A Beginner's Guide to the Internet/INTERNET.ISO/text/telediag/tc13-156.txt

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TELECOM Digest     Sat, 6 Mar 93 02:48:00 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 156

Index To This Issue:                     Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (Gary W. Sanders)
    Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (Roy Smith)
    Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (Carl Moore)
    Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News (Scott D. Brenner)
    Re: WTC Blast (Darrell Broughton)
    Re: Things Really Went BOOM! (Mark Brader)
    Re: The Geodesic Report II - A Small Review (Fred R. Goldstein)
    Re: Info Wanted on Database of White Pages Listings (Fred R. Goldstein)
    Re: Telecom Advice For the Lovelorn (Dave Ptasnik)
    Re: Number of Simultaneous Forwarded Calls ([e-mail])
    Re: Number of Simultaneous Forwarded Calls (Randy Gellens)
    Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial (Vance Shipley)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Date: Fri,  5 Mar 93 13:57:05 GMT
Subject: Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News
Organization: AT&T


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Aninda Dasgupta) writes:

> couldn't tell if the cable operators were able to get feeds from the
> TV stations that were off the air, because I don't subscribe to CATV
> (I refuse to aid any monopoly) and I am also not sure if the rest of
> the country got to see Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw for the evening
> news, but we were able to get only Dan Rather.

I was home that day and was scanning the skies and found local NYC TV
station on the satellite with news and information. I caught them
about 1pm shortly after the explosion and they were still on at 8pm
when I checked back. Since there transmitters were off the air for
over the air transmissions the station uplinked on satellite. Then
they contacted the local cable companys and had them pick up the
signal from satellite and resdistribute the signal to subscribers.
Many CATV people may not have even known that transmitter were
offline.


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

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

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 10:46:23 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Roy Smith)
Subject: Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News
Organization: New York University, School of Medicine


In article <[e-mail]> is written:

> However, CBS radio also reported that one of the first persons to be
> rescued from the top of the WTC, by helicopter, was a pregnant CBS
> employee who was up on the WTC roof to repair the transmitter/antenna.

    I know the dangers of electric fields is an open question, but
if I were a pregnant woman, I don't think I would want to be working
around a live high-power TV transmitter!


Roy Smith <[e-mail]>
Hippocrates Project, Department of Microbiology, Coles 202
NYU School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016

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

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 11:44:06 EST
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News


I don't know either about the rest of the country being able to
receive ABC or NBC at that time.  I wouldn't be surprised if they set
up alternate outlets if they were affected by the WTC.  The great
Nov.(?) 1965 blackout forced some news media to alternate outlets.

By the way, I notice the jokes from a parking attendant and a border
guard about a bomb and/or the WTC blast.  Please don't joke TO such
people about such matters, because the remark can be taken seriously
and you can get in trouble as a result.  There are signs in some
airports warning of this near the checkpoints for their terminal
concourses; and a few years back, a young man remarked (apparently a
joke) on a plane about a bomb, and the result was that the plane made
an unscheduled landing in Philadelphia and he was arrested.

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

From: [e-mail] (scott.d.brenner)
Subject: Re: NY World Trade Center - Some Telecom News
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 23:17:59 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Aninda Dasgupta) writes:

> I'm not sure if anybody mentioned this in the Digest, but the blast at
> the WTC took most TV stations out in NYC and the vicinity.  On the way
> home from work that day, I couldn't get anything but CBS Radio, coming
> live from the site. When I reached home, I turned on the TV to see if
> they were showing any gory sights, but only CBS TV and a (Telemundo?)
> station from NJ were on the air. My landlady's son, who works for CBS,
> said that all the other TV stations had their transmitters on top of
> the WTC.  CBS radio reported that the authorities had to actually
> remove some of the TV and radio antennae in order to make space for a
> helipad for the rescue helicopters to land on top of the WTC. [Some
> transmitters may have suffered from the power cutoff.]  CBS TV
> apparently transmits from the Empire State Building.

I usually watch the NBC affiliate in NYC, WNBC -- channel 4.  Although
I worked late last Friday, and didn't get home until about 9 PM
(listening to WCBS radio all the way!), channel 4 *was* on the air
when I got home.  Then, periodically over the weekend, they'd run a
banner message at the bottom of the screen thanking local cable
operators who picked up their feed and rebroadcast (cablecast?) it to
their subscribers.  The message also said that the feed would termin-
ate on Monday morning.

