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TELECOM Digest     Thu, 27 Apr 95 12:25:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 214

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Local Competition Epiphany (Donald E. Kimberlin)
    German Telekoms "KIT": Specs/Document Now Available (Werner J.
Lilie)
    Re: The AT&T "Minimum Usage Charge" Rumor (Michael Ward)
    Re: Detect/Prevent Third-Party Calls (Steven White)
    Re: Detect/Prevent Third-Party Calls (Mark J. Cuccia)
    Re: New Country Code 380 For Ukraine (Clive D.W. Feather)
    USWorst / ISDN (Bill Halverson)
    IBM Twinaxial Cable Disposal (Shereef Moustafa)
    Re: NPA Black Holes (Mark Cuccia)

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



        For the past four days, full-page ads have appeared in the
Charlotte, North Carolina {Observer}, telling of a coalition of
companies that seek particular objectives in U.S. Federal legislation
concerning local telephone competition.  Those who remember "how it
used to be" will find some of the statements no less than an
astounding change from what AT&T once used to say to the world, in
addition to noting AT&T's recognition of entities it would once have
hoped to ignore and perhaps even hogtie to death.  It certainly seems
AT&T has discovered a new reality, and now has joined in to promote a
new reality into local telephone business in the U.S.  Here's the ad
copy reproduced in ASCII as best I can do:

                 Bell Monopolies are the problem.
               Real competition is the only answer.

Congress will soon be considering legislation to rewrite the laws that
will govern telecommunications policy well into the 21st century.  If
that rewrite is to help the average American, we believe a few key
principles must guide this work.

            <small drawing of 300-Type telephone set>

        * Monopolies and a free market economy don't mix.
  * Monopolies stifle entrepreneurship and innovation, and keep
                           prices high.
    * Monopolies never, ever give up their power voluntarily.

            <small drawing of 300-type telephone set>

        Therefore, any legislation must start with breaking up
              the entrenched local Bell monopolies.

        The Bell companies are classic monopolies.  The control about
99 percent of local service in their territories.  Except for the
monopoly Bells, everyone agrees that these monopolies must FIRST
disappear -- the debate is about when, how and under what conditions.
Real local competition will exist only when Bell monopolies meet clear
tests that competitive choices actually exist.  And when experts have
the power to enforce those tests to preserve free markets.

            <small drawing of 300-type telephone set>

        We want this industry to be deregulated as rapidly as
possible.  But it is essential to do it right.  That means, first
break up the local monopolies; then deregulate all markets.  We know
that competition in long distance is a dazzling success for America,
driving down prices almost 70 percent in 11 years while providing new
and innovative technological advances.  It's time to bring those same
competitive benefits to consumers of local phone service.

            <small drawing of 300-type telephone set>

                 DE-MONOPOLIZE, then DE-REGULATE

You can affect this legislation. If you want to learn more about
how to have real competition replace the local Bell monopolies...

                       Call 1-800-4COMPETE

             The Competitive Long Distance Coalition

 (signed with logos of Comptel, AT&T, LDDS/Worldcom, MCI, Sprint,
                          TRA and ACTA>

        (c) CLD Coalition, Inc.

<end of ad copy from Charlotte {Observer})

        Incroyable, madames et messieurs!  Can those words be signed
by the same AT&T that once owned the RBOC's?  Now, they talk of the
meaning of "real competiton," when for decades, AT&T used the same
tired lines about "competition" meaning sending a letter instead of a
phone call, how unrecoverable "chaos" would result from competition,
and how the phone business was a "natural monopoly" when anyone who
really understood its economics knew of the differences between
telephone capital costs and those of other utility businesses.  And,
because AT&T was the pre-eminent authority of the telephone world,
telephone monopolies around the globe reinforced its preachments in
their nations.  What's going to happen when those other nations find
they have lost their primary oracle?

        Yes, AT&T seems to have definitely had an epiphany.  It took
about a decade.  Now, AT&T is attacking its own children; the children
Ma Bell defended so strongly and totally for a century.  Wonder how
long the attackees will take to meaningfully realize it on a broad
scale?  (And, when it comes to the economics and actions really
happening, I can even say, "Remember when I told you so, Dear
Moderator?" <smirkle, nudge, wink> ... It's happening!  Even the
Greatest Telecom Show on Earth is encouraging interlopers into the
local markets.)


