The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-387-Vol-3of3.iso/t/tc13-139.zip/TC13-139.TXT

Text File | 1993-03-01 | 23KB | 490 lines

TELECOM Digest     Sun, 28 Feb 93 17:31:00 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 139

Index To This Issue:                      Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan (Dave Niebuhr)
    Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan (Paul Robinson)
    Re: Gotta Love GTE (Graham Toal)
    Re: Gotta Love GTE (Paul Robinson)
    Re: Help Becky With Her 900 Bill (John Higdon)
    Re: Help Becky With Her 900 Bill (Graham Toal)
    Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial ([e-mail])
    Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial (Nick Sayer)
    Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial (Lars Poulsen)
    Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial (Vance Shipley)
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Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 07:42:36 EST
From: [e-mail] (Dave Niebuhr)
Subject: Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan


Right now, area code 516 (Long Island) uses NPA + 7D for all
inter-area code calls with 7D used for those that are intra-area code.
the 1+ is optional and I can't see why NYTel couldn't start making 1+
mandatory for all non-516 calls as a prelude to the changeover in
1994/1995.

As of this time, not that many exchanges have been created to justify
moving to 1+.  The latest major addition was around 1989/1990 when two
communities received five between them.

However, in the interests of uniformity, something is going to have to
be done out here and I'm wondering how well NYTel is going to bungle
the job.


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

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

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 08:26:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan


Stefan Zingg <[e-mail]> writes:

> Why can't you just add another digit to the phone number? Why has it
> to be fixed length?  Here in Europe, most countries have variable
> length numbers.  In my town, we ran out of numbers about five years
> ago. So they just introduced a seventh digit. Now we have even
> six-digit and seven-digit numbers mixed in one city. Why isn't that
> possible for North America?

Chances are, in your country as in all of Europe except for Great
Britain, the telephone company is owned by a branch of the Postal
Service or a corporate entity which used to be owned by it.  As such,
all telephone equipment is owned by one organization.  (At the
switching end, that is.)

When a place runs out of numbers, there are but two choices: add more
digits or split the system into additional areas.  Depending on
whether splitting a system requires using additional equipment or not
is really whether something happens.

In the United States, private companies and even individuals can own
their own switching equipment.  All this equipment has been programmed
by private companies to handle the current dialing system which has
been in use for more than 25 years.  Adding extra digits or making the
system uneven would probably break a lot of software which could not
handle the change.

Why did Europe convert to the Metric system?  Because it was easier
for people to use than the older English system of feet, pounds,
miles, etc.  Converting to a new class of area code (where the area
code and the prefix is indistinguishable) is the _easiest_ way to fix
a problem currently without having to do much in the way of changes.

Telling a system to simply accept any number from 200 to 999 as an
area code (as had to be done when prefixes became NXX) is easier than
saying "for area code 202 it's eight digits, for 301 it's seven, for
702 it's six ..."  Or easier than changing all the equipment to handle
an additional digit.  Our phone numbers already are ten digits in
length; changing that would require a lot of work for which few places
are ready for.  (Many places haven't even taken six digit dates out of
service; a lot of mainframe software is going to break on Saturday,
January 1, 2000, or Monday, January 3, 2000, when the date turns from
12/31/99 to 01/01/00 and the systems think the first date is later
than the second.)

Also, the # and * are no good for telephone numbers as other countries
could not call some numbers in the U.S. since there would be no way to
code an * or #.

Possibly, if all subscriber calls in the future are required to be
dialed as ten digits, the next step could be to allow an exchange
number to start with 0 or 1.  Then someone could get a phone number
like "800-000-0000" and then say something like "The 8 Motel where you
pay next to nothing; dial 8 then keep pressing 0.  That's for the
extra Z's you can take because you saved money!"


[Moderator's Note: You say 'the present system has been in use more
than 25 years ..."; how about 40 years where ten digits is concerned
and since before any of us can remember where seven digit local
calling is concerned.  There were exceptions, of course.  PAT]

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

Date: Sat, 27 Feb 93 14:18:03 GMT
From: Graham Toal <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Gotta Love GTE


I said:

> If it is as you describe, and they actually tampered with the amount
> written on the cheque, it is criminal fraud and the person who did it
> can go to prison for it.  Their supervisors could also be charged with
> conspiracy.

