TELECOM Digest Sat, 6 Mar 93 02:48:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 156 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (Gary W. Sanders) Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (Roy Smith) Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (Carl Moore) Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (Scott D. Brenner) Re: WTC Blast (Darrell Broughton) Re: Things Really Went BOOM! (Mark Brader) Re: The Geodesic Report II - A Small Review (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Info Wanted on Database of White Pages Listings (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Telecom Advice For the Lovelorn (Dave Ptasnik) Re: Number of Simultaneous Forwarded Calls (rogue@ccs.northeastern.edu) Re: Number of Simultaneous Forwarded Calls (Randy Gellens) Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial (Vance Shipley) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: news@cbnews.att.com Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 13:57:05 GMT Subject: Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News Organization: AT&T In article add@philabs.philips.com (Aninda Dasgupta) writes: > couldn't tell if the cable operators were able to get feeds from the > TV stations that were off the air, because I don't subscribe to CATV > (I refuse to aid any monopoly) and I am also not sure if the rest of > the country got to see Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw for the evening > news, but we were able to get only Dan Rather. I was home that day and was scanning the skies and found local NYC TV station on the satellite with news and information. I caught them about 1pm shortly after the explosion and they were still on at 8pm when I checked back. Since there transmitters were off the air for over the air transmissions the station uplinked on satellite. Then they contacted the local cable companys and had them pick up the signal from satellite and resdistribute the signal to subscribers. Many CATV people may not have even known that transmitter were offline. Gary W. Sanders (N8EMR) gary.w.sanders@att.com AT&T Bell Labs 614-860-5965 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 10:46:23 -0500 From: roy@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News Organization: New York University, School of Medicine In article is written: > However, CBS radio also reported that one of the first persons to be > rescued from the top of the WTC, by helicopter, was a pregnant CBS > employee who was up on the WTC roof to repair the transmitter/antenna. I know the dangers of electric fields is an open question, but if I were a pregnant woman, I don't think I would want to be working around a live high-power TV transmitter! Roy Smith Hippocrates Project, Department of Microbiology, Coles 202 NYU School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 11:44:06 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News I don't know either about the rest of the country being able to receive ABC or NBC at that time. I wouldn't be surprised if they set up alternate outlets if they were affected by the WTC. The great Nov.(?) 1965 blackout forced some news media to alternate outlets. By the way, I notice the jokes from a parking attendant and a border guard about a bomb and/or the WTC blast. Please don't joke TO such people about such matters, because the remark can be taken seriously and you can get in trouble as a result. There are signs in some airports warning of this near the checkpoints for their terminal concourses; and a few years back, a young man remarked (apparently a joke) on a plane about a bomb, and the result was that the plane made an unscheduled landing in Philadelphia and he was arrested. ------------------------------ From: sbrenner@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (scott.d.brenner) Subject: Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News Organization: AT&T Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 23:17:59 GMT In article add@philabs.philips.com (Aninda Dasgupta) writes: > I'm not sure if anybody mentioned this in the Digest, but the blast at > the WTC took most TV stations out in NYC and the vicinity. On the way > home from work that day, I couldn't get anything but CBS Radio, coming > live from the site. When I reached home, I turned on the TV to see if > they were showing any gory sights, but only CBS TV and a (Telemundo?) > station from NJ were on the air. My landlady's son, who works for CBS, > said that all the other TV stations had their transmitters on top of > the WTC. CBS radio reported that the authorities had to actually > remove some of the TV and radio antennae in order to make space for a > helipad for the rescue helicopters to land on top of the WTC. [Some > transmitters may have suffered from the power cutoff.] CBS TV > apparently transmits from the Empire State Building. I usually watch the NBC affiliate in NYC, WNBC -- channel 4. Although I worked late last Friday, and didn't get home until about 9 PM (listening to WCBS radio all the way!), channel 4 *was* on the air when I got home. Then, periodically over the weekend, they'd run a banner message at the bottom of the screen thanking local cable operators who picked up their feed and rebroadcast (cablecast?) it to their subscribers. The message also said that the feed would termin- ate on Monday morning. A newspaper article I read earlier this week implied that the station (and other local stations) was able to provide their signal to other stations out in Long Island, who were then able to uplink the signal to the satellite, from which the cable systems could pick up the signal. I don't care how they did it, but