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The important thing is *do it right*.
Proceed very carefully, to avoid the problems we had in the early days
of long distance deregulation. Conditions are certainly changing quickly
now; the rush for complete deregulation and competition is well
underway.
It seems amazing that time has gone by as quickly as it has since the
early 1980's when this Digest first began publication and there was
almost
no competition at all. Yes, its been eleven years since AT&T and the
local
Bell Companies went their separate ways ... amazing.   PAT]

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



Hi !

The German "Telekom" has been operating a CEPT-based service named
"BTX" for quite a while now. BTX is (was?) comparable to the
well-known French system "Minitel" or maybe even the US-based service
"Prodigy".  BTX turned out to be a major disappointment: costly, not
enough subscribers, too expensive and loaded with sleaze & smut (hot
chat, and all that). However, since the former Bundespost/Deutsche
Telekom (nowadays just "Telekom") turned over the marketing to a small
company ("1&1") and renamed the service to "DATEX-J" (DATa EXchange -
Jedermann [anybody/everybody]) it has been growing steadily. In the
last couple of years the service has grown from around 200-thousand to
an amazing 700 000 and is supposed to hit 1 million by the end of this
year (keep in mind that this is a German-only service).  Currently the
system is undergoing a major overhaul: 14.4 & 28.8 (+ ISDN) access
instead of former 2.4, Internet-email gateway, a lot of new high-quality
(for example: FIZ) services and a completely new graphical interface
(which will ultimately replace the old character-based interface).
This new interface is called "KIT" (Kernel for Intelligent Communication
Terminals) and the Telekom is going to try to make it a standard (ITU,
and all that).

I like the idea of having important stuff like this available at ones
fingertips, so I contacted the Person responsible for this at the
Telekom (N.Braun, Thanks!) and obtained the necessary documents and
his permission to put them on the Internet.

All the KIT-stuff can be found on "ftp.uni-stuttgart.de" in the
directory
"/pub/doc/standards/misc/KIT"

It contains the following:

- CHKSUM         MD5 checksum of "kit_doc.pdf" & "kit_doc.ps.gz"
- README         German ReadMe file containing negligible info
- kit_doc.pdf    KIT-documentation as Adobe PDF file  [695K]
- kit_doc.ps.gz  KIT-documentation as gzipped Postscript file  [691K]

- new            directory, containing:
     - KIT_DOC.README    another German ReadMe file
     - kitspec.exe       a "zipped" (.zip) Postscript file of the
KIT-docum. [258K]

The PDF (Portable Document Format) file-format is sort of an enhanced
postscript, while enjoying all the features of postscript you can, in
addition, search the text and the like. Your best choice for reading a
 .pdf file is the free "Acrobat Reader" from Adobe, its available for
DOS,
M$-Windoze, Mac and Unix (sorry, just for SunOS - no source available).
You can download it from "ftp.adobe.com" and probably a lot of other
sites. The following locations of the files on ftp.uni-stuttgart.de will
give you a hint which directories to check on other servers. When ftp-
ing
the files from ftp.uni-stuttgart.de please keep the pathetic bandwidth
of
the European (and particularly German!) network in mind!


On ftp.uni-stuttgart.de the Adobe Acrobat Reader can be found in the
following directories:

DOS, M$-Windoze, Mac:
"pub/tex/fonts/postscript/adobe/Applications/Acrobat/"
Unix (SunOS binary): "/pub/unix/text-processing/postscript/Acrobat/"


Und Tschuess.....

WL

P.S.: All-German posting available in "de.comm.internet, de.comm.misc,
fido.ger.btx, fido.ger.internet"

[e-mail] | Fon:[phone]
[e-mail]    CI$ : 100142,2352 | Fax:[phone]

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



[e-mail] (Lauren Weinstein) writes:

> Here's what I've been able to piece together so far.  It's accurate as
> far as I know, but I have more inquiries pending and I'll pass along
> anything else I find out.

