The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-387-Vol-3of3.iso/t/tc13-142.zip/TC13-142.TXT

Text File | 1993-03-01 | 23KB | 525 lines

TELECOM Digest     Mon, 1 Mar 93 12:32:30 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 142

Index To This Issue:                     Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (David G. Lewis)
    How do You Connect a Four-Wire Leased Line to Telebit T3000? (Jack Stewart)
    Voice Recognition and Text-to-Speech from AT&T (Justin Leavens)
    Proofreading Volunteers Requested (Eduardo Salom)
    Outdial Survey (Steve Wegert)
    Multiple Terminals to Host Miles Away - How? (James Deibele)
    Room Monitor Wanted (George Thurman)
    Local Exchange Database Wanted (Karl Waldman)
    PBX Tech Information Wanted (Michael Pigg)
    Gas Recombination Batteries (Delavar K. Khomarlou)
    Ownership of 800 Numbers (Will Martin)
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From: [e-mail] (david.g.lewis)
Subject: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 16:30:57 GMT


I just got off the phone with one of my friends at Teleport
Communications, who gave me some info on how they were affected by the
WTC explosion.

Teleport Communications (TCG), as you may or may not know, has their
main network hub in the B6 level of 2 World Trade Center.  B6 is about
75 feet below street level, and holds (in addition to TCG) generators,
pumps, ventilation equipment, and other physical plant.  (B5 has more
of the same; B4 and B3 are public parking; B2 is parking, the PATH
tracks, and some offices; B1 is Port Authority offices primarily for
building operations and the PATH concourse, if memory serves.)  The
bomb was located on the B2 level; from what I've seen in the press,
the structural damage (holes in walls and floors) reached down to the
B4 level.  In other words, it blew holes through three 12-inch thick
reinforced concrete floors.

TCG was not directly affected by the blast, aside from undoubtedly
scaring the people working in B6 half to death.  (The comment I heard
was "people felt the blast and were up to B2 before they even realized
it ...")  The thought of being under 110 stories of glass and steel on
top of 7 stories of basement is intimidating enough in the most benign
of circumstances; the thought of it all falling on top of you is,
shall we say, not a pleasant one.

The major impacts on TCG were power and water.  Of eight Consolidated
Edison power feeders coming into WTC, five were cut by the blast
itself.  The remaining three were shut down on order of the NYFD
shortly thereafter, because of fears of further explosions (before it
was known that it was a bomb blast, when it was thought that it could
have been an accidental explosion.)  TCG has battery backup, but its
lifespan is limited; the Port Authority backup generators are to
provide backup power in the event of a loss of commercial power.
Unfortunately, the Port Authority and NYFD did not permit the backup
generators to be started up for some time, again due to the fear of a
second explosion, and until there was some confidence that the
building wasn't going to fall in on top of them ...

 From what I can recall of the news coverage, the Port Authority
backup generators started coming online at around 7:00 PM.  The first
priorities were to re-establish ventilation and lighting in the
towers.  I suspect TCG started getting power just as its batteries
were at the ragged end of their charge, as my sources tell me that
some circuits went down.  Fortunately, this was after the close of
business Friday.

The second concern was water, as the blast severed a significant
number of water pipes and the water from firefighting was making its
way down into the subbasements.  Again fortunately, the water level
did not climb to the level of the raised floor on which the equipment
was mounted before pumps could be brought in to bail it out.  My
impression is that, while some underfloor cable may have gotten
soaked, no equipment was damaged.

The current situation is that TCG is running at 99% or better capacity
in B6; power is back online from a combination of the PA generators,
some massive ConEd generator trucks that came in over the weekend, and
some mobile generators brought in by Brooklyn Union Gas.  The water
level has subsided, and there are probably half a dozen TCG employees
crawling around on the floor with hairdryers drying out cables ...

The WTC complex is open on a limited basis.  7 World Trade Center,
which is across Vesey Street from the rest of the complex, is open.
3WTC, 4WTC, 5WTC, and the US Customshouse, which are in the same
complex as the towers, are open on a limited basis, with maybe 20% -
30% of the employees allowed in for what are viewed as critical
activities (like running the Commodity Exchanges).  1 and 2 WTC (the
towers) and the Vista International hotel are closed indefinitely.
The mezzanine (shopping level) and PATH concourse are also closed; the
command post is set up on the mezzanine level, and PATH trains, while
running, are discharging passengers to the Vesey Street exit.

The Port Authority has made available office space in the Teleport
complex on Staten Island to WTC tenants.  Additionally, there is a
flurry of activity as tenants relocate temporarily to other locations
they occupy in Manhattan, across the river in NJ, or in the other
Boroughs.  I'm certain that NYTel, TCG, MFS, and Locate are all doing
a land-office business setting up new lines for the companies which
have been forced elsewhere by the blast.