Moderator Noted:

> Graham, there has to be *intent*, and courts have said intent was
> very unlikely when the payment was handled through a remittance center
> getting a few hundred thousand payments daily. What do you think they
> do there? I mean, do you think they actually look at the check, the
> coupon and say let's conspire against Graham and get his lousy seven
> dollars?  Carelessness, I'll accept. A conspiracy, criminal or
> otherwise is a bit much to swallow.  PAT]

First of all, if someone changed the amount written on a cheque, there
is no defence in the world can show there wasn't intent to defraud.
Banks do *not* accidentally pay out a figure that is not written on a
cheque.  They go by what is written on the cheque, not on the pay-in
slip.

If you are suggesting that the cheque wasn't tampered with, then the
person clearly can expect their bank to refund the money that was paid
out by the bank in error.

Secondly, I was using conspiracy in the legal sense of two or more
people working together to perform a criminal act -- not in the
layman's sense of some great secret plan to defraud millions.  If a
low-level worker deliberately tampered with a cheque, it's very
unlikely they did it entirely off their own bat.  Their supervisor
must have known and given approval.  In which case, if the employee
who did the actual tampering was proven to have committed fraud, then
the supervisor would almost certainly be guilty of conspiracy.
Possibly also of 'aiding and abetting the commission of a crime',
though conspiracy is usually easier to prove.


G

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

Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1993 21:31:13 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Robinson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Gotta Love GTE


> Although I've been lucky enough to move out of GTEland, my girlfriend
> has not...[] She called GTE and explained to them that there was a
> credit due from her LD carrier (MCI) and that she was going to pay
> all of the bill, minus about $7 because of the credit. The GTE Op
> said her account was noted as such.  For whatever reason, the credit
> didn't come through in time. So GTE cashed her check for the FULL
> AMOUNT of the bill, despite the fact that the check was written
> for the bill minus the $7. GTE claimed that when the credit came
> through from MCI, the $7 would then be applied to her account.

Wait a minute?  Did she write the check for the lower amount and GTE
changed it, or did GTE have its bank accept the check at the higher
amount?  When she gets the check, look at the Magnettic code on the
bottom right corner of the check, which is the actual amount the check
was charged for.  I have a story about why I spent four hours tracing
a 1c error because we weren't sure if it was a computer error or not,
and that's why I check the number the check was negotiated at, (which
I'll relate privately if anyone wants it).

Does she have the check back yet?  If the amount written in words is
different from the amount written in numbers, and the bank cashed it
for an amount different from the amount written in words, have her
take it back and demand it be charged as the amount written in words,
and make the bank eat the difference, which they may try to get from
GTE.  Banks don't check the amounts of checks because they handle so
many of them, but they are liable if they accept a check for more than
the amount written on the check in words.  The bank acts only as the

agent of the account holder in accepting a check for payment; it does
not have the right to issue more than the amount of the check.  It may
refuse a check if there is reason to question it, but it does not have
authority in the absence of a court order or other government paper,
to accept a check for more than the written amount without consent of
the account holder.

Or, she could go to the police station and file a CRIMINAL complaint
charging the company with check fraud if the change is obvious.  This
might be better since she might be able to then sue the phone company
for damages, since this would be outside the province of the tariffs,
since they do immunize the company for common errors, they do not
cover wilful negligence and/or fraud.  She might be able to get them
to waive the service charges for several years!

> What kind of racket is this that companies can just cash your
> check for whatever amount they deem necessary?

While I have heard rumors that the Gestapo Internal Revenue Service
has done this, I've never seen it in action. :)


Paul Robinson -- [e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 01:01 PST
From: [e-mail] (John Higdon)
Subject: Re: Help Becky With Her 900 Bill
Organization: Green Hills and Cows


> [Moderator's Note: ANI failures are not all that common, and there are
> no operator positions maintained just for 'CAMA-style purposes'. The
> call just goes to any available operator position and the tube tells
> the operator what is wanted. She types it in, hits a certain key and
> the call is released to go on its way.  PAT]

Well, then, I guess the system out here is damn near perfect. I have
not been asked for my number one single time in over thirty-five
years.  And I certainly make my share of long distance calls. Also, if
this were EVER done anymore, it would certainly take a lot of steam
out of AT&T's remarkably arrogant attitude about never making
mistakes. If the accounting is EVER based upon what a caller tells an
operator, all bets are off for dependable accuracy in billing.