I was really pleased that they were able to continue broadcasting. It's amazing that they were able to get it all set up so quickly. I know it's not *really* related to telecom, but if anyone can give a more detailed (but understandable) explanation of the setup these stations used, I be interested. Scott D. Brenner AT&T Consumer Communications Services sbrenner@attmail.com Basking Ridge, New Jersey ------------------------------ From: broughton@lambda.usask.ca Subject: Re: WTC blast Date: 5 Mar 1993 22:50:56 GMT Organization: University of Saskatchewan Reply-To: broughton@lambda.usask.ca In article , jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) writes: > There's a new newsgroup dedicated to the World Trade Center (WTC) > blast, but that's on another system so I can't find the name. It was It is alt.current-events.wtc-explosion. Darrell ------------------------------ From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: Things Really Went BOOM! Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Sat, 6 Mar 93 06:54:10 GMT > PATH has an 800 number for information. Of course, it's always busy > during a crisis like this. This is the TELECOM issue that steams me. TELECOM Moderator noted: > [Regards traffic jams on the 800 number, it has been suggested the > City of Chicago is considering a 900 number with no charge attached to > calling it to be used for announcements to the citizens on a > mass-calling basis. That night be a very good idea for the public > transit system also. PAT] Well, it would keep the overload down, since people whose office phones are blocked from calling 900 wouldn't be able to use it. Somehow I don't think that was what Pat had in mind. What technical advantage would a 900 number give, as opposed to an 800 or just a plain telephone number? Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com [Moderator's Note: They realized people with 900 blocks on their phone would not be able to use it, but the idea was to be able to service a huge volume of callers at the same time with emergency reports. Many 900 services are set up to take thousands of calls at the same time. I think they want to be able to send a message to television and radio stations saying (something like) "there is a serious emergency affecting residents of Chicago. Please dial 900-xxx-xxxx at no charge to hear an emergency announcement by the mayor". Of course, someone suggested why not just make the announcement on the radio/television in that case ... it was an idea they've tossed around while building our new, very modern, very high tech police communications center. PAT] ------------------------------ From: goldstein@carafe.dnet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: The Geodesic Report II - A Small Review Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1993 03:37:40 GMT In article , james@cs.ualberta.ca (James Borynec; AGT Researcher) writes: > I just read a startling report: "The Geodesic Network II: 1993 Report > on Competition in the Telephone Industry" By P.W. Huber, M.K. Kellogg, > and J. Thorne. The Geodisic Company, Washington D.C. > The central thesis of this (thick) report is that the economics of > fiber and the economics of radio make long distance a "natural" > monopoly and that local access is now "inherently competitive". Well here's an opposing viewpoint! Personally I think Huber is way way out in right field, little more than a stooge of "Mad Monk Mark" Fowler, Reagan's nuttiest FCC head. He has an Agenda and won't let reality get in the way. As any regular reader of the EFF newsgroup would know by now, a "natural monopoly" is a fairly clear concept which applies when the economy of scale never maxes out, so a small vendor can never be competitive with a big one. Long distance, even per Huber's quote, is almost exactly the opposite, a competitive commodity. In economics, a commodity has many vendors entering and exiting, and the price is always near "cost", and nobody makes "economic profit" (greater than required rate of return on capital invested). That's just what LD telecom is doing now, save AT&T's slipping umbrella. Local wireline is a natural monopoly because it would cost too much to string a second set of wires. Indeed I foresee CATV and telephone eventually sharing, not competiing over, optical fiber to the home. Radio, however, is subject to a different constraint: Bandwidth. Economics cannot create spectrum space, just determine how it's allocated. Radio bandwidth is orders of magnitude too low to handle wireline applications in urban areas. It's best for applications that really benefit by it: Mobile, hand-held and rural. The impact of MCI upon the industry was to bring economic reality to an over-regulated (grant of "unnatural" monopoly) industry. All the posturing was just regulatory fiction; the reality was and is that long distance subsidizes local service, and competition leads to less cross-subsidy and more economically efficient allocation of resources. Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com k1io or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice:+1 508 952 3274 Standard Disclaimer: Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: goldstein@carafe.dnet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: Info Wanted on Database of White Pages Listings Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1993 03:27:08 GMT In article , castaldi@heroes.rowan.edu (John Castaldi) writes: > Does anyone know where I can get a database (hopefully in ASCII) of > all white pages listings. I would like to load this information on our > Vax to try to save money on 411 calls. Any info would help. From my "Crazy Bob" flier from ERM Electronic Liquidators, Melrose MA (orders 800 776 5865, otherwise +1 617 662 9363): USA 1993 Yellow and White Pages. The complete 7-CD [ROM] set. DOS. ProPhone 1993. 