> 1) No minimum charges would apply to residential lines (as far as I
can
>    determine right now).
> 2) A minimum charge of $5/month/line will apply to all separately
billed
>    business lines that have AT&T selected as their carrier.  This will
just
>    suddenly start appearing on bills shortly.  Surprise!
> 3) AT&T is suggesting that business customers aggregate their lines in
>    various ways to help avoid the charge (aggregated lines -- e.g. via
Custom
>    Net or SBA, etc. apparently share a single $5 minimum between all
lines).

It is possible that AT&T does not want low volume customers.  A
similar issue has come up with regards to residential service.  AT&T
claims that 26% of its residential customers have monthly bills less
than $3 and 44% less than $10.  It costs AT&T between $0.35 and $0.85
to render a monthly bill. For residential service (I don't know about
business service) LD carriers must pay ~$0.50 per subscriber per month
to the Universal Service Fund regardless of the subscriber's calling
volume.  This goes a long way to explaining calling plans being volume
sensitive. It also explains why some resellers are marketing that you
do not pre-subscribe, but just dial thier 1-0-XXXX code.

AT&T was further claiming that the price-cap plan did not permit them to
set initial prices high enough to cover costs and then offer steeper
discounts.  I do not know how valid this claim is.

The minimum monthly charge for business service probably is an
outgrowth of the February (?) 1995 FCC decision to regulate AT&T
commercial services in a more streamlined fashion, rather than keep
under price-caps.

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



> I just had two AT&T long-distance calls charged to my number, and had
to
> call AT&T to have them removed -- AT&T isn't my long-distance
provider.
 ...

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can prevent it from happening with
a
> slight bit of inconvenience to yourself, but it may be worth it. Find
> out of your local telco offers 'billed number screening'. This is a

Southern Bell in N.C. charges $10.25 for this change in service to
disallow incoming third-party billing.  I was recommended by AT&T to
have this option put on my line after a couple of (not inexpensive)
calls were charged from a Texas hotel room.  Of course, AT&T withdrew
the charges.  However, I don't feel I should have to pay $10.25 for a
crime preventive measure.  A couple more fraudulent charges, and the
phone company will have already "paid" the charge in manhours.

How about requiring Ma Bell to reimburse AT&T for any future
fraudulent charges?  Seems to me they are bordering on being an
accessory.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ameritech (Illinois Bell) does not charge
a fee for this service. You simply ask to be added to the data base.
PAT]

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



[e-mail] (Alex Madarasz) wrote:

> I just had two AT&T long-distance calls charged to my number, and had
to
> call AT&T to have them removed -- AT&T isn't my long-distance
provider.

> How / why is it possible for someone to have calls -- especially long-
> distance calls -- charged to my number?  Is there any way I can detect
> this happening or prevent it in the future?

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can prevent it from happening with
a
> slight bit of inconvenience to yourself, but it may be worth it. Find
> out of your local telco offers 'billed number screening'. This is a
> database used in common by AT&T, Sprint, MCI and a couple other long-
> distance carriers which prevents anything but direct dialed calls from
> your actual telephone from being being to your account with the
exception
> of credit card calls. That is, calls made 'collect' to you will be
turned
> away as will attempts to bill 'third number' calls to you. The network
> simply won't allow those calls. Now if you have reason occassionally
to
> call your number collect or place a call and bill it to your number,
then
> you too are going to be rejected, but this may be a minor issue
considering
> all the options available these days such as 800 numbers, calling
cards
> and other methods.   PAT]

Some local telco's offer third party billing restrict and collect
restrict seperately.  South Central Bell does so here in Louisiana,
and there is NO charge for this service, neither one time nor
recurring monthly.  I cannot speak for servcies by any other local
telcos in other states/provinces.  I had a situation a few years ago
when I had a third party charge back to my bill (via AT&T), and even
though I was aware of collect restrict and third party restrict, I
forgot
to have them added to my account when I first got my telephone
service.

