A Beginner's Guide to the Internet/INTERNET.ISO/text/telediag/tc13-155.txt

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TELECOM Digest     Sat, 6 Mar 93 01:25:00 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 155

Index To This Issue:                     Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Help Becky With Her 900 Bill (Foster Schucker)
    Re: Help Becky With Her 900 Bill (Ron Bean)
    Re: Telecom Advice For the Lovelorn (Robert L. McMillin)
    Re: Ohio Bell Making Your Life Easier (Stephen Friedl)
    Re: Toll Stations in California (Scott D. Fybush)
    Re: Potential For Credit Card Fraud Using Cellular Phone (Justin Leavens)
    Re: "Aggregator" Experience Sought (Steve Howard)
    Re: Access to the Data SuperHighway (Gary W. Sanders)
    Re: Tell Me About Your Pager (J. Philip Miller)
    Re: OSPS and ANI Failures (Floyd Davidson)
    Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan (John Levine & Stefan Zingg)
    Re: Annoyance (Serial) Calls (Brad Houser)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Help Becky With Her 900 Bill
From: tredysvr!nzkites![e-mail] (Foster Schucker)
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 93 07:01:02 NZT
Organization: Kiteflyers Roost


TELECOM Moderator noted:

> If the Information Provider chooses to place you with a collection
> agency (which is doubtful in my opinion, but it has been done), only a
> feeble attempt at collection will be made. There is a bottom line to
> be considered after all. Despite threats which may be made, this will
> not reflect on your credit in any way.

Pat, this is wrong and I'm living proof.  We had insurance that
covered medical type stuff, the agreements the providers had were that
they would accept the insurance payments as full payment.  In the
process of a two year period we racked up three providers that decided
to continue to bill the overage.  ($16, $11 and $800).  After a few
months they went into collection.  They now appear on my TRW credit
report.  I am in the process of refinancing and was told that I would
not be able to close until these bills were out of collection.  (This
means paid, since the collection companies want the money).  I was
also informed that my credit history will also show these accounts as
closed. but will carry the collections notation on them.

All in all the provider will get some money, no matter what is the
"correct" thing.


Thanks!!

Foster Schucker === nzkites.uucp === 215-458-8354 (voice)


[Moderator's Note: You are comparing apples and oranges here. First
off, a bill for $800 is a bit more worthy of collection activity than
a bill for $15.  You mentioned the two bills for $11 and $16, but
those by themselves would be of no importance. It is the $800 item
which has your potential lender concerned. Second, an information
provider on a 900 line has no signature on file; no written contract
of any sort. Not that written contracts are needed to make things
legal -- they are not -- but the lack of anything in writing along
with the tiny amount of the disputed item combine to make collection
very difficult and unprofitable at best. Your medical provider(s) on
the other hand have written, binding contracts with you. These may be
in dispute; there may have been verbal agreements contrary to some
provisions otherwise in the written agreement; there may be a dispute
regards the method and amount of payment, etc ... and certainly your
credit bureau report should contain a consumer statement from you
giving your side of the dispute which may or may not influence the
decision made by your lender.  I still maintain a $15 item from a
*telephone* information provider with nothing written to bind either
party is of no concern to credit grantors except possibly telemarket-
ers selling magazine subscriptions; bill collectors for the Columbia
Record Club (talk about a depressing job -- "did you mail in your
dollar ninety-eight for the fifteen records we sent you?" !) and the
like.  PAT]

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

Subject: Re: Help Becky With Her 900 Bill
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 18:25:30 -0600 (CST)
From: Ron Bean <nicmad!madnix![e-mail]>


[e-mail] (John Higdon) writes:

> Recall that I had month after month of bogus calls to the UK on my bill
> not long ago. AT&T would not even consider the possiblity that I did
> not dial the calls, even though I DO maintain a 100% complete computer
> log of every single incoming and out going call on every one of sixteen
> lines in the house.

   This idea of keeping your own records brings up a couple of (unrelated)
questions:

   If you're being billed for calls that don't show up on your
computerized record, could you take AT&T to small-claims court?  (Who
has jurisdiction on an interstate call?)

