TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Jan 93 23:20:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 28 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Gonna Miss Contel (John Higdon) Telemarketer Conviction Overturned on Appeal :-( (Jack Winslade) Do You Think This is a Fraudulent Ad? :) (Paul Robinson) Re: MF Signaling Test Gear (Pat Turner) What is dBm0? (Ching-Chang Liao) Sprint Can't do Switched 56k (?) (Eric Pearce) Help Needed With Novatel 8320 Transportable Cellular Phone (Joe Smooth) Correction: AT&T Buys 20% of Unitel (Dave Leibold) AT&T PRI (was 800 Numbers and Live ANI Advice Sought) (David G. Lewis) ISDN Modems/Boards? (Sid Stuart) What is GTE NorthNet? (jdg111@psuvm.psu.edu) Info Wanted on Telecom Exhibitions and Conferences (Cliff Featherstone) Source For Used Panasonic 616 Wanted (Steve Gaarder) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 19:31 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Gonna Miss Contel This past week has been a study in contrasts. All three of the LECs with which I have service have had an opportunity to show what it is made of. Torrential rains (at least for here) have come down and many circuits have failed. The first to go was an audio circuit to Mt. Loma Prieta which is used by an Iranian programming outfit to get program audio to a transmitter site for SCA broadcasts. Pac*Bell was called, a repair person picked up the keys, and the circuit was repaired. Day before yesterday, all the data circuits and the telephone quit up at another transmitter facility served by GTE. First, it took a good half-hour waiting on hold to find out that I had called the wrong number to find out the right number for "priority repair". I ended up calling corporate headquarters in Thousand Jokes. Good thing it was a weekday during business hours! Then I reported the list of circuits to someone at a number in Long Beach. An hour and a half later, someone called back to tell me that the circuit IDs were incorrect -- did I have other numbers? No. Thirty minutes after that, someone called to tell me that everything tested fine and that they were closing the tickets out. I reopened the tickets. Later in the day, I was told that someone would have to visit the site but that due to the rain and mud, it would have to be some other day. Since I had just made two trips to the site myself, I gave the person an earful and told him what would be acceptable was complete repair in one hour -- after that major complaints would be filed. The next excuse involved keys. Someone would have to let them in. I told them to use the keys that I had provided years ago for this very purpose. I silenced the whining by pointing out that a new data circuit had been installed the week before without anyone letting in the installer, so they obviously still had the keys. Sometime that night the circuits (except for the telephone itself) started working and some repair person woke me up at 7:30 AM to tell me that everything was fixed. Another call to the 310 number got the phone working by noon. Today, I discovered that our 800 number in Victorville was "disconnected" and called the Contel business office to find out why. I was told that there was no reason for it to be that way and the person offered to report it to repair service. Within fifteen minutes, I received a call from repair service telling me that it had been corrected. Fifteen minutes after that a very apologetic person from the Contel business office told me that it had been out of service for over a week and that she would credit me with the entire monthly service charge as compensation. (If this had been GTE, it would have been days before anyone would have even called me back. It would have somehow been my fault and there would have been no compensation granted whatsoever. With GTE, dollars win out over customer relations every time.) BTW, it should be pointed out that Pac*Bell gives toll-free numbers to call techs back on. Contel invites you to call collect. GTE just gives you toll numbers and expects you to pay. I have no idea how much I spent calling 714, 310, and 805 numbers the other day. When Contel falls into the GTE sewer here in California, the only major phone company left (that knows anything about service) will be Pac*Bell. 