90 million residential listings, 10 million business listings, available 1 Feb '93. A 7-disc set; contains 90 million names, addresses and phone numbers for every one listed in every white pages in the USA, plus zip code! Search can be narrowed by city, state, street, phone number, or zip. Contains the SUA Yellow Page listings - over 10 million businesses on one CD-ROM. Information can be searched by company name or telephone number, and narrowed down by geographic location to find a business in seconds. Includes the full address with zipcode and "SIC" code. New Spring '93. $222. The 1992 edition is also available on a 3-disk "starter set" for $77. Now all it takes is a DOS server with a CD-ROM jukebox ... I know nothing about this set than what I've seen in the flier. I'm just a customer; I bought my CD-ROM drive from them. Cheap. Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com k1io or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice:+1 508 952 3274 Standard Disclaimer: Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: davep@carson.u.washington.edu (Dave Ptasnik) Subject: Re: Telecom Advice For the Lovelorn Date: 6 Mar 1993 08:24:35 GMT Organization: University of Washington jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) writes: > This sounded like a fine idea until I discovered that Normal is in GTE > territory! Both Peoria and Decatur are served by Illinois Bell, and I > have never lived in an area that wasn't served by Illinois Bell. > I only have one friend who lives in Normal, and talking to him hasn't > been encouraging. His stories of dealing with GTE repair service > (something he's had to do fairly often) bear an amazing resemblance to Having lived for 20 years in Peoria and two years in Normal, there is absolutely no question what you should do. GET THE H*** OUT OF THERE!! Downstate Illinois is a terrible mind sucking cesspool! Go anywhere but Seattle. I love it, but I don't want any more people out here. Find your own nice place. By the way, GTE owns Normal. They used every dirty trick in the book when I lived there selling telephone systems. Messing with customer service when a new (non-GTE) system went in, losing orders, etc. I can't even think about the games they played with local government bids. It's their way or no way. A long distance company I worked for had a switch in an Illinois Bell area, with FX's to Normal. GTE messed with us all the time. Plus the FX's dropped out with great regularity. Not infrequently on Friday afternoon. Even for residences, their service was a joke. Feature availability and reliability was woefully inadequate. Modem links at 1200 baud to local boards were a joke. At one time they had a BIG service center in Normal. Is it still there? I was wondering if they consolidated it out of business. It was a major employer in town, and losing it would have been quite a blow. All of the above is nothing more than the personal opinion of - Dave davep@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 08:27:55 -0500 From: rogue@damon.ccs.northeastern.edu (Free Radical) Subject: Re: Number of Simultaneous Forwarded Calls Organization: College of CS, Northeastern U > [Moderator's Note: The same service from Illinois Bell allows multiple > call forwarding to the extent the receiving phone can handle the > calls, ie. three lines in hunt can get three forwarded calls. But the > version called 'remote call forwarding' which is a permanently config- > ured arrangement in the CO will only forward as many calls as you have > 'paths' you are paying for. PAT] Wasn't there some trouble several years back with a variant of this, Busy Call Forwarding? Seems someone set up three payphones to have this feature, each set to the next, and then had all three call the next at the same time. Ate up every trunk in the area, almost. It happened in Texas I think. rogue@damon.ccs.northeastern.edu (Rogue Agent) [Moderator's Note: Are we talking about how many links there can be in forwarded ONE LINK and handled at the same time? I don't think IBT lets you keep forwarding calls around and around forever if that is what you mean. Curiously, on a couple of exchanges here, if A forwards to B and B forwards to C then a call directly dialed to B goes on to C while a call reaching B via A stops at B and rings through right there regardless of what B wants done with *his* calls. On other (maybe most) exchanges here, under those circumstances, a call to A would go right on through to C. But they seem to be clever about it; the first time a previously 'passed through' point is found in the link again, the forwarding stops and a busy signal is returned to the caller. In other words, you cannot go A > B > C > D > A > B > C > D just to have the equipment running around in circles. As soon as D is instructed to go to A, that's it. Trip's over. All electrons have to get off the bus; the bus driver is at the end of the line! :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: MPA15AB!RANDY@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com Date: 05 MAR 93 17:21 Subject: Re: Number of Simultaneous Forwarded Calls I kept complaining about only one call being forwarded at a time, and finally they gave me to the GTE Consumer Action Group. Someone there took the information, and said I'd get a call back. A few hours later, a rep called me to say what I wanted should work, and they would open a trouble ticket. They just needed the PacBell number to which the GTE line was forwarded (as if it had anything to do with