Also, SCBell does NOT just add the restrictions on your account by
requesting them over the phone like they do with requests for new
Custom Calling or 'Touchstar' features or even a 976 or 1-900 or N11
code blocking -- with these billed-back resrictions, SCBell will mail
you a form which you must sign and mail back to Bell before they will
put you number in the operator's database; I'm not exactly sure who
OWNS this database, but the MAJOR long distance carriers AND the LOCAL
TELCOS (InTRA-Lata TOPS operators) use the database for verification;
NOT ALL LD Carriers will check this database - you could still get a
third party charge via one of these private-payphone/Motel PBX private
operators -- but Bell told me that they would adjust this off of my own
bill and keep a reference of it for future problems with these *&@!
private operators/PBX/Payphone companies.

But, here in Louisiana, you CAN get your line free from MOST third party
billing back withOUT having to give up COLLECT calls to you which you
might want to accept in emergencies.


Mark


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here it is just offered as one package.
You can ask for restriction on any charges coming through on calls which
were not direct-dialed or via calling card. As you point out, not all

·



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



> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you suppose one of these days as the
> global community changes; new countries are formed and old ones go
> out of existence that the international numbering scheme will get all
> messed up the way USA area codes got messed up, out of sequence, etc?
> Will we some day run out of country codes the way the USA ran out of
> area codes and have to come up with some new numbering scheme for the
> whole world?   PAT]

Hopefully not. After the breakup of the eastern block, things seem to
have settled down in terms of new countries appearing.

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
39    Shared by 3 countries, of which 2 have had new codes allocated
41    Shared by 2 countries: Switzerland and Liechtenstein
42    Shared by 2 countries: Czech Republic and Slovakia
672   Shared by 5 territories under Australian control
7     Shared by 9 countries, of which 3 have had new codes allocated

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

and if the Czechs and the Slovaks want to split, ITU-T would almost
certainly split code 42 into 10 codes, making another 8 spare.

So I think we're safe for the while.

Oops, almost forgot. Apart from the 31 cases I listed before, there are
eight territories with no international code that I know of:

    Bouvet Island [Norway]
    East Timor
    French Southern Territories
    Pitcairn Island
    South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands [UK Atl]
    Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands [Norway]
    United States Minor Outlying Islands
    Western Sahara


Clive D.W. Feather     [e-mail]


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are referring to the United States
Trust Territory in the South Pacific Ocean as the 'minor outlying
islands'
you mention above, I think some of those have gone into 'area code' 808
which serves Hawaii and Midway Island. Also, I think the 'country code'
for Guam is going to become an 'area code' in the near future, still
serving Guam and perhaps nearby places.  PAT]

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



[e-mail] (John Sullivan) wrote:

> You're one of the fortunate few, Michael.  US West has decided to
> concentrate its ISDN efforts on Washington state since their network
> infrastructure is in better shape there and they think there will be a
> larger customer base (e.g. Microsoft).  They aren't pulling out of
other
> states entirely, but they are trying to get out of remotely providing
> ISDN service and providing service only from "disclosed" offices which
> would mean primarily existing digital offices.  US West claims that
> availability in Washington will be about 96 percent.  They hope to use
> Washington as a "testbed" for ISDN.  Then, once they figure out how to
> sell it, they'll take what they've learned and apply it in other
states.
> If I were a potential ISDN customer in one of those states, however, I
> wouldn't hold my breath.

Ah HA!  This begins to explain what I heard in Minneapolis last week:

US West declined to bid on a 7,500 line metropolitan voice system --
and when the customer had the audacity to buy a (gasp) PBX and request
their own prefix ... well suffice it to say the poor TCM that made
that decision now finds himself looking at a situation where US West
testers fail to show up for scheduled tests, the T1 network he is
leasing gives him fits, and ... on and on ...

Moreover, several other corporate accounts (Cargill was mentioned) have
their own horror stories about USWest.


Bill Halverson    Pacific  Bell    Sent 16:20:00 PDT on 04/25/95
PH 415 542 6564  [e-mail]            FAX [phone]
"The views of the author are not those of his employer ... yet."


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Care to share more of those 'horror
stories' from Cargill and others?  Interested readers want to know
more.  PAT]

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



Is anyone familiar with recyclers or resellers of IBM Twinax cable?

