TELECOM Digest Thu, 27 Apr 95 11:17:00 CDT Volume 15 : Issue 213 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson UCLA Short Course on Multimedia Compression Principles (William R. Goodin) UCLA Short Course on Transmission of Multimedia Information (W.R. Goodin) Quebec-Telephone Opens WWW Server (Nigel Allen) Help Wanted With AMARYS "210" French Telephone (Alan Nicolson) Can Someone Help Me With Sidetone (Steven Hellman) Farmstead Telephone Opens WWW Home Page (Alex Capo) International Caller-ID (Marko Ruokonen) New Date For National CID Announced? (Michael G. Godwin) Duplex Speaker Phone For Around $300 Available? (David Kovar) Minitel and European Infohighways (Romina Keller) Telecom New Zealand and GB (Marianne Stevens) What are Secure and Insecure http Links? (Jan-Adriaan de Lijster) VBR Video Over an ATM-Network (Hugo Nordkamp) Video-on-Demand (Herman Vandeven) Telecom in China (Tom Dedecker) Help Request - PC Autodialer vs. Phone System (Bill Breckinridge) Icom R-71 Receiver Wanted (Gordon Mitchell) Correction: PCS Comparative MTA Ranking (Bob Keller) Administrivia: Issue Number Correction (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 708-329-0572 Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. *********************************************************************** * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent- * * ing views of the ITU. * *********************************************************************** Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On August 8-11, 1995, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "Multimedia Compression: Principles, Applications, and Standards", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructors are Jerry D. Gibson, PhD, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M University; Richard L. Baker, PhD, Chief Scientist, PictureTel Corp; Toby Berger, PhD, Professor, School of Electrical Engineering, Cornell University; and Tom Lookabaugh, PhD, Vice President, Research and Business Development, DiviCom. The efficient digital representation or compression of data, speech, music, facsimile, still images, and video for storage and transmission plays a dominant role in current and developing communications systems, computer networks, PCs/workstations, video-on-demand, and entertainment. Standards have been and continue to be developed for this host of multimedia applications that will serve as the traffic on the information superhighway. This course explains the fundamental principles and algorithms underlying these standards and describes in detail current and evolving multimedia compression standards. Audio tapes, slides, videotapes, and equipment demonstrations complement the lectures. The course should helpprofessionals to understand existing standards and products, evaluate future standards, and incorporate these compression methods into their ownapplications. Topics include: entropy and lossless coding, quantization, predictive coding, speech coding standards, frequency domain coding, audio coding, vision, perception and image representation, standards and applications in video compression, grey-scale image compression, videoconferencing, desktop videoconferencing and collaboration. The course fee is $1395, which includes extensive course materials. For additional information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu ------------------------------ On August 2-4, 1995, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "Transmission of Multimedia Information and Data", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructors are Chris Heegard, PhD, Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, and Andrew J. King, MSEE, Design Group Manager, Communications Products, General Instrument Corp, San Diego. Each participant receives a manual used by DigComT, "The Digital Communications Toolbox" and extensive lecture notes. Digital communication systems are used for the transmission and storage of a large variety of data, speech, still images, audio, and video information for a wide range of applications including facsimile, telephony, voice mail, digital cellular mobile radio, CD-quality audio, personal communication systems, video-conferencing, video-on-demand, and HDTV. The physical transmission media for these applications, called channels, take a variety of forms such as copper wire