From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Tue May 9 22:49:12 1995 by 1995 22:49:12 -0400 telecomlist-outbound; Tue, 9 May 1995 20:12:04 -0500 1995 20:12:02 -0500 To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu TELECOM Digest Tue, 9 May 95 20:12:00 CDT Volume 15 : Issue 233 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Frame-Relay to ISDN and ARA - Impossible? (Shuang Deng) Re: New Country Code 380 For Ukraine (Sam Spens Clason) Re: ISDN, BellSouth and OCN (Bradley Ward Allen) Re: RBOC IP Legislation Scaring Local ISPs? (Frank Atkinson) Re: Advice Needed About Answering Service (Greg Habstritt) Re: Suggestions For Two or Three Line PC Based Phone System (Gary Valmain) Re: Call Trace Foulup Followed OK Bomb (Donald R. Newcomb) Re: Call Trace Foulup Followed OK Bomb (John Woods) Re: Rural Phone Companies (Lee Winson) Re: Rural Phone Companies (Paul J. Lustgraaf) Re: Resale of Telecommunications Services (Rick Dennis) 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 , James M. Haar wrote: > I would think that somehow, magically and mysteriously, Pac Bell could > peel off the IP packets destined for Office #2, and reconvert them to > the ISDN (synchronous from packet based ?) protocol, and then > automatically open the ISDN connection to office #2. There are several options avaiable for ISDN-FR interworking, either customer premise and CO based. The CO based systems have to be deployed by a carrier (LEC or IXC) on a switch somewhere. That's probably what you are asking for. However, as far as I am aware of, currently avaiable systems initiate the connection from ISDN only, for there is not much FR SVC deployed yet. [Vendor should be able to still support PVC by starting the ISDN call as soon as a packet is received from FR, and automatically tearing down the connection after the link has been idle for a certain period.] If your carrier does not have enough demands to justify the deployment cost at the switch, you would have to purchase your own, stand-alone box to do the conversion from vendors (e.g., ISDN System Corp.) A summary and evaluation of ISDN-FR interworking options by us was presented at the recent Interop'95 engineering conference, and can be found in the preceedings. An extended version is to appear in the Communication Systems Design, August/95 issue. Drop me a note if you don't have easy access to those publications. Shuang Deng Email: sdeng@gte.com GTE Laboratories or sd03@gte.com 40 Sylvan Road Phone: +1 617 466 2165 Waltham, MA 02254, USA Fax : +1 617 466 2650 ------------------------------ In Clive D.W. Feather writes: > I compared my country codes list with my list of ISO recognised > countries and territories. The shared uses of codes I found were: > 1 Shared by 21 countries, of which 1 has a new code allocated > 269 Shared by 2 countries: Comoros and Mayotte > 33 Shared by 3 countries, of which 2 have had new codes allocated This referes to France, Andorra and Monaco. Is Monaco really going to move out from 33?! Monaco doesn't even have an area code, why would they want a country code? > 7 Shared by 9 countries, of which 3 have had new codes allocated I think it's a *#* shame that ex-Soviet countries can't share +7 because of national pride. > So there's a potential need for 31 new codes. But 68 are still spare: > 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 > 292 293 294 295 > 382 383 384 388 > 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 > 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 > 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 > 851 854 857 858 859 > 881 882 883 884 885 887 888 889 > 970 978 979 > 990 991 992 993 996 997 998 999 Is there any word on the proposed international toll free +800 code? > Oops, almost forgot. Apart from the 31 cases I listed before, there are > eight territories with no international code that I know of: > East Timor Not if you ask the Indonesians. To them East Timor is just another province. > Western Sahara Marocco regards Western Sahara to be the southern half of the country. I.e. no need for a country code. Sam www.nada.kth.se/~d92-sam, sam@nada.kth.se, +46 7 01234567 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Good point you raise about the new toll- free international scheme. I have heard nothing more on it recently from Judith Oppenheimer, who readers will recall wrote on several occassions to discuss the situation. Perhaps she will write again soon with an update; what's been happening in the past couple months on this. PAT] ------------------------------ key) In article , Willard F. Dawson wrote: > ulmo@panix.com (Bradley Ward Allen) writes: [...] >> Redundancy is better -- let all subscribers use whatever works best at >> the moment, as determined by a well-maintained set of routers. > Redundant routers that kick in to the selected carrier of data rather > than falling over to a different carrier are also possible ... and, > required, in a RBOC environment that must compete with the likes of > MFS and their "miss 1% a year, get the next year for free" attitude. Yes but frequently the selected carrier of IP data cannot get packets around. For instance, I have had the worst luck with Sprint, however since my main host only connects via it (argg when are they going to upgrade?), I have a dependence on them. My solution is to also have a Netcom account, plus maintaining a short list of friends' passwords for emergency use. Last month, I think one out of five login sessions had to be done via Netcom. Tonight, Netcom hosts were down, luckily Sprint isn't being a problem to me. If I upgrade my system of two providers plus access to three