On a more general level, the people I know who've seen the site say
that what's most amazing is that so *few* people were killed.  The
magnitude of a blast that basically tore a 100-foot long hole in a
foot of reinforced concrete, and continued downward through two more
levels of concrete, is something scary.

The reaction, from what I've seen and heard, has been nothing short of
tremendous, from the emergency services people -- Port Authority PD,
City of New York PD, FD, and EMS, even firefighters from across the
river in NJ -- who were first on the scene (the NY Fire Commissioner
described the response as approximately equal to a 16-alarm callout),
to the NYC public works, transportation, sanitation, and other
departments and Port Authority people who are working to restore some
semblance of normality, to the ConEd, NYTel, and all other utility
people who have contributed to the efforts.  The event was shocking to
everyone in the area, but the response has been amazing.


David G Lewis                              AT&T Bell Laboratories
[e-mail] or !att!goofy!deej     Switching & ISDN Implementation


[Moderator's Note: Thanks for this virtual first hand report. As I
gave much thought over the weekend to this ugly event which has now
been definitly attributed to arson -- or a deliberate act -- it
occurred to me we can probably expect a lot more of this in the months
and years to come. I strongly believe the decade of the nineties is
going to be a decade of bombings and terrorist acts in the USA. We
have a lot of enemies around the world and I think we have seen just
the first of a long string of these events. There will be imitators
and there will be genuine terrorists; bombings and killings will
become a fad. The sad part is there is no way to stop it short of
imposition of martial law, which no one here will tolerate *now*. I
think our middle east nemisis SH was responsible this time. We blew up
his hotel, he blows up our World Trade Center. I think he is testing
Clinton. As conditions worsen here, watch for previously unthinkable
changes in our laws and the way we are governed to gradually become quite
thinkable, in the name of national security. For example, the Second
Amendment is almost completely decimated already. Regards imitators,
the first thing Monday morning, Chicago's City Hall and Daley Center
was closed and evacuated due to a bomb threat according to news on the
television as I write this. Goodbye, America.   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Jack Stewart)
Subject: How do You Connect a Four-Wire Leased Line to Telebit T3000?
Date: 28 Feb 1993 22:36:16 GMT
Organization: CCSF Caltech, Pasadena, CA


I need to establish a SLIP connection using a pair of T3000 and a four-
wire leased line.

Another way of asking this question is can you just use two of the
wires from a four-wire leased line and safely ignore the other pair?

I know that the T3000's should be hooked into a two-wire leased line.
Unfortunately the person that I am doing this for goofed up and
ordered the wrong thing (a four-wire line).  PacBell wants to charge
far too much to get the equipment swapped.  So I need to try to make
it work as is (even though the operating cost is higher).

I know that the lines work in pairs.  I presume that I can just use
one of the pairs (like DR/DTR/R1 and DT/DTT/T1) and ignore the other
(DRR/R-DRT/T).  Is this correct?  Are there any special gotchas?  Are
there any voltage problems that I should watch out for?

The only other question I have is does anyone know of a good book on
leased lines?  Most of the books that I have seen are very general in
nature.

Please send me responses via e-mail.  News postings often take their
time in getting here.  If there is enough interest I will summarize
response and my sucesses and failures ...


Jack Stewart                                     E-Mail: [e-mail]
Caltech Concurrent Supercomputing Facilities,     Phone: [phone]
Mail Code # 158-79, 391 S. Holliston,
Pasadena, CA 91125.                            #include  <std.disclaimer>

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

From: [e-mail] (Justin Leavens)
Subject: Voice Recognition and Text-to-Speech from AT&T
Date: 28 Feb 1993 14:43:46 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA



An AT&T rep demonstrated a pretty impressive voice recognition system
the other day, which supposedly is going to be an add-on to their call
processing systems sometime in the near future. Their mock "AT&T
On-line Phone Store" took an entire order with no touchtone input,
sorting out the numerous "uh's" and "uhm's" and such from the
important digits, the "yeah's" and "yup's" from the "nah's" and "uh,
no's". In fact, the whole transaction was conducted by speakerphone.
Very impressive.

I was also demonstrated a text-to-speech system that wasn't as flashy,
but it certainly did the job. It was generally right on target with
pronunciation or at least very close to being correct. Again, this is
supposed to be an add-on soon to their call-processing systems in the
near future.