pairs, coax cable, optical fibers, electromagnetic radiation, magnetic tape and disks, and optical disks. This short course presents the basic digital transmission methods for conveying digital information through these channels efficiently and reliably and covers the fundamental techniques for digital transmission from first principles to applications and implementations. The course presents an overview of the how and why of modern reliable data transmission. In multi-media applications, compressed information must be reliably delivered over channels that exhibit real-world limitations such as noise, distortion and interference. The course begins with an introduction to the basics of digital modulation theory and channel capacity. The results of this discussion are then used to motivate the need for Forward Error Correction (FEC) systems. An overview of the engineering methods that have evolved for these applications follows, including basic modulation methods, techniques for FEC, algorithms for tracking channel parameters and ideas for adaptive receiver design. Both hand-workable examples and a computer are used for developing a basic understanding of modern digital transmission systems. Such ideas as block, convolutional trellis and concatenated coding are described, as are methods of signal tracking and adaptive receiver design. The course provides practical methods for implementing digital communications systems, and a summary of some basic standards are presented. This material covers all issues concerning the development and prototyping of digital systems, with particular emphasis on communications applications, computer analysis and simulation, and the basis of modern VLSI design methodology. The course fee is $1295, which includes course materials. For additional information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu ------------------------------ Quebec-Telephone, the second-largest telephone company in Quebec (Bell Canada is the largest), has opened a WWW server at: http://quetel.qc.ca/qt0000ag.htm Other WWW servers operated by Canadian telecommunications companies include: http://www.bell.ca Bell Canada http://www.bctel.com/ (BC Tel, formerly the British Columbia Telephone Company) http://www.sasknet.sk.ca/Pages/sktlhome.html (SaskTel) http://www.rogers.com Rogers Communications, a cable TV company which owns part of Unitel and has others communications and media investments, including Rogers Network Services. http://www.stentor.ca Stentor, the consortium of telephone companies Interestingly, while Quebec-Telephone and BC Tel are both partly owned by GTE Corporation, GTE has not yet set up a WWW server of its own. (Its GTE Laboratories unit does have one at http://info.gte.com, though.) Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ndallen@io.org http://www.io.org/~ndallen ------------------------------ Our company is undergoing a feasability study on manufacturing of basic analogue telephones for the French telecom service. As most of our experience is with providing terminals with small digital switches for British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, and the Dutch PTT there are a few questions that are posing slight difficulties with regard to testing. The documentation which we have is one user guide (all in French of course :) ). These are not insurmountable, but if anyone knows the answers it would simplify matters. The name of the telephone is AMARYS "210". 1. What are Ringing frequencies, as well as DTMF frequencies/amplitudes? 2. What exchanges does this telephone connect to (PBXs' etc..)? 3. Are there any features of these exchanges that operate on this telephone (eg. CLI etc..)? 4. What type of barring is available on French exchange systems (eg.Line-to-Line)? 