others in emergency needs (included are seven regional, international and national networks), I'd want some incentive like automated packet routing via whatever network is working and other redundancy measures. ------------------------------ > I feel I need to correct this perception that since the telco "owns" > facilities that their use is "free" and they don't have to "pay extra" > to use them. They are most certainly not free. They represent a > capital investment by shareholders and therefore a return on the > investment MUST be earned at a minimum. In fact, if shareholder > investment is to not be diluted, these facilities must contribute at > exactly the same level as those sold "externally". It is, therefore, > imperative that all costs including "contribution" associated with > these facilities be included in the price of any service that uses > them. Without going too deeply into the regulatory system that built the network which took what the company spent, added a guaranteed rate of return, and in some cases hidden taxes, then passed it on to the rate payer's bill (rate of return regulation). The shareholder's position has been fairly well protected. Maybe each ratepayer should be given some company stock now that the network they built will be used to compete. The company hasn't sold enough stock to fund the network, the money came from the ratepayers, the ratepayers repaid the consturction bonds, not the stockholders. In a recent Ohio workshop on competetion an incumbent phone company objected to calling the network a "public-switched-network" and suggested there might be a questions of "lawful property rights" should the commission require the incumbent to unbundle and share, even though the customers funded it. Frank Atkinson fratkins@freenet.columbus.oh.us or frank@hannah.com ------------------------------ In article , petro@crl.com (Brian D. Petro) says: > I am very seriously considering the idea of starting a business from > my home selling voice-mail boxes. As I have never been in the > business, I am looking for advice from someone who has. > I am planning on targeting the residential market. I live in a town > of 40,000. I would only be charging $5/month for a basic service box. > It seems to me that it would be fairly easy to add 100+ customers/year to > my service, but I would like the opinion of someone "in the business." > Please E-mail any responses. Hi Brian: We operate a full service voice/fax service bureau here in Calgary, about 750,000 pop. We've been at it about 2.5 years, focusing almost exclusively in business and corporate clients. Firstly: it's not as easy as it sounds, particularly getting clients. Now, before we get into details, let's just take the assumptions you've made and see how they work out. You're looking at getting 100 clients per year, on average (a herculean task, considering the population of 40,000). Nevertheless: Let's say you have 100 at the end of the 1st year. Your revenue at that point will be $5 x 100 per month, gross = $500/month. In order to service 100 clients you are going to require at least 4-6 incoming lines for your system. The cost will depend on the type you use, however it would likely be in the range of $30-50 per line. $40 per line is probably likely. This will cost $200 per month. That leaves $300 per month. Now out of that, you've got to do some advertising, feed yourself (lotta macaroni, looks like).. AND ... somehow pay for the system you are using! A decent interactive system that can do most of the stuff required of a service bureau is going to be a minimum of $15-20,000. The companies that claim they can sell you one for a few thousands are bullshitting. In interactive, you really do get what you pay for. (Hardware for a decent system four line system is a minimum $5000 to start with, assuming you do it properly with UPS, remote power reboot, etc). > My major competition would be our local telephone company who charges > $6.5/month. My question is this: Would there be enough interest in > voice-mail from residential clients to keep my business profitable? We have somewhat the same problem here with our telco offering cheap voice mail. But that's the key -- it's cheap. There's no fancy options, it can't do anything like fax or interactive surveying, they can't do database lookup ... etc. In other words, they can have the business at the low end (simple voice boxes). THE ONLY PLACE YOU CAN MAKE MONEY IS OFFERING CUSTOM SERVICES like fax on demand, call transferring, database lookup, etc. To do that, you'll need a good system. I hate to sound negative, but that's the reality. If you're really not prepared to invest at least $25,000 in the business, don't bother. Plus, I think your pop'n is really going to work against you. On the positive side, growth of voice mail and related services is certainly staggering ... it's at least a good thing to keep your eye on. But don't get into residential service. There's no money in it. gregicg@cadvision.com Greg Habstritt Intellitech Communications Inc. Calgary, Alberta, Canada ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Karl : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why don't you try a combination of PC > and voicemail you build yourself, possibly using Big Mouth or something > similar? Have a PC answer your second line with a message that goes > something like this: "Thank you for calling; right now all agents are > If you combine the Big Mouth transfer function with Call Transfer from > your local telco, then once the waiting call has been passed over to you > on the first line, Big Mouthh is freed up to take another call on > the overflow line and hold it until you become available. PAT] I have a customer who wants exactly this. He has an AT&T four line Merlin phone system (known as a '410') in place. My questions are: 1) How would such a system 'sound' to the caller? Would it sound like it's a patched together kluged system? 