Justin Leavens     Microcomputer Specialist  University of Southern California

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

From: [e-mail] (Eduardo Salom)
Subject: Proofreading Volunteers Requested
Organization: Pacific Systems Group, Portland Oregon US
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 23:25:23 GMT

I'm involved in a project: a database of countries/cities with a
companion program to get the dialing codes.

In my database there are about 9200 cities around the world, I would need
some volunteers, to do the following tasks:

a) check the spelling, adding the special characters needed if they are
   supported by the IBM-8 charset,

b) check the codes assigned to each city, as my sources may be outdated and
   might be typing errors.

c) Add any missed city you may know or even, if the impression is good enough
   to produce a readable fax, send me the directory pages with the access
   codes. Sometimes a sligthly enlarged photocopy can be faxed succesfully.

e) It  isn't a must but it would be desirable to append the province/state
   the the city name (i.e. Houston, TX) to avoid confusions between cities
   with the same o very close names.

f) For each country add the instructions to access the international and
   long distance services (direct dialing and operator)

g) Denomination of the country and main cities in other languages as
   Holland / Holanda / Pais Bas / Netherland
   Germany / ALemania / Alemagne / Deutschland
   Norway / Norge / Noruega
   London / Londra / Londres
   Wien / Vienna / Viena

Each volunteer ideally should check the country where (s)he reside.

Each volunteer who accomplish its task will receive a copy of the package
once it's ready.

Any volunteers?


Eduardo J. Salom    | [e-mail]      ..!uunet!m2xenix!eduardo
Larrea 1218 - 2.A   | BIX: swp     CIS: [73000,74]     DELPHI: swp
(1117) Buenos Aires | FidoNet: Eduardo_Salom@4:900/112.7
Argentina           | VMS-Mail: PSI%0311061703053::SWP


[Moderator's Note: I already advised Eduardo through email that he
should check out the 'country.codes' directory in the Telecom Archives
for a comprehensive list of country and city codes. To see this data
base, use anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu, then 'cd telecom-archives' and
'cd country.codes'.  PAT]

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

From: Steve Wegert <[e-mail]>
Subject: Outdial Survey
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 13:33:29 CST


Please help me research the viability of "outdial" services in light
of today's use of high speed modems and lower long distance rates.

I am in the final stages of setting up a company who's charter will be
to provide it's customers with "outdial" capabilities to over 600
cities in the United States. Access charges will be significantly
lower than those of the traditional long distance carriers, and
competitive with other services offering similar capabilities.

If you feel "outdial" services still have a place, your opinions are
important.  Please take just a few moments and fill out the brief
survey which follows.

1)  What type of computer equipment do you currently use? ____

    a) PC/Clone        b) Atari    c) Apple/Mac    d) Commodore/Amiga
    d) other

2)    In making use of an "outdial" service, rate on a scale of 1-5 (1 being
      of least importance), the following features :

            ___ data throughput
            ___ cost per hour
            ___ timely billing
            ___ knowledgable customer/technical service

3)    What bps rate would you use most often? ___

    a) 300bps    b) 1200bps    c) 2400bps    d) 9600 and above

3a)    Which of the above rates would you consider to be the slowest acceptable
       rate for your "outdial" needs? ____

4)    How would you most often make use of "outdial" services? ___

    a) BBS messaging    b) online chatting   c) file transfers

5)    What time of day would you most often use this service?

    a) 6am - 6pm    b) 6pm - 11pm    c) 11pm - 6am

6)    What hours would would you appreciate customer/technical support? ___

    a) day    b) evening    c) weekend

7)    If other types of services could be bundled with the "outdial" package,
      which of the following would be of interest? (check all that apply)

            ___ Email
            ___ Usenet/Internet
            ___ News/Weather/Sports
            ___ Other (please specify) _________________________________
            ____________________________________________________________

8)    What method of payment would be the most convenient? ___

    a) MC/VISA    b) Discover        c) AE    d) CheckFree    e) direct bill

9)    What dollar range (per hour) would you consider reasonable for the use of
      an "outdial" service? ____

    a) $6.00    b) $5.00    c) $4.00    d) $3.00

Thank you for your input! Please feel free to attach any additional comments
to the end of the survey and mail to:


Steve Wegert -- [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (James Deibele)
Subject: Multiple Terminals to Host Miles Away - How?
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- [phone]
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 18:32:25 GMT


I need to have some ASCII terminals in a room about ten miles away
from the host computer.  Purpose is to let people without computers
come to a spot and be able to access job postings and other
miscellanous computerized information.  Goal is to keep costs as low
as possible.  Say four to six terminals at a maximum, representing
roughly 9600 to 14400 bps.