   If your recording device sits between the demark and your inside
wiring, can it listen for tones (or pulses) on *both* sides of the
line and distinguish between calls dialed from inside your building
and those dialed from some other point between you and the CO? If such
a device does not exist, could one be built with available components
(possibly using a PeeCee)?


[e-mail] (Ron Bean)    uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!zaphod

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

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 07:43:53 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Robert L. McMillin)
Subject: Re: Telecom Advice For the Lovelorn


Jeff Hibbard <[e-mail]> writes about having to
compromise for the preservation of both his and his fiancee's
financial solvency (not to mention sanity).  Ready to move halfway
between their jobsites, in Normal, Il, he made a tragic discovery:

> This sounded like a fine idea until I discovered that Normal is in GTE
> territory!  Both Peoria and Decatur are served by Illinois Bell, and I
> have never lived in an area that wasn't served by Illinois Bell.

All you have to do is ask yourself, which is more important?  Your
fiancee?  Or your telephone service?

Now that you've made that decision, let's hope she'll give you the ring
back ... :-)

Seriously -- GTE provides (barely) adequate service for residential
customers.  If you run a business out of your home that has
specialized telecom needs, get an office elsewhere.  If you need to
make a call during a riot, find a pay phone.


Robert L. McMillin                     | Voice:    [phone]
Hughes Aircraft/Hughes Training, Inc.  | Fax:      [phone]
Los Angeles, CA                        | Internet: [e-mail]
                         After June 25 : [e-mail] or [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: They don't have riots in Peoria. I guess he is
going to have accept the fact that phone service in Normal is abnormal.
In the long ago days of exchange names, we had an exchange here called
NORmal (312-667). It was thus named because of its proximity to Chicago
State University (not to be confused with University of Chicago) which
we used to call Chicago Normal School.  Does that go back a few eons
or not? :)  The town of Normal also is home to a Normal School.   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Stephen Friedl)
Subject: Re: Ohio Bell Making Your Life Easier
Date: 5 Mar 93 16:45:46 GMT
Organization: Software Consulting, Tustin, CA


> If you conduct business from your home phone but do not solicit
> business calls there (i.e. yellow pages advertising or business name
> listed in directory) then there is no big deal, and very few telcos
> will make an issue of it. They certainly will not listen in on the
> line to determine the nature of the calls, so they have no way of
> proving it either way.

Actually, they can use how you answer the phone as an indicator of
this.  If you say "XYZ Computer Company", then they can decide you
should be be a business line.  That's why I answer the phone "Hello,
this is Steve" on my main voice line.


Stephen J Friedl | Software Consultant | Tustin, CA |     [phone]
3b2-kind-of-guy  | I speak for me ONLY |   KA8CMY   | uunet!mtndew!friedl

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

From: [e-mail] (Scott D Fybush)
Subject: Re: Toll Stations in California
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1993 05:32:32 GMT


I was surprised to see one toll station gone from the list: Deep
Springs #1.  DS 1 was a State of California highway maintenance
station in the Deep Springs Valley, some 30 miles east of Bishop CA,
and a few miles west of the Nevada border.  The only other thing in
the valley is one of my alma maters, Deep Springs College.  Deep
Springs College was Deep Springs Toll Station #2, served by the same
wireline as DS 1 out of Bishop from the '20s until about 1985, when

they cut over to a privately-owned UHF radio system.  Deep Springs is
now served out of Contel's Bishop switch (619-872), and the sound
quality on the single phone line is generally pathetic once it's made
the two UHF radio hops.

I was last at Deep Springs in June 1989, and the highway maintenance
depot was still at Deep Springs #1 back then.  Perhaps they've closed,
or perhaps they've just taken the phone out.

The other toll station missing from the list is (or was) at the
intersection of Nevada 266 and US 95, about 40 miles east of Deep
Springs.  This was Lida Junction 3, a pay phone with no dial in the
parking lot of the, er, "Cottontail Ranch," a whorehouse (yes, they're
legal in rural Nevada!).  I think LJ 1 and 2 were inside, but I never
went in to check.

The Nevada Bell phone book (there's only one) had as recently as 1990
several pages of toll station listings.


