AOSs?) can charge things to an AT&T calling > card. I realize that Ma and the Baby Bells have some sort of > agreement to allow charges to each others' calling cards. And I > gather that this all has something to do with the fact that there is > some standard way to determine if a calling card number is valid. But > again, why does AT&T agree to provide billing service for these > people? I can't imagine if Sears suddenly decided to accept payments > by JCPenny credit cards that JCPenny would actually let them collect > on the bills. This should only be the case with the old-style AT&T Card numbers, the kind that contain your billing telephone number followed by a PIN. Those are not really AT&T numbers, and therein lies the problem. Those numbers belong the local carrier, and they will verify that number for any phone company. For the past year or more, AT&T has been issuing new cards with a private number (so-called CIID cards), and the AT&T Universal Card uses a CIID number also. A CIID card can *NOT* be billed by an AOS, and can *NOT* be billed by another carrier. As you note, AT&T has cross-verification agreements with virtually every local exchange carrier in the country, so that LEC cards can be used to bill AT&T calls and CIID cards can be used to bill LEC carried calls. If your AT&T card can be billed by the slime, then you need to call AT&T and get a new card. Andy Sherman Salomon Inc - Unix Systems Support - Rutherford, NJ (201) 896-7018 - andys@sbi.com or asherman@sbi.com "These opinions are mine, all *MINE*. My employer can't have them." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 15:44 GMT From: 0005066432@mcimail.com Subject: Voice Mail With Call Back If anyone is interested, I used to use a local area-code 202 voice mail service which had the option of adding an 800 number on it. Also, the service, which is run by an interexchange carrier, can be programmed (by you) to call you whenever a message comes in, anywhere in the U.S. The nice thing about this is you can also restrict the hours the system calls you. I had mine set up for the hours I was home, 10-2. So if I get any calls from 2:01 pm until 9:59 am, the system would hold them and then at 10:00 it would call me and announce I had messages. I could then enter my password and have the same access as if I had dialed in for messages. If a message comes in between 10 and 2, after the message is left, the system calls me and then announces I have a message. Also, since I can reprogram the number for it to call, if I have to go to a different location, I can take my messages with me. Apparently the only thing I can't do is have it signal a touch-tone pager directly since it uses touch tones to indicate where to call; but the administrator said that they could set it up if I wanted it. The only problem I had with it was the price. Originally it was $1 a month plus 16c per minute of usage, with an additional 16c for access via the 800 number. Then they raised the rate to a minimum $10 a month usage (I guess it got too expensive for them to continue to operate it that way; I had four mailboxes and was running about $8-15 a month usage.) That was when I had to discontinue the service. The other thing I could do was have it deliver messages. I could post a message, then give it a phone number to send it to, and it would send it out just like one of those robodialers. Has anyone else seen anything better than this in a public voice mail service? I may end up going back to it because of the capabilities. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 15:27 GMT From: 0005066432@mcimail.com Subject: Remote Call Forwarding In Telecom Digest 13 #24, Barton F. Bruce says: > And just sometimes telco offers 'REMOTE CALL FORWARDING' where NO line > goes anywhere. When a local call is dialed, it gets forwarded to the > remote site. I had it for a time; the phone company will charge message units for each local transferred call. I wanted an area code 703 number for my voice mail number which was in the 202 area code. > If you have a trustworthy site you can have the first flavor above > line delivered to, that is best and someone can plug a phone in and > reset the number as needed. Not even that. Bell Atlantic (C&P Telephone Company's owner) offers "Ultra call forwarding" in which you can change the call forward number on your phone even from another location. Paul Robinson - TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM [Moderator's Note: We have both 'Remote Call Forwarding' here as you describe it and 'Remote Access Call Forwarding' which is what you describe as 'Ultra'. We can call the switch, enter our passcode and divert our line (equipped with call forwarding) wherever we want it. IBT gives this feature for free as part of the Call Forwarding feature here. We have to pay dearly for the first type however, if we want a phone out of another CO somewhere to be permanently set to ring us. PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: The American University - University Computing Center Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1993 22:48:00 EST From: GHADSAL@AMERICAN.EDU Subject: Paging -> SW Bell Gives Up It appears that Southwestern Bell Corp. of St. Louis MO is giving up on the wireless paging business. It was announed that it will sell its floundering Metromedia Paging (spun off of John Kluge's Metromedia) to New York's LOCATE Corporation. *waving* "Bye Bye Paging as we know it ... hello wireless as we don't know it!" Guy Hadsall Dept. of Health and Fitness The American Univeristy Washington, DC (202) 885-3020 VOICE (202) 885-3090 FAX ghadsal@auvm.american.edu ------------------------------ From: barr@tramp.Colorado.EDU (BARR DOUG) Subject: Wiring for CSU/DSU Units Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1993 17:10:48 GMT I am trying to find out what kind of wiring is required from the US West demark to a CSU/DSU unit. Is there a specification (wire type, db loss, crosstalk, distance limitation) for all these units or are they vendor independent. I would appreciate replies. Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: sethd@amtfocus.amt.gss.mot.com (Seth Dobbs) Subject: Looking For Portable X.25/Frame Relay Information Date: 14 Jan 93 18:17:36 GMT Organization: Motorola, Inc. GSS-AMT, Arlington Heights, Il I am posting this for a friend. Please mail replies to the email address listed at the end. -------------- Dear Netlanders, I am looking for information on the "Portable" software products/ components in the following areas: - X.25 - X.25 - X.25 PAD - Frame Relay - Frame Relay PAD If you have ported some of the above products to your company's platforms, I would like to hear your porting experience. If your company has the above products, I would like to hear from you, too. Please either give me a call at (708) 933-5565 or send me an e-mail at lihs@usr.com. Thanks, Lih-Shyng Tzeng U.S. Robotics, Inc. lihs@usr.com ------------- Seth T. Dobbs * QMS Royal Artist * | sethd@amtfocus.amt.gss.mot.com GSS/AMT Motorola Inc. | Standard Disclaimer ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 08:26:51 EST From: delancy@chesapeake.ads.com (J.D. Delancy) Subject: Telecom Management Degrees Does anyone know what colleges/universities offer a Telecommunications Management Degree program starting at the associates level? All I've seen has been a Masters Level program at places like Univ of Maryland. delancy@chesapeake.ads.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 10:43:31 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Still 0 + 7D For Local Within 713? I returned a few days ago from the Gulf of Mexico coast area, traveling east to Pensacola, Fla. and west to Houston, Texas. In area 713, I placed at least one local call via 0+ from a pay phone, and (as happened once in North Carolina) I had to leave the area code off although area 713 (and North Carolina) have had to program for N0X/N1X prefixes. ------------------------------ From: rees@pisa.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: 313 Split Not Being Well Publicized Date: 14 Jan 1993 16:02:44 GMT Organization: University of Michigan CITI Reply-To: Jim.Rees@umich.edu Michigan Bell announced the 313/810 area code split to its customers in August. In the announcement they said, "But from now until Aug. 10, 1994 (that's 8-10-94), when the change will occur, Michigan Bell will carry out a massive program to educate customers." Apparently that "massive program" does not include any notice in the phone book. The 92-93 book, issued by Michigan Bell in November 1992, contains no mention of the split that I can find. By the way, you can get more information at 1-800-831-8989 (I don't know if this is diallable outside of 313/810). Permissive dialing starts December 1993, and ends (with mandatory use of 810) August 10, 1994. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 16:41:35 PST From: richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg) Reply-To: richg@hatch.socal.com Subject: Another Teee Heee :-)) Hi Pat, The {Los Angeles Times} carries a comic strip called "Bound & Gagged" by Dana Summers. For those not familiar with it, it (IMHO) is a knockoff of Gary Larson's "Far Side", and unually not up to Larson's quality. Yesterday's (1/13/93) strip was one of the (again IMHO) exceptions, and in addition should be particularly funny to most readers of the TELECOM Digest. Please picture this: A horse drawn wagon, no sides, just a flat bed with a bench seat near the front. Sitting on the seat is a SNA (Stereotypical Native American) driving the horses. On the bed of the wagon, a fire is burning, and another SNA is waving a blanket over the fire producing smoke balls. The caption: "First Mobil Phone". Enjoy :-)) [Moderator's Note: Cute. Another recent cartoon in a magazine showed a Dirty Old Man at a payphone covering the mouthpiece with a handker- chief speaking into the phone. He is wearing a long trench coat and probably exposing himself. The symbol for electricity leads from the wires on this phone to the next picture of a switchboard where this hateful looking witch of an operator is saying, "I have an obscene call for anyone at this number, will you accept the charges?" The third panel shows this rather perplexed looking woman on the receiving end of the whole thing. The final picture has the man being led away by police and a stern looking judge banging a gavel saying, "he forgot to use star sixty seven when he placed that call. Don't you make the same mistake!" By the way, *67 -does- wor #from payphones here. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #26 *****************************