5. Are there any 'funny' French quality specifications (like the equivalent of BABT) that would involve us for example carrying out 'drop' testing, or lightning tests etc..? If anyone can help us out, it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance. Alan Nicolson Philips BCS, Airdrie, Scotland. Tel. +44 1-236-79311 ext.3179 e-mail nicolson_a@ukbcs1.decnet.philips.nl ------------------------------ MY PROBLEM: I have a medical problem, with my ears, whereby I have required the use of an amplified telephone "handset or headset" for years. I have been in telemarketing, "Screaming into the telephone" for years, which has caused my hearing to get progressively worse. I NEED: a. I need to eliminate or 'lower' the sidetone in my handset. b. alternately, since I normally work in a private office, so, I could talk into a handset microphone and use "external speakers" to 'receive'. I am new to the Internet and don't know where to look for this answer. I have, for five years been speaking to Engineers at Bell labs, NY Tel, most of the telephone suppliers, most of the handset and headset suppliers, with almost no success (with very few people even understanding the term 'sidetone'. The only possible help I found is in the book "UNDERSTANDING TELEPHONE ELECTRONICS", which is 'Greek' to me. (I can E-mail the discussion if requested) If you can help with the solution or lead me to some avenues of possible assistance I will be in your debt. Steven Hellman HQKX13A@PRODIGY.COM fax 914-632-8628 [TELECOJ Digest Editor's Note: Well Steven, I think you came to the right place. Let's see if in a few days some of the readers here have not responded to you and/or this Digest with some solutions. Let me know how it works out. PAT] ------------------------------ "Farmstead Home Page" http://www.farmstead.com Farmstead Telephone Group, Inc., headquartered in East Hartford, CT., the alternative source for AT&T parts and systems, is proud to announce the "Farmstead Home Page". Farmstead is an "authorized distributor of AT&T remanufactured products". Farmstead is the oldest and largest reseller of AT&T equipment to AT&T end-users. All AT&T products sold by Farmstead are guaranteed for AT&T installation and maintenance. Farmstead offers all AT&T voice products at significant savings with AT&T Credit Corp financing. The "Farmstead Home Page" gives complete information on products and services as well as information on current industry trends and issues. Farmstead Telephone Group, Inc. may be reached at 1-800-243-0234, FAX 203-282-9719, or contact administrator Alex Capo Visit the "Farmstead Home Page", http://www.farmstead.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alex! Isn't this a new position for you? Weren't you with a securities firm in New York? PAT] ------------------------------ Yesterday, I received a call from a friend in the US and was very surprised to find his phone number on the phone's display even though I'm in Germany. I must admit that I have ISDN (Caller-ID is not provided to analog lines in Germany at all.) My friend called from the 301 NPA and was using AT&T for long distance. Some time ago, I received a call from area code 617 and the Caller-ID did not show up, just "Number unknown". I am not sure if that person used AT&T or some other LD carrier. My question is: What long distance companies pass caller-ID along on international calls? Also, did readers in the US with Caller-ID receive international numbers on their Caller-ID boxes? Regards, Marko Ruokonen Cologne, Germany ------------------------------ I read a posting a while back about the FCC delaying the national rollout of Caller ID. Has a new date for this blessed event been announced yet? Mike ------------------------------ I participate in a conference call requiring speaker phones on both úÿ Does anyone know of any standalone speaker phones for under $500? Thanks very much in advance. David ------------------------------ Hi, I'm a third-year communication student at the Free University of Brussels (VUB), Belgium. I have to write a paper about the French Minitel-system and the possible impact of this French succes-story on the "infohighway policy" of the European Community because this EC-policy is rather confused at the moment. So if someone out there could help me by mailing me some information on this topic it would help me a lot. Thank you in advance for your help and best greetings from Brussels. Romina hw42374@is1.vub.ac.be (KELLER ROMINA) Student Communicatiewetenschappen Vrije Universiteit Brussel ------------------------------ Hello, I am a student at the Free University of Brussels and I am making a paper on telecommunications policy in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Is there anybody who could send me some information about this subject, everything is welcome. Thanks in advance. hw42611@is1.vub.ac.be (STEVENS MARIANNE) Student Communicatiewetenschappen Vrije Universiteit Brussel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I