I need to dispose of quite a bit and understand that there may be
parties interested in getting this stuff for copper value or emergency
cable.


Thanks ... please reply to [e-mail]  :)

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



I heard this same story too, on Paul Harvey News yesterday on ABC
Radio about those who are not able to dial out to 'NNX' type NPA's.
MOST telcos have done everything they are supposed to in reprogramming
their switches -- some small independents MIGHT have been late in
doing so. Privately owned payphones (COCOTS) can also be blamed for
not programming their phones, and most of us will blame A LOT of
problems on COCOTS, who deserve all the blame they get (along with
their sister AOS' (I'd like to spell AOS a little bit different).

But even Bell can be blamed at times. Here in Louisiana, all of our
Step by Step offices have been converted to ESS (or DIGITAL ESS), and
there are probably a few #5 Crossbars (also common control); 557 is the
special office prefix in the five-state SCBell area used to call
Business
Office, Repair, etc.

When SCBell introduced it around 1986 or 87, it was listed as 1 + 557-
XXXX;
the 1+ was necessary in Stepper offices but redundant in CommonControl
offices (#5XB, ESS, Digital); SCBell dropped the 1+ listing on 557
about two or three years ago; even when it was listed, you could still
call
557 without the 1+ in common control offices; You can STILL use a
1 + 557 but it is NOT required; Actually whenever Bellcore assigns 557
as an Area Code, 1 + 557 for SCBell will become confusing; If MS, AL,
TN, KY have ANY step offices in SCBell territory (I don't know for
sure), they might change the dialing to 1 + HOME NPA + 557 or they might
instruct callers to use an 800 (or 888) number.

Recently I requested some code restrictions on my home phone.  I have
had NPA 900 and the 976 local office code restricted for several
years.  NOW, SCBell opened up some previously unused N11 codes for
'Information Delivery' services -- 211 is for the {Times Picayunne}
newspaper's 'info' line (Tone phone required, dial 211 hear a preamble
stating that it is 50 cents/call and if you don't want to be charged
hang up now -- use the four digit menu options to request Soap updates,
sports scores, you know the like); 311 is for an alternate private
ambulance service (several ambulance companies bid for this code), 511
unused, 711 presently unused; 611 is NOT repair in La., 811 is NOT
business office in La. -- these two unused.

I requested free restriction on access to 211 as well as changing my
local service to a more Metro-area dialing plan (former toll calls
within 40 miles are local or greatly discounted toll -- and you don't
have to dial 1 + 504 + -- you just have to dial seven digits. Well,
when my 211 became blocked and my Metro dial plan went into effect, I
found that whoever programmed my line cut out access to 557 SCBell
company numbers.  I could NOT get thru unless I dialed 1 + 557; I also
could not do 0 + 504 + 557 nor 1 + 504 + 557. Knowing that NNX form
NPA's
are being used now, I called Repair (!+557 etc) and complained; A
supervisor said "I don't see any problem with you dialing 1 + 557; if
and when a 557 area code is assigned, you should take that up with
your LD company" which I responded NO that it was THEIR problem to
which she said "Oh well, if and when 557 becomes a new area code, as
far as YOUR line goes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

The Bell System planned YEARS ago (as early as 1959 or 60) that one
day there would be N0X/N1X central office codes and NNX Area Codes;
For the MOST part, Telco has done what they were supposed to -- PBX's,
some independent telcos, and DAMNABLE PRIVATE PAYPHONES/AOS companies
are
to blame; but telco in some instances DOES deserve a little blame - WE
HAVE COME TO 'THAT' BRIDGE BUT A TOLL-TAKER of DRAWBRIDGE TENDOR
REFUSES TO CO-OPERATE!!!

Oh by the way -- I kept harping on different supervisors -- my line at
home
is all straightened out now -- except I can't dial 0 + 411 anymore for
Local
Directory billed Calling Card/3d Party (31 cents here in La.) but so
what -
If a call to Directory billed like that is needed from my line at home,
I
can dial 0 + 504-555-1212; same 31 cents billing.


Mark

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

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #214
****************************