_@TO :telecom@eecs.nwu.edu N _@UMSGID :<199505050224.VAA16557@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> N From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Thu May 4 23:44:02 1995 by coyot 23:44:02 - 0400 telecomlist-out bound; Thu, 4 May 1995 21:24:13 -0500 1995 21 :24:10 -0500 To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu TELECOM Digest Thu, 4 May 95 21:18:00 CDT Volume 15 : Issue 225 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Call Trace Foulup Followed OK Bomb (Steve Dyer) Re: Call Trace Foulup Followed OK Bomb (Carl Moore) Re: Any Way to Have Parents' Phone Calls Billed to *My* Phone? (S. Cogorno) Re: Any Way to Have Parents' Phone Calls Billed to *My* Phone? (M. Smith) Re: Any Way to Have Parents' Phone Calls Billed to *My* Phone? (HiHoSteveo) Re: Annoying Calls: Can We Deal With Them? (John David Galt) Re: Nokia 2110 vs Motorola 8200 (John Nice) Need Information on T1/E1 Rates in Asia (Gomab1183@aol.com) Possible Tax Break For Voice Networks (Ken Anders) Re: Challenging Phone Bill (Steven H. Lichter) Want Location of RS-232C Standard (Scott Ehrlich) Syncronous and Asyncronous Differences (Wayne Kosten) Frustrations With AT&T Long Distance Billing (Lathika Pai) Manuals for ISOTEC System 96/S (Steve Tanner) Re: North American Modems in Britain (Dave Mathews) Re: Looking For a Black Box (William Englander) Re: ISDN, BellSouth and OCN (Bradley Ward Allen) Resale of Telecommunications Service (Wei N. Deng) Telephone Answering Gizmo Wanted (Donald McLachlan) New House Telecom Bills (Jeff Richards) Voice Mail SMDI Specs (Kevin Fleming) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In article , Richard M. Weil wrote: > Pat said in a recent issue that the man that was mistakenly arrested > for phoning in a bomb threat after the OK blast is suing the police > for misconduct and suing NYNEX "on the grounds that the company filed > a false report in the matter and did so 'with wanton disregard for the > accuracy of their report.' He says the president's apology is insuffi- > cient ... " > I heard yesterday that the phone company has offered to pay for this > young man's college education as compensation for the obvious mistake. This obviously got a lot of play in the Boston area, and I hadn't heard anything about a suit. Rather, the kid and his parents bore no ill feelings and had accepted the tuition offer from NYNEX. Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can correct me if I am wrong on this. My understanding of the sequence of events was (1) incorrect report filed; (2) official apology only; (3) threats of legal action; (4) then the college tuition tossed in to sweeten things up. Since the cost of four or five years in college these days might easily come to a hundred thousand dollars, it would seem prudent to me also to accept that as a nice settlement. It works out much cheaper for NYNEX that way also. PAT] ------------------------------ Is it a measure of how full the system is when messed-up digits result in someone else's valid number? Several years ago, this Digest had a note about a Chicago-area dress shop getting calls meant for an airline (two digits transposed in the telephone number). I recall this appearing not long before 708 area code came along to provide relief for 312. Outside the phone system, there have been "horror stories" about people getting billed for parking tickets when it turns out that there was an error in transcribing license plate number. Back to the phone system, there are the amusing incidents of a call intended for Marilyn in Beverly Hills (area 310, and received when eastern Maryland could be reached in either 301 or 410), and some calls for gynecology clinic (two transposed digits). ------------------------------ scott.d.brenner said: > I'd like to find out if there's a way to have the calls direct-dialed > from my parents' home phone billed to *my* home phone number. Right > now, they're using my calling card number for selected calls. But > they show up on my AT&T Universal bill. I'd rather have them on my > AT&T long distance bill (I get a separate bill from AT&T; my LEC > doesn't handle LD billing anymore). I also want to avoid the ~$1 > surcharge for using the calling card. You can certainly get an AT&T Calling Card connected to your regular bill. It will still cost about $0.80 cents surcharge (may differ depending on your state), but the cost of the call will apply towards your True USA Savings and True Rewards. There is no way to have a called billed to your line as if it were a direct dialed call. You may want to set up an 800 number for your parents (and possibly others if you want) to use. Depending on your (their) calling patterns it may or may not be cheaper. Steve cogorno@netcom.com ------------------------------ In article sbrenner@cbnews.cb.att.com (scott.d.brenner) writes: > I'd like to find out if there's a way to have the calls direct-dialed > from my parents' home phone billed to *my* home phone number. Right > now, they're using my calling card number for selected calls. But > they show up on my AT&T Universal bill. I'd rather have them on my > AT&T long distance bill (I get a separate bill from AT&T; my LEC > doesn't handle LD billing anymore). I also want to avoid the ~$1 > surcharge for using the calling card. > If you know a way to do this, please send some e-mail to me at > "sbrenner@attmail.com" You could set up a personal 800 number, with PIN if desired. You pay something like 0.25 per minute, but no surcharge. You can also get it cheaper from another long distance company if you don't mind a separate bill. Mark ------------------------------ Good grief -- call your parent's business office and have them assign the bill to your telephone number -- you'll get the whole bill, not just LD. ------------------------------ >> In other words, knowledgeable offensive callers can dial with almost >> complete impunity and automated dialers are "impossible" to stop. > In California, since CallerID is not yet legal, the offending number > would not be readily available. But Pac Bell offers [Call Trace]... [snip] While California doesn't yet have Caller ID, we do have some related features that ought to do the job. I got Call Screen (the same thing named Call Block in eastern states) for the purpose of blocking these junk calls -- but I have yet to see this work even once. The junk callers are smart enough to always call from a PBX, so that their number is "not available" to Call Screen. And Pacific Bell is too stupid (or too cunning?) to offer you the option of blocking the offending company's entire PBX when it happens. In addition, Call Screen can only block 10 numbers. If Pac Bell, or the PUC, really cared about giving us peace in our homes, these limitations would have been removed by now, and I'm not inclined to believe stories that it's impossible. The bottom line is that telco cares more about the income from these junk calls than about our right to peace. I can only hope that dialtone competition will change their attitudes. John David Galt ------------------------------ In article Nick.Pitfield@bnr.ca "nick pitfield" writes: > I'm about to buy a GSM phone, and have settled on either the Nokia 2110 or > the Motorola 8200. Does anybody have good or bad experiences or opinions > about these that they could share with me. A colleague of mine had four 8200s. He now has a 2110 with which he is happy. > Also, could somebody tell me where I can find the files describing how to > re-program certain things on these phones: eg I had the file for the Nokia > 101 last year and was able to change both the lock code and the start- up > message. Me too. please. John Nice ------------------------------ Does anyone have a listing of T1/E1 leased line and interconnection rate tarrifs for countries in Asia? If not, any pointers as to ftp sites or gophers that may have that information? Thanks, SD ------------------------------ I have heard that calls made intra-company over virtual voice networks may be tax exempt. This would include VPN, SDN and other vendor supplied networks provided the calls are within your defined network. Has anyone else heard of this? If so, can you lead me to the proper tax codes? Thanks in advance, ken_anders@corp.disney.com ------------------------------ Don't ignore it, because even if you are right you will have problems. Right call the business office first, give them a chance to remove it, which they will in 99% of the cases. Then as Pat says contact the PUC and go from there. By the way they charge is a non regulated part of your bill and it should not cause you to lose phone service. Sysop: Apple Elite II -=- an Ogg-Net Hub BBS Home of GBBS/LLUCE support (909) 359-5338 12/24/14.4 V32/V42bis ------------------------------ Does an RFC or similar document exist on the 'net for the RS-232C standard? I performed a lengthy keyword search at InterNIC and came up with no RFCs with the standard, which is why I'm posting the query. If it doesn't exist online, how much does the EIA charge for the specs? Thanks, Scott Ehrlich, Internetworking ASM, Eastern Mass. E-mail: wy1z@neu.edu Boston ARC ftp archives: ftp oak.oakland.edu /pub/hamradio Boston ARC Web page: http://www.acs.oakland.edu/barc.html ARRL Web page: http://www.acs.oakland.edu/barc/arrl.html ------------------------------ Could somebody explain firstly the difference between Asyncronous and Sycronous data transmission and secondly the pros and cons for both. Can you please E-mail me if possible so as not to congest the digest. wayne_kosten@yes.optus.com.au Thanks in advance, Wayne Kosten ------------------------------ I have been having a horrible time dealing with AT&T regarding my long distance billing. Here are a list of problems: 1) I do not receive the rate I have been told I would on the Reach Out World Plan. As a result, calls to India, which should cost me $1.12/min have been arbitrarily charged between $1.68/min-$3.60/min. 2) Every month, I find that calls are not for that specific billing period eg. February 15 - March 15. I find calls that should have been included in maybe the December or January bills show up in this bill. This has been happening to me for the past six billing cycles. 3) Every time I call AT&T up, they tell me that they do not have a copy of the bill that has been sent to me and ask me to fax them a copy. I have done this three times already. 4) It has been four months now, and AT&T has still not addressed any of my concerns. I now get a bill every month which says I owe AT&T a whopping $1300. What do I do? I have spoke to every supervisor possible and everyone of them promises to get back to me and no one has. I am absolutely frustrated and disgusted with AT&T. Any suggestions/advice is more than welcome. Lathika Pai e-mail : pai@cgi.