Scott Fybush -- [e-mail] -- Deep Springs '88

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

From: [e-mail] (Justin Leavens)
Subject: Re: Potential For Credit Card Fraud Using Cellular Phone
Date: 5 Mar 1993 15:53:28 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Paul Barnett) writes:

[story deleted about how a merchant was going to verify a credit card
over a cellular phone]

> I was surprised that the credit card companies didn't have some sort
> of rule against this.  So I called American Express and the issuer of
> my MasterCard, and both customer service reps understood the problem
> (once I explained it), but neither was aware of any policy to the
> contrary.  I filed a "complaint" or "comment" or whatever they called
> it, and maybe something will happen as a result.

I get that same queasy feeling when I take airport shuttle vans back
and forth and hear them calling the card in over their dispatch radios.

And that's for a $15 fare ...

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

From: Steve Howard <breck1![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: "Aggregater" Experience Sought
Date: 5 Mar 93 16:13:22 MST (Fri)


> [e-mail] (Eric Pearce) writes:

>> I'm supposed to meet with a salesperson from First Federated
>> Communications later this week.

>> My concern is adding another party to the "soup".

> A very real concern, indeed. What you lose is the ability to deal
> directly with the entity providing your service. You are no longer the
> customer of a long distance carrier, but that of a third party who has
> no technical knowledge of or other interest in the quality of your
> service. The aggregator's sole purpose is to literally get between you
> and the carrier and collect money.

We have done business with somebody like an aggregator but with a nice
twist that gets around some of these problems ...

The Broker.

The Broker negotiates contracts with many of the IXCs.  I think that
they promise $X of business in exchange for price of $Y.  (I'm not
sure on this -- it is just a guess).  When you sign up with the broker
they set you up directly with the IXC(s).  The IXC then pays a cut to
the broker.

This worked out well for us ... the Broker gave us a list of several
possible IXCs and pricing combinations.  We selected one that was
close to what we were looking for.  He then went to that IXC and
"pushed" them for some final goodies.  We ended up paying ~$.14/min
8AM-5PM for switched calls in all 50 states with no commitments.  The
real advantage is when you have problems with the IXC -- You can call
the IXC directly or you can call the broker (this could have advantages --
I suspect that the brokers problems get resolved quickly -- the IXC
knows that the broker could easily sell one of his other IXC if things
don't get worked out! :-) ).  We haven't had any problems with our
IXC, so I haven't had push the broker on them.

If anybody would like the name/number of the broker I have been
working with, feel free to send e-mail or if there is enough interest,
I'll ask Pat to post it.


Steve Howard           Breckenridge Ski Resort        [e-mail]
Disclaimer=The opinions above do not necessarily represent those of my employer

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

From: [e-mail]
Date: Fri,  5 Mar 93 14:08:40 GMT
Subject: Re: Access to the Data SuperHighway
Organization: AT&T


In article <[e-mail]> bears![e-mail].
com writes:

> I am willing to donate my money to ensure univeral access, but I have
> no interest in 'investing' into prototypes and demonstrator projects
> at places where the general public will not be involved.  My model of
> this is more akin to Usenet (with better user interfaces, and maybe
> even better content ;-).

This super-highway networking is getting fun to watch on the news.
Everyone is trying to make sure that it has univeral access and will
be cost effective. Most articles seem to throw around $50 as the top
end and 20-30 as an average cost for access. No one however has taken
into account you still need to get your bits and bytes to the network.
So now I have access to everything under the sun for $20 month, but
its costing me per-minute to connect.


Gary W. Sanders (N8EMR)    [e-mail]
AT&T Bell Labs   614-860-5965

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

From: [e-mail] (J. Philip Miller)
Subject: Re: Tell Me About Your Pager
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 08:14:51 -0600 (CST)


[e-mail] (jack lowry) writes:

> If this is business item (you'll get remiburshed for it) get both.
> Then keep the phone number to youself and be free with the pager
> number.

I certainly agree with this advice.  The cellular phone is great for
returning a page when you are wandering.  A phone is not always easy
to find, and even when it is, it still may be easier to just use your
cellular than to try to figure out how to make a toll charge with many
corporations intricate billing arrangements.  In addition, the pager
generally allows you to screen calls based on the calling number and
prioritize whether you should interrupt your meeting to respond to the
call.  In most of my arrangments it would be disruptive to answer a
cellular call, but receiving a page is no big deal.  If you put it on
vibrate, no one will even notice.  I suppose that the next thing will
be to have caller-id and vibrating ring for cellular, but I am unaware
of those features being currently available.