2) Can the Big Mouth be interfaced with the Merlin phone system? 2) Is it difficult for the user (receptionist type) to use? 3) Can you provide some cost ranges (rounded dollars will suffice)? 4) Related to 3, would he be better off (money and practicality) to either upgrade the existing phone system or replace it with another phone system which already has all of his hot buttons built in? TIA gary valmain [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I don't think Big Mouth sounds bad at all considering its relatively inexpensive cost. I think you can buy a one line system in the range of $300-400. That's assuming you already have the computer and phone lines. I put together a small system for use in a small town bus station (a Greyhound Agency in fact) which was reviewed in the 'new products' section of {Bus Ride Magazine} a couple months ago. The application I built this for is typical. You have a ticket clerk, two phone lines which ring off the hook with calls from local residents wanting to know the schedule of busses, the cost of tickets, etc, and everything happening at once. The clerk not only has to write the tickets and answer all the phone inquiries, but he has to go out to load/unload the baggage and freight from the busses. Greyhound sends ten busses per day through that town (five each direction), and he also gets four Trailways busses each day (two each direct- ion); he writes tickets for those also. It is a hot little agency; both Greyhound and whatever Trailways company it is pay him a commission on ticket sales in return for providing 'bus station services' and his income in the summer is good; in the winter it is sufficient. The main problem he had/has is that there are times the place is dead. Nothing going on ... but once a day the schedules are such he gets two ·_ busses in his driveway at once, both to be (un)loaded, two or three passengers the bus driver picked up at a flag stop twenty miles out of town who need tickets written in a hurry so they can get back on the bus and the driver can be on his way, and then both phone lines ring at once with relatively complicated questions on schedules to some far away place. He had been letting the phones ring unanswered during that ten or fifteen minute period. As good as his business can be at times, he cannot afford to have two people on duty at once. Some family member of his comes in and takes care of things in the evening and on weekends; even that cuts deeply into his profits since he has to pay them something. Sometimes he was taking the phones off the hook for a few minutes when he got a line of people at the counter. I put together a Big Mouth for him on an old 286 to answer his second line whenever it does not get answered after three or four rings. If he is taking a call on the first line another call will roll to the second line. The Big Mouth answers, "You have reached the bus station. The agent is busy now on another call, or working with a customer. Your call will be answered as soon as possible, but in the meantime while you are waiting, you may listen to some recorded messages which may answer your questions entirely. At any time you can choose to be transferred to the agent if you wish by pressing zero on your touch tone phone." There then follows a menu of choices; what he calls his half-dozen most frequently asked questions; (1) schedule of busses going north to the big city where his passengers connect; (2) southbound schedule; (3) ticket prices for the half dozen most often purchased tickets; (4) hours the station is open and its address; (5) package express freight services; (6) other schedule connections, etc. The caller can leave a message to be called back by pressing a key with the message going to a voicemail box, and pressing another key allows purchase of 'tickets by phone with credit card'. It goes into an inter- active dialogue with the caller, asking the caller his name, waiting for a response; his credit card number, waiting for response; where tickets are desired for, etc. A callback is promised as soon as possible. Anytime the person bails out of one of the recordings, or is at the main menu and presses zero, the speaker on the PC announces, 'call holding, please pick up'. If he does not do so in thirty seconds or so, then Big Mouth takes the call back and advises the caller the agent is still busy and to please leave a message in voicemail for a return call ASAP. The neat part though is his after hours operation. By swapping out a couple files on the PC (done automatically by a cron job at a certain time of night when the station closes, and again in the morning when it opens), Big Mouth begins answering the first line instead, with a message saying 'station is closed, will be open to ... and offers to play the same menu of answers to 'most asked questions'. The menu concludes with 'if you need to speak to an agent right away, press zero' ... and in this case the transfer is done with three way calling. Big Mouth flashes the hook and outdials to the national Greyhound information line, a toll free 800 number. The caller hears ringing and gets an answer from a phone room clerk at Omaha where Greyhound information is located. Really, a very sharp little setup if I do say so myself, and I do, since the money I made on it allowed me to buy extra rations of macaroni for myself and a few more boxes of Tender Vittles for the cats. ..... PAT] ------------------------------ In article , Carl Moore wrote: > 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. A friend of mine told this story. Years ago (1920s) when the phone numbers in my home town were three digits long, his phone number was slightly different from the number of the largest industry in town. He was always getting calls intended for them. One day he got a call from a salesman for a coal company who thought he was the factory's buyer. So, he ordered what he figured would be a two year supply of coal. He said he had a good laugh the day he saw a train of only coal cars rolling down the spur to the factory. Donald R. Newcomb University of Southern Mississippi dnewcomb@whale.st.usm.edu dnewcomb@falcon.st.usm.