I know it would be possible to give each terminal its own phone line
and modem, but this would be fairly expensive.  We'd prefer to keep
the number of lines down to two -- one voice line and one data line
(either a standard line or a leased line).  From what I understand of
multiplexers, they would probably do the job.  But I don't understand
much about muxes.  Can somebody give me an idea of what I might be
looking at in terms of cost and complexity?  Are used muxes readily
obtainable, or have prices dropped here the way modem prices have, so
that it makes more sense to buy new?  Do muxes include modem-like
capabilities, or would we still have to buy modems?

We'd like to duplicate this, or give instructions to other people on
how they could duplicate it.  It would be best if the hardware wasn't
too rare, therefore.

One solution that I know would work be to run UNIX on a cheap 386,
ethernet to a PC or AT, which would connect via modem and SLIP/PPP to
the host.  This should be possible for around $1000, depending on what
I can find in my toy box.  Problem with this is that we don't really
want to support multiple copies of UNIX at remote locations, plus PCs
are a little more susceptible to "walking off" than strange equipment.



Thanks!

[e-mail]
PDaXs gives free access to news & mail. [phone] - 1200/2400, N81
Full internet (ftp, telnet, irc) access available. Voice: [phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (George Thurman)
Subject: Room Monitor Wanted
Organization: Gagme Public Access UNIX, Chicago, Illinois.
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 13:02:51 GMT


A friend of mine would like a room monitor for his business.
Something that you can dial into, and listen to what is going on in
the office while he is not there.  An answering machine will not do
because these will time out after a certain amount of time.

Any suggestions?

Please email.


GEORGE THURMAN    [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Karl Waldman)
Subject: Local Exchange Database Wanted
Date: 28 Feb 1993 20:20:17 GMT


Does a database exist that allows you to look up and see if a local
call can be made from a particular place to another place?  That is,
if my phone exchange is 266, I know I can call 873 without charge by
looking it up in my phone book, in the begining under local calls.
What I want is something online, that will allow me to do this for the
whole country? Does this exist?  Even a hard copy version?

Also is there anyplace I can get LATA maps? (almost the same info as
above but in map form).


Thanks,

Karl     [e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 23:36:17 EST
From: Michael=[e-mail]
Subject: PBX Tech Information Requested


Hello,

As a senior design project at Purdue University, I am part of a group
that is attempting to build a small PBX-type system for use in our
labs.  This system will not actually have lines going to GTE's switch,
so I guess it's not really a PBX.  Anyway, we have a few questions
that members of the TELECOM group might be able to help us with.  If
there is a better newsgroup or mailing list to ask these questions in,
please let me know.  Any replies to this message should be sent
directly to me at the address below.  I will then summarize in a post
if appropriate.  So, here goes:

1)  How does one go about detecting ring-trip?  Originally, we
were planning to use a SLIC chip that would do this for us.
However, we found that chip was not available.  While I have found
a couple of books that talk about ring-trip, nothing talks about
how to actually do it.

2) What is the best way to get supervisory tones and DTMF decoders on
a subscriber line?  This is an all analog system, and we currently
plan to just switch the appropriate tone generator or decoder chip
onto the line needing such services.  Is there a better way?

3)  Are there any documents available that discuss these types of
issues in a fairly practical way?


Thank You,

Michael Pigg   [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Delavar K. Khomarlou)
Subject: Gas Recombination Batteries
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Ontario Hydro
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 11:11:41 -0500


I am looking for some information on the safety of the gas
recombination sealed 48 VDC batteries similar to those used in Central
offices. We are thinking of changing our present lead-acid wet
batteries over.  I don't check this group often enough so email
would be best.


Delavar Khomamarlou  Email [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 10:55:12 CST
From: Will Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ownership of 800 Numbers


Under the new 800-number scheme where the prefixes will no longer
belong to specific carriers, but instead any carrier will be able to
provide 800 service under any 800 number, who will "own" the 800
numbers? Does the subscriber who has had a certain 800 number (such as
one that spells their company name) for some period of time now have a
property right to that number? Does the length of time they've used it
make a difference? Can someone pay to "register" or "reserve"
unassigned 800 numbers and then sell them to the highest bidder? With
whom would they do this "reservation"? Who runs the whole thing --
Bellcore?

If I check a specific 800 number and find it is currently unused, as a
potential subscriber who wants that number, do I call my carrier and
tell them? What do they do then to find out if I can get it? Or do I
have to check with some other organization and lay claim to that 800
number first, and then tell my carrier to give me service using it?
Some 800 numbers are assigned but usable in only certain geographic
areas. Can I get that same number for use in different region(s)? (I
don't claim this would be wise! :-)


Regards, Will

If header address doesn't work, try:
[e-mail] OR [e-mail]

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End of TELECOM Digest V13 #142
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