     J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067
     Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110
      [e-mail] - [phone] [362-2694(FAX)]

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

From: [e-mail] (Floyd Davidson)
Subject: Re: OSPS and ANI Failures
Organization: University of Alaska Computer Network
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 15:06:56 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
> (Floyd Davidson) writes:

>> Routing ANI failures to an operator doesn't just result in a call
>> completion, it also generates 1) better customer relations, and 2)
>> trouble tickets which should lead to corrective action.

>> And, in fact there are ONI only exchanges still out there.  We

Note that here I'm saying there are multiple ONI exchanges ...

>> (the Fairbanks Toll Center) had a trouble ticket opened by an upset
>> customer last week because he kept getting an operator ... and in
>> our most pleasant manner someone (NOT me) explained that in Clear,
>> Alaska you get an operator every time because it is the last known
>> place in the world where the telephone company won't put in modern
>> equipment, and we expect it to always be that way ...

> I wouldn't bet on Clear being the ONLY place.  There's around 1500


Hi Al.  Nahhh, we just told the customer that to put a little emphisis
on the point of it all.

> non-RBOC TELCOs in the continental USA, and most are just (rightly)
> trying to use cheapest equipment that does the job.  Maybe that's some
> old SXS CDO, or a cheap PBX-like box.  If the number of toll calls is
> a few dozen/day, why put in that ANI stuff?

Actually the telco in Clear (and for that matter a small telco
anywhere else that doesn't upgrade to a digital switch) isn't doing it
the easy way. The economics, for the telco, of installing one of the
little Redcom (or even a Harris, though those are a pain ...)  switches
is too good to miss.  They are cheap, reliable, and almost totally
maintenance free.  And most admin stuff can be done long distance with
a modem.

And in the case of Clear, which has an Air Force BMEWS radar station
located in "town", the number of LD calls is substantial!


[e-mail]   A guest on the Institute of Marine Science computer
Salcha, Alaska         system at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

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

Subject: Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan
From: [e-mail]
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 93 14:27:55 +0100


A couple of days ago, I asked:

> Why can't you just add another digit to the phone number?

Thanks to all who answered. While I don't accept "convention" or
"required reprogramming" as a valid reason, John Levine pointed me to
a fact I didn't know. I think his reply is interesting enough to be
posted.

      ----------

In case nobody else has pointed it out, North American switching
systems have evolved a different switching protocol than is used
elsewhere in the world.  The CCITT standard used everywhere else
passes a digit at at time with per-digit handshakes.  The North
American standard buffers up a full ten digit number and transmits it
in a block.  (Before you ask, at the time this convention was invented
in the early 1950s there were probably more dial phones in North
America than in the entire rest of the world.)

So making phone numbers longer than the current ten digits would
require immense changes to every phone switch we've got.  Newer
switches use SS7 which could probably be changed with a software
upgrade, but there is still a lot of crossbar which would require
soldering in hundreds of new relays.

Regards,
John Levine, [e-mail], {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl

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

Internet: <[e-mail]> or <[e-mail]>
UUCP-net: ...gator!ixgch!stefan!stefan
Voicenet: +41 61 - 261 28 90
Papernet: Stefan Zingg, St.Johanns-Vorstadt 19, 4056 Basel, Switzerland

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Annoyance (Serial) Calls
Organization: Intel CTD
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 14:37:00 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Morris Galloway Jr.) writes:

> We've been experiencing an annoying pattern of calls recently.  Early
> in the morning (7-8am), calls are coming in to one or two of our
> dormitories.

> When answered, there is silence, then a hangup.

> Often, the same thing happens to each room on a floor (the numbers are
> consequtive).

> Aside from a malicious crackpot, is there any computerized dialing
> equipment that could produce these symptoms? I've asked the residents
> about fax tones, but apparently there is just silence.

Ever see the movie "War Games"?  It is fairly simple to write a
program that has a modem dial every number in a range and logs all
calls that answer as a modem.  A malicious person might then try to
break into that system later.  Since you say it happens consecutively,
that is probably what is happening.


Brad Houser      [e-mail]
[phone]  Fax: [phone]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V13 #155
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