John Higdon  |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]     |       FAX:
[e-mail] | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | [phone]


[Moderator's Note: But that was the point behind the massive changes
in how the system operates which have been made in the past couple
decades. It got to the point *everyone* knew how the old system (x-bar
and other aspects) worked. By the 1960's, it got to where everyone
knew they could tell the operator whatever they pleased as long as
they got a few trivial details correct (such as the prefix they were
calling from) and the operator had to accept it since between the time
the caller dialed for a long distance operator and the operator came
on to handle the call, the calling number got lost in the matrix. Bell
was *not happy* with the general public knowing as much about the
system as they knew.

Consider the simple-minded calling cards of the 1950-70 era; your phone
number, a 'key letter' and a regional accounting code.  Every January,
all the phreaks would get together, promise not to abuse each other's
personal (legitimate) calling cards, then compare their calling cards.
There'd usually be enough variety in numbers the 'key letters' for the
year and the digit they were based on could be figured out in two
minutes after each person showed his (legitimate card) to the rest of
the group. Toll fraud against AT&T reached absolutely epidemic
proportions in the 1960-70 period ... much worse than it is now, or at
least as bad. I remember a hearing where IBT was applying for a rate
increase; this would have been about 1965-1970. One of the
commissioners asked the IBT man how much did IBT write off the year
before due to toll fraud ... seven million dollars ... IBT alone.

Since it had reached the point where everyone knew 'how the system
worked' the decision to build the system over from scratch was an easy
one to make. You surely don't think ESS was designed and implemented
just so telco could market all those nice custom calling features, do
you?  Those are just icing on the cake ... the real reason for ESS was
to enable telco to regain control of a phone network they were rapidly
losing control of due to fraud and other mischief. People knew calls
could not be traced in any timely way under the old system; they knew
they could steal service via their neighbor's wire pair with almost
impunity; make up any calling card number on the fly, etc.  PAT]

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

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 14:24:26 GMT
From: Graham Toal <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Help Becky With Her 900 Bill


John Higdon:

> Eventually Pac*Bell discovered the reason for the problem and reported
> both to me and to AT&T. In the meantime, I had been withholding the

Don't leave us in suspense like this!  What was it?


G

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

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 08:48:59 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


 From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail].
ca.us (Nick Sayer):

> What if Joe and Fred instead went to the telco and the telco sold them
> an analog leased line? How much does this cost the telco relative to
> the situation in the first paragraph? Why is it that the price charged
> by the telco for this situation is so much higher than in the first
> paragraph?

> [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
> you won't be tying up the CO resources that much; you are gambling you
> will be.

I thought one of the big reasons why leased lines were so expensive is
because they are "special service" circuits and require special
procedures to install and maintain. Leased lines cannot be
automatically tested with the ever present Mechanized Loop Testing
system, or Automatic Line Insulation Test system since leased lines
are not accessible because they are not switched circuits. Almost
everything associated with special circuits is manual. Although the
Switched Access Remote Test System (SARTS) tests specials, the circuit
must be routed through the (expensive) test system at installation
which is something you don't have to do with POTS (Plain Old Telephone
Service).  Leased lines also don't have phone numbers so they need
special billing procedures.

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

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 08:16:34 -0800
From: Nick Sayer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial


TELECOM Moderator notes:

> [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
> you won't be tying up the CO resources that much; you are gambling you
> will be. By continually holding the line, you'd win and telco would
> lose. With leased lines, telco assumes from the beginning you'll keep
> the wire packed and they price their bottom line accordingly. And if
> the dialup would be zero message units and unlimited time per call,
> you'll need *many thousands* of minutes of traffic each month on a
> leased line to amortize or spread its cost in such a way that it
> becomes less expensive per minute than manual dialup on a call by call
> basis on demand.

I am losing you here. If the line is unmeasured, then it doesn't
matter how many minutes of traffic each month there is, the cost is
the same, and is an order of magnitude lower than the equivalent
leased line.

By the way, the line in question would have 30*24*60 minutes of
traffic and one call in a typical month.

> If dialup are measured and timed, then you won't need quite as much
> traffic to justify leased, but you'll still need plenty.