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Shame, shame, shame! That was fraud, although it is kind of funny. If he had gotten caught, the judge should have punished him by making him shovel all that coal by hand back into the coal cars to be returned to the company. PAT] ------------------------------ > Is it a measure of how full the system is when messed-up digits > result in someone else's valid number? Apparently the transposed digits turned out to be in a trunk number, not a phone number. This particular mistake also cost them the ability to trace the correct phone number, according to the newspaper. ------------------------------ Other people here have reported that with fiber optic, things like expensive and cumbersome party lines are no longer needed; this makes for better service and lower cost. Also, electronics allows exchanges to be unattended and service remotely, saving money. The older SxS switches needed cleaning/adjustment from time to time. Further, things like operator service can be offered remotely from a considerable distance. If a company is still using SxS equipment (or even crossbar), I would be cautious. I've heard many horror stories from customers served by old mechanical switches that became unreliable from poor maintenance. ------------------------------ In article , Jack Mott wrote: > I recently learned U.S. West is in the process of selling off its > rural telephone properties (I live in Idaho Falls, which will stay > with US West). Although I felt that the original break-up of the Bell > System was unwise, it is natural to expect more fragmentation and > specialization in the telecom industry. > I would appreciate hearing about technical issues which are unique to > phone companies serving sparsely populated areas. I imagine that the > smaller companies could become quite innovative in dealing with > problems specific to their business. The smaller companies are usually quite innovative in: Extracting large quantities of money from users of leased lines. We have one such here in Iowa that charges over $300/mo. for a 56K line *across town* (less than a mile). Talk about rip-off artists ... Paul Lustgraaf "It's easier to apologize than to get permission." Network Specialist Grace Hopper Iowa State University Computation Center grpjl@iastate.edu Ames, IA 50011 515-294-0324 ------------------------------ Hey, I'm a little fuzzy in this area, but I'm pretty sure resale is required by the Communications Act of 1934, and accordingly this is enforced by the FCC. I believe it has something to do with being a Common Carrier and all. I could look up the exact section in the Act that contains the details if you like. I'm on Bob Keller's mailing list and from what I've gathered from various infractions over the last year or so, the fine for a carrier refusing to resell is a maximum of $100,000. The plaintiffs follow the FCC's usual complaint filing process. About the only benefit for the carrier doing the reselling is that they make a little extra money on bandwidth that would otherwise be unused. One downside, as has been seen this week with AT&T filing a suit against a reseller, is the issue of representation. See the included article for details: *** AT&T has filed a complaint with federal regulators accusing a long-distance reseller of "slamming" -- the practice of changing a customer's long-distance carrier without the customer's authorization. AT&T's complaint alleges that National Accounts, Inc., of Parsippany, N.J., misrepresented an affiliation with AT&T, and has switched customers from AT&T to National Accounts without the customers' knowledge or agreement. AT&T's complaint to the FCC describes how National Accounts representatives falsely told customers that National Accounts is affiliated with AT&T, or that National Accounts "markets and administers" AT&T service. In some instances National Accounts claimed it was "employed by AT&T." Where National Accounts' misrepresentations were unsuccessful in inducing AT&T's customers to switch their service to National Accounts, the reseller would frequently "slam" those customers, AT&T said. Under authority of the Communications Act of 1934, AT&T has asked the FCC to stop National Accounts from continuing these practices, and to award AT&T damages to be determined by the commission. As you can see, the relationship between resellers and the larger carriers is somewhat strained. It should be interesting to see how resale in the local market pans out. I know AT&T is doing that with Ameritech and Frontier at the current time. Rick Dennis AT&T Global Business Communications Systems Conversant(Intuity) Systems Suite 600 email: attmail!rickdennis 5555 Oakbrook Parkway Phone: (404) 242-1552 Norcross, GA 30093 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #233 ******************************