seem to get lots and lots of these messages from students in Belgium asking for help in writing their papers. Every day or two someone from there writes me and asks. PAT] ------------------------------ I was on the net and ended up in some kind of shopping mall (WWW). What the difference is between secure and insecure http links? How secure is secure? What makes a http link secure? Could somebody explain this to me? Thanks. ------------------------------ We are two students working on a M. Sc. thesis at Ericsson Telecom. We have to model the bit rate of MPEQ VBR Video. If somebody knows where we can get some more information about this subject, please tell us. It is hard to find people who are working on this subject. Our e-mail adresses are: xtrhugo@alfa.etx.ericsson.se (Hugo Nordkamp) xtrasa@alfa.etx.ericsson.se (Asa Hallgren) ------------------------------ I'm a student at VUB, Belgium and i'm looking for general information on video-on-demand and on its tarification towards the client. If any of you has information on this topic, please be so kind to send it to me. Thanks in advance. hw48233@is1.vub.ac.be (VANDEVEN HERMAN) Student Communicatiewetenschappen Vrije Universiteit Brussel ------------------------------ Hello, I am a student at the Free University of Brussels and I am writing a paper about telecommunication development in China. Especially about the policies and the companies who are trying to enter the market. If you know something interesting about this topic would you be so kind to send it to me? Thank you, Tom hw42276@is1.vub.ac.be (DEDECKER TOM) Student Communicatiewetenschappen Vrije Universiteit Brussel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The several messages above printed in this issue are a small sample of the requests I receive like this from day to day. Shall I print more of them from time to time? PAT] ------------------------------ Has anyone been able to use a PC based autodial program (such as Windows Cardfile, or Metz Phones) in an office environment? I have a separate modem line going to my PC, and the software dials out OK -- I can hear the ringing and the answer over the modem speaker. I got our telecommunications support people to add my modem line to an available button on my phone (NT Meridian M2317); but I am unable to pick up on the line once the modem goes off hook, apparently due to a feature called "privacy release". Our telecom people have been unable to figure out a way to remove the privacy release from the modem line, which would enable me to pick up the call being autodialed. Comments I've noted from our telecom people (which mean nothing to me, but may help all of you ;{>} ) include: "modem line is an analog line and privacy release is incompatible with an analog line", "switch is an SL100", "regular phone line is a digital line and modem can't dial out on a digital line", "autodial software needs to send a 750ms break followed by *87 after dialing" (there's no obvious way in the software to do that ...) Any suggestions would be appreciated. Request you respond to me directly so as not to add to the overworked condition of our dear Telecom Digest Editor. If a working solution is found, I will send a report to the list. Thanks for your help! Bill Breckinridge Office, 24HR Voice Mail/Pager: 214.995.3587 breckinridge@dallas.photronics.com (or wbreck@aol.com if your mailer can't handle the longer address!) Photronics, Inc. Dallas, TX USA ------------------------------ I am looking for an Icom R-71 in good condition. I will be using the computer interface so that has to work too. Gordon Mitchell (206) 481-5577 g.mitchell@ieee.org ------------------------------ The comparative market ranking I posted last month for the PCS Blocks A and B auction were (How shall I put this?) ... well ... quite frankly ... not even close. It was a botched intermediate effort that mistakenly got included in my final output. Sorry about that! Set forth below is the revised/corrected listing. The process for compiling this listing was as follows. The amounts bid in each market for both licenses (Block A and Block B) were totalled and the sum was then divided by double the MTA population. (This renders the mean avearage of $/Pop value of the two licenses in each market.) The exceptions are the pioneers preference markets. Only one license was auctioned in