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 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 02:57:27 EST From: jsw@ivgate.omahug.org (Jack Winslade) Subject: Telemarketer Conviction Overturned on Appeal :-( According to the {Omaha World-Herald}, Friday, Jan 15, 1993, evening edition, an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel has said that evidence was insufficient to prove that Bedford Direct Marketing, and its president, Ellis B. Goodman, had defrauded telephone users who had called a 900 number. This decision voids a two-year sentence for Goodman and a $750,000.00 fine for the firm. 'The case has been watched closely by prosecutors and postal inspectors eager to stop what they regard as abuse of 900 phone numbers.' As I reported here some time ago, Bedford Direct Marketing sent cards to thousands of people telling them they had won a prize -- a cash prize or a 'discount shopping spree' {yeah, sure} from Bedford's catalog, and that they must phone a 900 number to claim the prize. The judges stated that the plan was not a scheme to defraud because it accurately and fully explained the costs that people deciding to participate would pay. The dissenting judge stated that 'the court's assessment of the record misses the mark in the real world where schemers like Goodman and Bedford prey upon ordinary people they deem ripe for plucking.' Good day. ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: Paul Robinson Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 19:34:50 EST Subject: Do You Think This is a Fraudulent Ad? :) An advertisement on page 3 of the January, 1993 issue of "Midrange Computing" mentions Exabyte Corporation's new 2.5 Gigabyte EXB-8200. The ad claims that the Bit Error Rate (BER), number of 1017 bits before an error occurred, is now 1 in 10. The ad further states that: The new BER means that a user will encounter on average one unrecoverable error in 1017 (sic) bits of data read. This reliability specification amounts to one error in the information contained in 100 million years of {The Wall Street Journal}. I found that hard to believe. I don't have the WSJ here, but I do have the {Washington Post}. The Post is a six-column newspaper and a rough estimate is that it is 100 lines deep and 180 characters across. To compensate for pictures, call it 20K per page. 10 ** 17 is 100,000,000,000,000,000 bits. Assume 10 bits are needed for each character (or picture image point, to compensate for the higher amount of data that pictures require.) That amounts to 10e16 bytes of data. As I stated the average page has 20K, so that figure is 500,000,000,000 pages. If the Journal does 50 pages an issue, that's 10,000,000,000 issues. There are roughly 250 business days a year (I know the number is higher, but this is fairer to them and it divides evenly.) That translates into 40,000,000 years. This is a 150% inflation of the number of issues that you could read before you'd find an error! I resent this; if I only read 40 million years' worth of the {Wall Street Journal} before I discovered an error, I'd not be pleased. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM These opinions are mine alone ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 20:00 EST From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Reply-To: turner@dixie.com Subject: Re: MF Signaling Test Gear Bob Turner writes: > Does anyone know of test gear available to test CPE that uses MF (NOT > DTMF) signalling? It can be for two or four wire circuits. I know > such a device exists, I just don't know who manufactures it. Several transmission test sets will generate MF. The Ameritec AM-48 ($3k) and AM-44 ($2k) both do. At least one of Ameritec's non-handheld units does also. Some of Hekimian's test sets will too, if a signaling option is purchased. If you don't need to purchase a new TIMS, I would look at one of the Hacker {insert color} boxes that will generate the tones. I have considered purchasing one, as my Ameritec was stolen, and I now use a recently purchased HP 3591A (no DTMF or MF). I was looking at the one sold by Hack-Tic. I'm sure Bill would send you info. You will need to add a xformer, and maybe a DC blocking cap. As far as grabbing MF digits, the digit grabbers double in price with the MF option. As an example: Metro-Tel TPM-32 (DTMF, DP) $250, Metro-Tel TPM-32/MF $700. I think Ziad also makes MF digit grabbers. They do make a butt set that has a digit grabber built in (pHD or PHd) I am considering buying rather than a TS22A. If anyone knows anything about their quality, I would appreciate a note. Some AT&T CPE techs use a Ziad combination digit grabber and level meter, that they seem to have had good luck with. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: Ching-Chang Liao Subject: What is dBm0? Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 20:54:28 CST I just read a paper taken from AT&T Technical Journal. The subject of this paper is "THE 32 KB/S ADPCM CODING STANDARD". In this paper the author use "dBm0" as a unit to represent the level of input signal. I don't know what the definition of "dBm0" is. Is "dBm0" same as "0 dBm"? Is there anyone who knows the answer and can answer this question for me? I will be appreciated if someone answer my question. NAME: Stephen REAL NAME: CHING-CHANG LIAO SCHOOL: University of Missouri-Rolla HOME ADDRESS: 607 E. 12TH ST., Rolla, Mo 65401 TELEPHONE: 314-364-3213 E-MAIL: liao@ee.umr.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 16:21:43 -0800 From: eap@ora.com (Eric Pearce) Subject: Sprint Can't Do Switched 56k (?) We have a Sprint T1 with 16 channels for voice and 1 56k dedicated data line. I want to add a single switched 56k line out of the same channel bank (since there are spare slots). The reasoning behind getting a CB was to be able to mix and match various types of service. Sprint sales says they can't do it, as their "switched 56k network is too advanced for PacBell and won't be able to talk to it" (we are in northern CA). They also volunteered that AT&T and MCI are be able to provide this even though Sprint can't. Does this make any sense? Right now I'm looking at buying a separate SW56 from PacBell (connected to a Adtran DSU 2AR). If I was able to go through the Channel Bank (a Telco Systems Route 24), would I need a OCU card? It seems like the motivation for this would be to avoid a separate termination fee from PacBell, right? Thanks, Eric Pearce | eap@ora.com | O'Reilly & Associates Publishers of Nutshell Series Handbooks and X Window System Guides 103 Morris St, Sebastopol, CA 95472 1-800-998-9938 or 707-829-0515 ------------------------------ From: Joe Smooth Subject: Help Needed With Novatel 8320 Transportable Cellular Phone Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 03:51:49 GMT Hi if anyone has ANY information what-so-ever on the Novatel 8320 transportable phone, please let me know. I am extremely interested in technical information and programming information. Thanks a lot! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 23:50:02 -0500 From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Dave Leibold) Subject: Correction: AT&T Buys 20% of Unitel In my previous post on Unitel, I wrote: > service so far. Bell Canada revenues last year were $2.2 million, > Unitel's $400 million. Hmmm ... well, maybe Unitel picked up a bit more market share than it bargained for :-) ... actually, Bell should get $2.2 *billion* rather than million. Other than typos like that, the source of info on this one was {The Toronto Star}. Dave Leibold - via FidoNet node 1:250/98 INTERNET: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: AT&T PRI (was 800 Numbers and Live ANI Advice Sought) Organization: AT&T Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 14:36:01 GMT In article , turner@Dixie.Com writes: > As Pat stated 800 service with Real Time ANI is available from the big > three. As far as I know this always involves a dedicated trunk to > their POP. AT&T is the least flexible, offering to deliver it only > out of band with PRI ISDN. At one time this required a AT&T switch, > now I suspect there are other peices of CPE equipiment that will > handle it. There certainly are: AT&T operates a conformance testing lab, testing CPE against TR 41459 (the AT&T ISDN PRI specification), and while I don't know the exact numbers, I would estimate that several dozen different products have been certified compatible with 41459. > I would imagine that as AT&T complies with the newer ISDN-1 > standards, most any PBX could handle it. SR-NWT-001937, National ISDN-1, has the following to say about Primary Rate Access: "The switch shall support Primary Rate Access. The detailed requirements on primary rate access for each application are in the process of being defined... The B-channels shall be able to support voice, circuit-switched data, and provisioned packet-switched data. On Demand B-Channel packet on Primary Rate Access is not required for National ISDN-1. The D-Channel initially will only be used for signaling to control B-Channels; therefore, support of packet-switched data on the C-Channel is not required for National ISDN-1. "A transition plan to move from current Layer 1 implementations to TR-754 and the current ANSI T1 Standard at Layer 1 is being worked. Layer 2 shall follow TR-793. The layer 3 network/PBX interface requirements