The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-385-Vol-1of3.iso/t/tc13-023.zip/TC13-023.TXT

Text File | 1993-01-16 | 13KB | 326 lines

TELECOM Digest     Wed, 13 Jan 93 01:45:00 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 23

Index To This Issue:                     Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Sprint 800 Residential (Gary Morris)
    Re: Sprint 800 Residential (Steve Elias)
    Re: 800 Numbers and Live ANI Advice Sought (Pat Turner)
    Re: New Call Feature (was Sad to Say, Telemarketing Works) (Steve Forrette)
    Re: Mission Impossible: IBT Getting My Order Correct (Dave Niebuhr)
    Re: More Idiocy From GTE (Charles Mattair)
    Re: Intra-lata LD and COCOTs (Matt Healy)
    Re: Wanted: List of Active & Proposed Undersea Cables Worldwide (S. Loftus)
    Re: Sad to Say, Telemarketing Works (Matt Healy)
    Re: Bell Canada Calling Card Fraud (Eric R. Skinner)
    Re: Another Payphone Mystery? (David Esan)
    Re: Panasonic KXT-123211 Software (Phil Wherry)
    Re: Baby Bell Breakups (John Higdon)
    Re: Frequently Asked Questions re Telecom Stuff (Don McKillican)
    Re: Suggestions Wanted For Phone Device to Restrict Toll Charges (Klossner)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Gary Morris @pulsar)
Subject: Re: Sprint 800 Residential
Organization: Alsys Group, San Diego, CA, USA
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 00:40:32 GMT


In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ken Jongsma)
writes:

> About a month ago, a Sprint rep called and asked if I wanted to try
> Sprint's Residential 800 service...  They offered to waive the installation
> charge as well as the monthly service charge for the first six months...

> I'm confused about the monthly service charge. I thought the rep said
> it was $5 a month, ...

I also signed up to try this out.  I was told the monthly charge would
be $5, and that after the 6 month free trial (except for usage), that
if we had at least $45 per quarter in usage charges then we would not
be charged the monthly $5 charge after that, just usage charges.  I
haven't had any wrong numbers yet but have only had it for about two
weeks.


Gary Morris                Internet: [e-mail]
Ada Software Development   UUCP:     uunet!telesoft!garym
Alsys West (TeleSoft)      Phone:    [phone]
San Diego, CA, USA         Fax:      [phone]

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Sprint 800 Residential
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 07:52:48 PST
From: Steve Elias <[e-mail]>


I used Sprint 800, a few years before this "Sprint residential" thang
became available.  The wrong numbers were quite annoying, Get ready
for lots more.  Some telemarketers are slimy enough to demon dial 800
numbers trying to sell fax toner paper, etc.

I now use MCI residential 800.  Their security code feature is a Good
Thing for residential use.


eli

------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 00:05 EST
Subject: Re: 800 Numbers and Live ANI Advice Sought
Reply-To: [e-mail]


The Moderator wrote a good comment, but I thought I would add a few
things.  Since mail to Greg seems to bounce, I'll reply to the Digest.

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 their are other peices of CPE equipiment that will
handle it.  Coastcom makes a channel bank just for 800 service, though
I don't know if it will dump the ANI data out a RS-232/V.35 port or
not.  I would imagine that as AT&T complies with the newer ISDN-1
standards, most any PBX could handle it.

The AT&T service is called INFO-2 and is part of their Megacom
service.  The ANI delivery adds $.02/call up to a limit, past which it
is $.01/call.

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.


Pat Turner KB4GRZ   [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Steve Forrette)
Subject: Re: New Call Feature (was Sad to Say, Telemarketing Works)
Date: 13 Jan 1993 09:32:06 GMT
Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA


With the upcoming introduction of Caller ID in Washington State, I've
been evaluating how I will put it to use to screen calls at home.
Since the WA implementation will include calling name delivery, as
well as calling number, I've thought of what I think is a clever way
to differentiate business callers from residential callers.  Any
number that's not in my local database can have each word of the
calling name run against an English dictionary.  Business names are
quite likely to have one or more words of the directory listing in the
dictionary, whereas residential listings are likely to have no parts
in the dictionary.  While not perfect, this in combination with
rejecting private calls, as well as a local database of known numbers,
should work quite well at filtering out the junk.  To get fancy, I
could always allow calls from names that contain "police", "fire",
etc.


Steve Forrette, [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 09:01:22 EST
From: [e-mail] (Dave Niebuhr)
Subject: Re: Mission Impossible: IBT Getting My Order Correct


My latest NYTel bill showed a number 890-6611 that I could call for
repair service in addition to 611 (I think that's the way it goes).

Quite by accident a few months ago, I found that 890-XXXX is a NYTel
exchange in each area code.  The XXXX varies by area code for the same
office.  An example is 890-1100 for the billing office in area code
516, but not in area code 212.


Dave Niebuhr      Internet: [e-mail] / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl
Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973  (516)-282-3093

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 09:58:30 CST
From: [e-mail] (Charles Mattair)
Subject: Re: More Idiocy From GTE
Organization: Synercom Technology, Inc., Houston, TX


On 28 Dec 92 15:07:25 GMT, [e-mail] (Charles
Mattair) said:

> As I'm at a friend's house, I decide to put the call on calling
> card.  102880+10D.  <boing> GTE.  Huh...?  I know this is intralata
> but I told them to use AT&T.  They can't override my choice of carrier
> can they?  Try it again except as 102880+7D (713 has gone 1/0+10D on
> all LD calls but who knows what GTE is doing).  <boing> GTE.