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, why don't you quit using them and switch your service to MCI? ... they take real good care of their customers don't they? No billing mixups and unresponsive people there, no sir-ree. Maybe Sprint or LDDS would like your patronage for awhile also. Then when AT&T sees that you left them, and they look at your bill and see it was up to $1300 they'll say oh my gosh, send this guy a check for a hundred dollars if he promises to sign up with us. PAT] ------------------------------ Hello, I'm looking for a system manual or service manual for an ISOTEC System 96 / S PBX. My problem is that our service contractor has no staff trained on our system, and we are locked out from reprogramming it ourselves. They state they are checking for a "backdoor" to regain access as they lost the password. I would appreciate any help locating a set of service manuals. EMAIL : STEVET@CUC.CA Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ gsmicro@ios.com wrote: > jbowler@biostats.uwo.ca wrote: > However, USR will warn you that this configuration is only designed > for occasional use (ie; when travelling). Since the modem you are > using is designed for use in North America, and therefore only has > approval for use in North America, it is *technically* illegal to > permanently attach the modem to the UK network. I don't think there > is much of a physical difference between the UK and North American > versions of the modems. There may be different shielding, RF, or > line conditioning requirements in the UK. But it will physically > work. You will also need to send a command string to the modem to > allow it to dial, especially if you are dialing pulse. USR tells you that this is for temporary 'visiting' use because of telecom laws in the UK. Modems to be sold overseas must have the ability to store the last numbers dialed in the %B register and not let you dial any one of those numbers more than three (I am 99% certain on this figure) times within an hour. I was told this in response to another question by a technical manager at Compaq (they write their own very elaborate modem EEPROM code) when I visited their communications department in January. Dave Mathews Cellular World Wireless Data Specialist ------------------------------ In article , andrew bevan writes: > One solution we have thought of is to utilise the RS-232 serial port, > from the workstation, by connecting this to a "black box" containing > relays or contact closures. These relays/contact closures could then > be connected to the external device (e.g. a flashing light or audible > bell). Therefore under the right circumstances within the application, > a signal/message would be sent down the RS-232 to open or close the > relay, thus triggering the external device. I have just the "black box" for you ... order a catalog from: Electronic Energy Controls 380 South Fifth Street, Suite 604 Columbus, Ohio 43215 Orders: 800/842-7714 Technical: 614/464-4470 FAX: 614/464-9656 I've used their AR-16 relay interface (with their RH-8 relay card) to do exactly what you described. I used it to turn on (and off) lights and to activate a Radio Shack telephone dialer. Bill William and Alice Englander englandr@netcom.com ------------------------------ key) > "IPConnectSM users have access to the Metropolitan Internet and are > also able to select the carrier of their data to the worldwide > Internet in much the same way they now select a long distance carrier > along with local telephone services," states Robert Gardier, President > of Open Communication Networks. That's stupid. Redundancy is better -- let all subscribers use whatever works best at the moment, as determined by a well-maintained set of routers. Or am I missing something? The old ways seemed better ... Or is this system a non-flat rate structure (i.e. charges per some unit of usage)? In which case, forget it anyway I'm not interested (unless full time usage actually works out to a reasonable cost for me, which doesn't seem to be the pattern of usage-based charging). ------------------------------ I would like to open a discussion on resale of telecommunication service. In the past years resale in telecommunications industry is no longer a treacherous thing. Resellers didn't encounter strong resistance from Carriers. In some cases carriers are, to some extent, cooperative. I am wondering the economic motivation of carriers to do this. Besides economic driving force, is there any regulatory policy encouraging or preventing reselling? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Wei (404) 668-5189 ------------------------------ I need to monitor audio at a remote site. Our comm lines are all used and we are not willing to pay for them to install more so we can get a leased line. I need to be able to monitor an audio source at a remote site. What I would like is a device which: - can be programmed to pick up the phone on the N'th ring (N programmable). - upon answering "plays" the remote audio to me over the phone line. - will hang up the remote end after I hang up my end OR will hang up if I hit a certain key at my end (DTMF decoder). OR will wait a M minutes and then hang up (M programmable). Does anyone know of a device which will do this sort of thing? Sources for same? Thanks, Donald McLachlan e-mail donald.mclachlan@crc.doc.ca Communications Research Centre / DRX office 613-998-2845 3701 Carling Ave., fax 613-998-9648 Ottawa, Ontario lab 613-998-2423 K2H 8S2 ------------------------------ Within the last two days, two telecom reform bills were introduced in the House of Representatives, and are available on . One is HR 1555, from Messrs. Bliley, Dingell and Fields (Commerce Committee). The other, HR 1528, is from Chairman Hyde (Judiciary Committee). Hearings begin next week. We will post schedules and witnesses as they are available, as well as updates about Senate activity on Senator Pressler's bill. In the gopher site , choose "Legislation." In the Web site , you'll see the links on our Home Page. Please send questions to . Of course, you can always drop me a note directly with your comments about the site. Finally, directions to add yourself to our listerver are noted below. Jeff Richards The Alliance for Competitive Communications & Pacific Telesis Group and ==SUBSCRIBE BELL YOUR_LASTNAME YOUR_FIRSTNAME ------------------------------ Anyone know where I can obtain (free or otherwise) documents describing the SMDI (Standard Message Desk Interface) standards, used between PBXs and voice mail systems? Thanks for any help. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #225 ******************************