are expected to be a subset of TR-268, Issue 3..." (note: these have since been published in TR-1268.) "In general, current Primary Rate access implementations that are substantially in agreement with the documents listed in this paragraph are acceptable, in Bellcore's view, for National ISDN-1." If I were a marketing type, I would claim that that means that my implementation, which is substantially in agreement with TR-1268, Q.931, T1.607, and NIU.302, is already NI-1 compliant. But I'm not, so instead I'll point out that SR-1937 doesn't really specify in any kind of detail any requirements for PRI for NI-1, leaving that to NI-2, and that while it's possible to talk about PRIs being NI-1 compliant, that can't be interpreted as meaning you can take an "NI-1 compliant PBX" from vendor A and an "NI-1 compliant network switch" from vendor B, hook them up, and expect them to work. That has to wait until NI-2. That said, I will reiterate that not only AT&T products are capable of connecting to AT&T network PRIs. Most PBXs, from my knowledge, allow the user to provision which flavor of PRI protocol is to be supported on a given trunk, and AT&T 4ESS is usually one of the options. > The AT&T service is called INFO-2 and is part of their Megacom > service. Minor correction: MEGACOM 800 service. MEGACOM service is an outward-calling, WATS-type service. > Sprint will deliver ANI with in band MF and MCI will deliver it with > your choice of MF or DTMF. If you can't deal with a T span, any dumb > channel bank will do. The extra DS0's can be used to taste to joys of > LEC bypass. Of course, so can the B-channels on a PRI; additionally, with PRI, you can use call-by-call service selection, so instead of having to dedicate, say, 8 DS0s to 800 and 12 DS0s to WATS, you can have a call-by-call group of, say, 18 channels and take advantage of the fact that one large trunk group will require fewer trunks to handle the same traffic volume with a given blocking probability than will multiple small trunk groups. Disclaimer: I do work on this stuff, but I'm not in Product Management, so nothing I say has the Ring of Authority. I'm just a simple protocol nerd ... David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!goofy!deej Switching & ISDN Implementation ------------------------------ From: sid@Think.COM (Sid Stuart) Subject: ISDN Modems/Boards? Date: 17 Jan 1993 18:22:27 GMT Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA New England Telephone is starting to establish ISDN services in the Boston area. We would like to make use of this service to connect NCD Xterminals, Macintosh's and PC's(running DOS/Windows) to Sun dialin servers. I am trying to find out what equipment is available to do this. I know of two pieces of equipment that have ISDN interfaces, but doubt they are compatible. SparcStation 10's have an ISDN port, but I am not sure what, besides another SS10, it will connect with. I have also seen ISDN modems from Black Box that will deliver 38400 bps aync. It looks like they will cost ~$2,000 for each side of the connection though. Are there better solutions out there? Will an ISDN card in a PC running TCP/IP interact with an SS10 ISDN port? Sid Stuart, Thinking Machines Corp. sid@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!sid ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 14:01:28 EST From: Doug Subject: What is GTE NorthNet? I recently came across a few documents which mentioned a "GTE NorthNet". Is this a big private network of GTE, or is it something the public has access to? If so, where/how do you get connected to it? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jan 93 05:01:09 EST From: Cliff Featherstone <70154.1536@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Info Wanted on Telecom Exhibitions and Conferences 'ello I am looking for information on international conferences and exhibitions relating to telecommunications in general and voicemail technology in particular. Any information / pointers (preferebly via e-mail) would be appreciated. Cliff Featherstone SERCH (Specialised Electronic Research) South Africa ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 02:10:44 -0500 From: anarres!gaarder@TC.Cornell.EDU Subject: Source For Used Panasonic 616 Wanted A local coop grocery is looking for a new phone system. The Panasonic 616 seems to fit the bill nicely, but is a little too pricey. Does anyone know of a good source for a used unit? Thanks, Steve Gaarder ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #28 *****************************