> Call the operator to see whats going on - it should work, you must be
> misdialing, etc.

> Finally, in disgust, 1028800.  <boing>  AT&T.  Placed the call and nobody
> answered :-(

Several people sent me Email suggesting this is proper and expected
behaviour on the part of GTE.  After doing some checking, I think is
more a case of permissible (sp?) behaviour.

SWB appears to always hand off -- I have started using 102881+ on all
intralata calls from my house; an examinination of my last three phone
bills shows 0 LD routed thru SWB.

SWB will even hand off within the Houston EMS.  A call from my house
to 713 288 -- both ends within the EMS (288 is a non-EMS exchange)
routes thru AT&T which curiously enough is tariffed for the call.

Calls to AT&T indicated they see both types of behaviour: the LEC
reserving LD service for intralata (GTE) and the other as I see with
SWB.

Indicentally, this whole mess started when I found out SWB charges 35
cents versus AT&Ts 22 cents for an intralata call I make a lot.


Charles Mattair         [e-mail]

Any opinions offered are my own and do not reflect those of my employer.

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Matt Healy)
Subject: Re: Intra-lata LD and COCOTs
Organization: Yale U. - Genetics
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:15:31 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, Jay.Ashworth@f8649.
n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Jay Ashworth) wrote:

> Since these phones automagically route LD calls to the phone owner's
> preferred AOS/IXC, (which I'm told is no longer illegal), _all_ calls
> go there.  Even calls that would normally go through the LEC.

> Is there an equal access code that routes calls through whatever LEC
> owns the line?  Or specific ones for each LEC -- although I suspect that
> would be impossible to administer.

I also would like to know if there's any such code!  Recently I was in
an airport whose LD carrier was not AT&T.  I wanted to make a short
(about 100 km) toll call.  When I tried 10-ATT-0 I got a recording
saying this call cannot be carried by AT&T, I suppose because they are
not allowed to handle intra-LATA calls. The phone would not accept my
AT&T card when I dialed 0-xxx-xxx-xxxx or 0-xxx-xxxx.  I had to dial
0-0 and tell a human operator the number I was calling and my AT&T
card number.


Matt Healy    [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: George Loftus <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Wanted: List of Active and Proposed Undersea Cables Worldwide
Date: 12 Jan 1993 19:16:36 GMT
Organization: Brown University - CIS


In article <[e-mail]> Frank Vance, airgun!fvance@
uunet.UU.NET writes:

> I am looking for a list of all the intercontenental undersea cables,
> both active and proposed.  I would like to know such things as
> capacity, ownership, and where the cable terminates.

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Matt Healy)
Subject: Re: Sad to Say, Telemarketing Works
Organization: Yale University--Genetics
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 23:19:33 GMT


> BTW, Some mail carriers will not deliver 4th class junk if you ask
> them, but it is illegal for them to not deliver it.

In my apartment building, there's a bin next to the mailboxes where
the carrier puts all "extremely obvious" junk mail (ie, 27 identical
envelopes arriving bulk rate to various apartments).  Every couple of
days it gets emptied of anything nobody has claimed.  May not be
technically legal, but it sure is handy.

How I wish junk phone calls were so easily screened!


Matt Healy      [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Eric R. Skinner)
Subject: Re: Bell Canada Calling Card Fraud
Organization: Exoterica Corporation
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:07:16 -0500


In article <[e-mail]> Tony Harminc <[e-mail].
CA> writes:

> But note that Bell Canada is disallowing such calls to all foreign
> countries except the United States.  They are not picking a small (and
> troublesome) subset as AT&T seems to have done.  I think it would be
> pretty hard to make a case of discrimination against everyone except
> American immigrants.

> [Moderator's Note: Are you *positive* that if you try to use a Bell
> Canada card on a call to the UK, Australia or New Zealand it won't go
> through?  Forget what their literature says for a moment and try it.
> If it does go through on the card, then the very same situation exists
> in Canada as here: discrimination against what you term a 'troublesome
> subset'

Just two weeks ago I tried calling Australia from a payphone in
downtown Toronto; I got the familiar "bong", and punched in my card
number.  After a few seconds, an operator came on the line, asked me
for my number again, then told me that I was unable to make a call to
Australia using my card.  I tried a few minutes later from a business
line at a nearby office and it went through fine.

On Bell Canada's new "Millenium" phones which have a card swipe slot,
the LED display has been running a message lately to the effect that
International calling card calls should be prefixed with "011" instead
of the usual "01".  I don't know why ...


Eric R. Skinner                [e-mail]
Exoterica Corporation   Tel [phone]
Ottawa, Canada          Fax [phone]


[Moderator's Note: '011' is for direct-dial international calls and
'01' is for operator-assisted international calls, i.e. collect,
credit card, third-number billing, etc. Anyway, if calls to other
countries are disallowed using calling cards from payphones, why did
the operator bother asking you to repeat the number? What difference
would it have made if she understood it correctly the first time or
not since the call would not be allowed anyway?   PAT]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (David Esan)
Subject: Re: Another Payphone Mystery?
Date: 12 Jan 93 19:40:13 GMT
Organization: Moscom Corporation, Pittsford NY


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(JOHN SCHMIDT) writes:

> I recently visited my Alma Mater, WPI in Worcester, Mass. (A/C 508).
> When I got there, I wanted to call my mother in Ahmerst Mass.
> (413-253****).