43200 minutes are probably enough, though on a per-call UNtimed basis
it would still work since there'd be only one call per month (or even
zero calls if you only count the moment of dialing and a call lasts
into the next month).

Hmm. The telco may not be quite so bad off. They'll never have to
generate ring on the line, almost never make dialtone or use a dial
register. Just burn one circuit, which a leased line would have to do
anyway ... They might go so far as to someday have hueristics in the
switch that let it make resource decisions based on the pattern of use
of the line (I see that as the next big thing in computer technology.
If a computer runs the transmission in your car, what would be more
natural than for it to learn how YOU drive and taylor its actions to
your driving patterns).



Nick Sayer <[e-mail]>  N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NOAM
[phone], log in as 'guest'    PGP 2.1 public key on request

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

From: [e-mail] (Lars Poulsen)
Subject: Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial
Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 23:31:02 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Nick Sayer) writes:

> [two residential subscribers set up modems to keep line dialed up]
> Thus, they effectively have an analog leased line for about $20/mo
> (unmeasured service presumed).

> [Moderator's Note:
> If the dialup would be zero message units and unlimited time per call,
> you'll need *many thousands* of minutes of traffic each month on a
> leased line to amortize or spread its cost in such a way that it
> becomes less expensive per minute than manual dialup on a call by call
> basis on demand. If dialup are measured and timed, then you won't need
> quite as much traffic to justify leased, but you'll still need plenty.

As part of the planning for our NetHopper product, we have looked at
lots of call pricing. In short, there are very few places where flat
rate local calling is available to businesses anymore. It is an
attractive option for residences, and I certainly would not keep the
line from my home to the office up for hours every evening, if I had
to pay by the minute.

Where there is billing by the minute, the crossover point that can
justify a leased line is generally at six to eight hours per day. This
holds true over a wide variety of distance bands, from within our
local business park to cost-to-coast voice-grade connections.

This is why a dial-up IP router makes sense, even as the old
constituents of the Internet are moving up from leased 56Kbps lines to
T-1 lines.

[For more information about the NetHopper, please send mail to
[e-mail] rather than me.]


Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer    Internet E-mail: [e-mail]
CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l    Telephone: [phone]
Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083        TeleFAX:   [phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (Vance Shipley)
Subject: Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial
Organization: Xenitec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 08:22:29 GMT


I have been wrestling with this problem for quite some time now.  Here
in Waterloo, Ontario, under the realm of Bell Canada, residential
unmeasured service is $9.25/month (Touch Tone extra).  Many folks I
know have "leased" lines which amount to a pair of dial-up modems
connected 24hrs/day.  When you compare the price of this (<$20/month)
to the cost of leasing copper it is amazing.

I work within a block of the CO serving my home, another 5.6km away
(about four miles).  To lease a dry copper pair from home to work
would cost about $50/month.  So what is the cost to the telco?  For
$9.25 I get 5.6km of copper connected to a million dollar switch.  For
$50 I get the same 5.6km of copper connected to another .4km of
copper.  Go figure.

Now if wanted to lease copper to my friends house across the street I
would only have to pay about $4.  The copper used would be two times
5.6km as the circuit would always run to the CO and back.  I guess
this makes sense to the average consumer because they don't know about
the underlying topology.  It also keeps Bell from changing real estate
values by moving CO equipment :).

Another interesting tariff is that for OPL (Off Premise Line).  This
tariff is meant for answering services.  You have your line bridged at
the CO to another loop which terminates at another location.  This is
really just an extension the same as the one in the bedroom except it
is somewhere else in the city.  When a call comes in it rings at both
locations and either (or both) can answer it.  The cost of this
addition to your residential or business service is about $4 if the
other location is close to the CO.  So in this case the topology IS
important.  Now going back to my original example I can get the 5.6km
copper loop from my house connected to the CO switch and carried on
out to my office for about $13/mo.  Do you think I could convince them
to skip connecting me to the switch?  What if I order this service and
then not pay my bill, will they disconnect me from the switch and
leave the copper in place?  (Just kidding Pat :))

It makes you anxious to see what comes of PCN, etc.  I believe
wireless is for mobile not residential and business service but if it
allows me to get connected for a more reasonable cost I'll jump on the
band wagon.


Vance Shipley   [e-mail]
[e-mail]  [e-mail]

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End of TELECOM Digest V13 #139
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