it). The next day I got a call from GTE repair, telling me the problem had been fixed. When I asked what the limit was on simultaneous forwarded calls, she said there was no limit. I said there had to be some limit for loop prevention, didn't there? but she didn't understand. I tested it, and it still failed. So I called the GTE CAG rep back, and said it was still broken, and suggested she contact someone at the CO who understood how to operate a GTD-5. Well, today I received a call from someone at the CO, who had been given a totally incorrect description of the problem. When I explained it, he punched in my GTE number, verified that the customer call forwarding queue was set to 1, and changed it to 2. He said the service office could have done the same thing. I thanked him, and before I could test it, I received a call from the GTE CAG rep, who told me that she had contacted GTD-5 analyst, and was told that what I wanted was possible, but not tariffed, so I would have to live with only one call at a time. She said I could order multiple numbers with hunting and it would work. I said that didn't make sense, and asked to speak to the CO person who had called me earlier. They said they'd have him call me. Finally, I got a chance to test it, and it works! The CO guy did what he said. So I called the GTE CAG rep back and said everything was fine, please don't do anything else. She wanted to know what the CO guy had done. I was vague, saying he had changed the CCF parameters for my line, because I was afraid she might be right about it not being tariffed and would reset it to one. She said she'd call him and find out, because she needed to update my records to indicate what was done. Anyway, for now it works and I am happy. Now, if only I could get PacBell to make their three-way calling let me hang up on a vacant side and get ring-back everything would be great. Randy Gellens randy%mpa15ab@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com| A Series System Software if mail bounces, forward to| Unisys Mission Viejo, CA rgellens@mcimail.com| Opinions are personal; facts are suspect; I speak only for myself| [Moderator's Note: Again, are we talking about the number of calls which can be forwarded at one time from A > B or are we talking about the extent to which A can be chained linked to B then to C and D, etc? If the former, there is no problem with the number of circuits which are available. As soon as the place to which calls are being forwarded runs out of places to put them (i.e. two, three or how many lines in the hunt group) then subsequent callers to the first number will get a busy signal. If we are talking about chains that run forever, then the important thing is to stop the process when a previously visited number is found again in the chain. If this were not the case, then any call forwarding could be a potential problem because what would happen if A forwarded calls to himself, ie *72 ? Would an incoming call hit the CO and run in circles forever? No -- we know it sees a place where it has already been (original pass through A) and gives up, returning busy to the caller. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Vance Shipley Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 1:50:17 EST From: vances@xenitec.on.ca (Vance Shipley) Subject: Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial Organization: Xenitec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1993 06:50:12 GMT > [Moderator's Note: Much of the additional cost would come from the > expense of having certain common equipment in the central office > unavailable for other customer's use. With dialup, telco is gambling This is the assumption I have been making; that telco is somehow worse off if you elect to have endless calls as opposed to just jumpering copper. I am beginning to suspect that they might just prefer to keep everything on the switch. Witness the following quote from the DMS Feature Planning Guide describing ENET, Northern's current switching fabric and the heart of their central office switch: "As the switching platform for the DMS SuperNode system. ENET is a key hardware element for implementing high-capacity, bandwidth-intensive services, such as Dialable Wideband Service. The Enhanced Network (ENET) decreases expenses through network simplification and increasing revenues by enabling a range of future wideband services." Network simplification has to be important to the telco, their manpower costs are a high percentage of operating costs. Also, as another poster pointed out automated loop testing, etc. are not possible (or more costly and difficult) on special service facilities. "With BCS34, the single-cabinet ENET, with a capacity of 64,000 fully duplicated channels, will become the standard ENET configuration. However, the dual-cabinet ENET (128,000 channels) will continue to be available for offices requiring higher capacity" "As a junctorless, non-blocking switching matrix, ENET does not require complicated engineering. Unconstrained by traffic and load balancing, its provisioning is based only on peripheral link terminations. ENET provides the platform for circuit-switched, channel-switched, or nailed-up digital service." So the switch is non-blocking. So if it's not taking up common resources in the switch the telco shouldn't care how long your calls are. Now the other thing here is that if you live in area which has unmeasured local service, as I do, and one day they change to measured, odds are many of these dialup circuits will remain for a while generating more revenue. Vance Shipley, vances@xenitec.on.ca ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #156 ******************************