MTA 1 (New York), MTA 2 (Los Angeles-San Diego) and MTA 10 (Washington- Baltimore), the other license having already been issued pursuant to pioneers preference awards. So only one bid amount was used and the populaton was not doubled. However, a second calculation was performed for each of these marekts for which the amount to be paid by the pioneers preference licensee (pursuant to the forulas specified in the GATT legislation) was also factored in as if it were a bid on the second license. Thus, for the "*" lines below, "w/o pp" = without factoring in the pioneers preference licnsees, and "w/ pp" = including the pioneers preference licensees. MTA# Market Name Population $/Pop Total Bid(s) ---- -------------------------------- ---------- ------ ---------- -- 01 M003 Chicago 12,069,700 $31.39 $757,800,583 02 M024 Seattle (Excl. Alaska) 3,827,175 $27.63 $211,518,486 03 M011 Atlanta 6,942,084 $27.59 $383,071,483 04 M010 Washington-Baltimore (w/o pp) 7,777,875 $27.23 $211,771,000 05 M002 Los Angeles-San Diego (w/o pp) 19,145,232 $25.78 $493,500,000 06 M015 Miami-Fort Lauderdale 5,136,581 $25.09 $257,743,126 07 M019 St. Louis 4,663,926 $25.00 $233,161,789 08 M031 Indianapolis 3,017,475 $23.45 $141,533,000 09 M027 Phoenix 3,510,140 $21.93 $153,955,434 * M010 Washington-Baltimore (w/ pp) 7,777,875 $20.19 $314,114,539 10 M037 Jacksonville 2,274,933 $19.89 $90,500,544 11 M047 Honolulu 1,108,229 $19.87 $44,036,462 * M002 Los Angeles-San Diego (w/ pp) 19,145,232 $19.47 $745,418,526 12 M020 Milwaukee 4,541,432 $18.83 $171,043,290 13 M017 New Orleans-Baton Rouge 4,925,269 $18.62 $183,424,485 14 M036 Salt Lake City 2,573,372 $17.88 $92,026,882 15 M033 San Antonio 2,986,524 $17.80 $106,344,182 16 M016 Cleveland 4,945,749 $17.48 $172,881,000 17 M013 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Orlando 5,417,788 $17.45 $189,114,560 18 M004 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose 11,891,177 $17.18 $408,650,000 19 M001 New York (w/o pp) 26,410,597 $16.76 $442,712,000 20 M022 Denver 3,880,637 $16.61 $128,938,483 21 M014 Houston 5,190,849 $16.04 $166,569,262 22 M048 Tulsa 1,096,396 $15.67 $34,364,023 23 M025 Puerto Rico-U.S. Virgin Islands 3,623,846 $15.39 $111,571,000 * M001 New York (w/ pp) 26,410,597 $14.96 $790,230,309 24 M026 Louisville-Lexington-Evansville 3,556,648 $13.47 $95,839,000 25 M008 Boston-Providence 9,452,712 $13.16 $248,725,892 26 M028 Memphis-Jackson 3,465,226 $12.46 $86,337,314 27 M030 Portland 3,059,948 $11.16 $68,294,815 28 M029 Birmingham 3,244,076 $10.92 $70,875,000 29 M038 Columbus 2,145,561 $10.36 $44,466,837 30 M009 Philadelphia 8,927,748 $9.29 $165,946,012 31 M043 Nashville 1,767,391 $9.10 $32,184,000 32 M007 Dallas-Fort Worth 9,694,157 $9.07 $175,944,578 33 M018 Cincinnati-Dayton 4,716,665 $8.98 $84,665,483 34 M023 Richmond-Norfolk 3,846,210 $8.67 $66,697,045 35 M005 Detroit 10,001,009 $8.36 $167,284,000 36 M034 Kansas City 2,913,304 $8.11 $47,231,005 37 M021 Pittsburgh 4,102,766 $7.36 $60,385,199 38 M032 Des Moines-Quad Cities 3,006,139 $7.18 $43,143,004 39 M006 Charlotte-G'boro-G'ville-Raleigh 9,752,317 $7.05 $137,523,001 40 M035 Buffalo-Rochester 2,777,046 $6.98 $38,757,000 41 M041 Oklahoma City 1,877,478 $6.46 $24,253,457 42 M012 Minneapolis-St. Paul 5,986,039 $6.37 $76,274,685 43 M044 Knoxville 1,721,911 $6.33 $21,784,000 44 M040 Little Rock 2,051,667 $6.11 $25,053,501 45 M051 American Samoa 47,000 $4.71 $442,556 46 M046 Wichita 1,124,174 $4.13 $9,294,343 47 M039 El Paso-Albuquerque 2,113,890 $4.08 $17,268,030 48 M042 Spokane-Billings 1,863,335 $3.19 $11,879,000 49 M045 Omaha 1,659,273 $2.93 $9,725,000 50 M049 Alaska 550,043 $2.41 $2,650,129 51 M050 Guam-Northern Mariana Islands 176,000 $0.71 $248,837 Bob Keller (KY3R) Email: rjk@telcomlaw.com Law Office of Robert J. Keller, P.C. Telephone: 301.229.5208 Federal Telecommunications Law Facsimile: 301.229.6875 http://www.clark.net/pub/rjk/ | ftp://ftp.eznet.net/pub/telcomlaw/ ------------------------------ Issue 212 of the current volume left here Wednesday evening correctly numbered at the start of the issue, however the very bottom line which is used by some systems for bursting and separation of messages incorrectly identifified it as issue 213. Please correct that reference on your copy. What you are reading now is issue 213. Thank you. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #213 ****************************