A newspaper article I read earlier this week implied that the station
(and other local stations) was able to provide their signal to other
stations out in Long Island, who were then able to uplink the signal
to the satellite, from which the cable systems could pick up the
signal.

I don't care how they did it, but I was really pleased that they were
able to continue broadcasting.  It's amazing that they were able to
get it all set up so quickly.  I know it's not *really* related to
telecom, but if anyone can give a more detailed (but understandable)
explanation of the setup these stations used, I be interested.


Scott D. Brenner       AT&T Consumer Communications Services
[e-mail]               Basking Ridge, New Jersey

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: WTC blast
Date: 5 Mar 1993 22:50:56 GMT
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
Reply-To: [e-mail]


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Jeffrey Jonas) writes:

> There's a new newsgroup dedicated to the World Trade Center (WTC)
> blast, but that's on another system so I can't find the name.  It was

It is alt.current-events.wtc-explosion.


Darrell

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

From: [e-mail] (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: Things Really Went BOOM!
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 93 06:54:10 GMT


> PATH has an 800 number for information.  Of course, it's always busy
> during a crisis like this.  This is the TELECOM issue that steams me.

TELECOM Moderator noted:

> [Regards traffic jams on the 800 number, it has been suggested the
> City of Chicago is considering a 900 number with no charge attached to
> calling it to be used for announcements to the citizens on a
> mass-calling basis. That night be a very good idea for the public
> transit system also.  PAT]

Well, it would keep the overload down, since people whose office
phones are blocked from calling 900 wouldn't be able to use it.
Somehow I don't think that was what Pat had in mind.  What technical
advantage would a 900 number give, as opposed to an 800 or just a
plain telephone number?


Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: They realized people with 900 blocks on their phone

would not be able to use it, but the idea was to be able to service a
huge volume of callers at the same time with emergency reports. Many
900 services are set up to take thousands of calls at the same time. I
think they want to be able to send a message to television and radio
stations saying (something like) "there is a serious emergency affecting
residents of Chicago. Please dial 900-xxx-xxxx at no charge to hear an
emergency announcement by the mayor".  Of course, someone suggested
why not just make the announcement on the radio/television in that
case ...  it was an idea they've tossed around while building our new,
very modern, very high tech police communications center.  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Fred R. Goldstein)
Subject: Re: The Geodesic Report II - A Small Review
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1993 03:37:40 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (James
Borynec; AGT Researcher) writes:

> I just read a startling report: "The Geodesic Network II: 1993 Report
> on Competition in the Telephone Industry" By P.W. Huber, M.K. Kellogg,
> and J. Thorne.  The Geodisic Company, Washington D.C.

> The central thesis of this (thick) report is that the economics of
> fiber and the economics of radio make long distance a "natural"
> monopoly and that local access is now "inherently competitive".

Well here's an opposing viewpoint!  Personally I think Huber is way
way out in right field, little more than a stooge of "Mad Monk Mark"
Fowler, Reagan's nuttiest FCC head.  He has an Agenda and won't let
reality get in the way.

As any regular reader of the EFF newsgroup would know by now, a
"natural monopoly" is a fairly clear concept which applies when the
economy of scale never maxes out, so a small vendor can never be
competitive with a big one.  Long distance, even per Huber's quote, is
almost exactly the opposite, a competitive commodity.  In economics, a
commodity has many vendors entering and exiting, and the price is
always near "cost", and nobody makes "economic profit" (greater than
required rate of return on capital invested).  That's just what LD
telecom is doing now, save AT&T's slipping umbrella.

Local wireline is a natural monopoly because it would cost too much to
string a second set of wires.  Indeed I foresee CATV and telephone
eventually sharing, not competiing over, optical fiber to the home.
Radio, however, is subject to a different constraint: Bandwidth.
Economics cannot create spectrum space, just determine how it's
allocated.  Radio bandwidth is orders of magnitude too low to handle
wireline applications in urban areas.  It's best for applications that
really benefit by it: Mobile, hand-held and rural.

The impact of MCI upon the industry was to bring economic reality to
an over-regulated (grant of "unnatural" monopoly) industry.  All the
posturing was just regulatory fiction; the reality was and is that
long distance subsidizes local service, and competition leads to less
cross-subsidy and more economically efficient allocation of resources.


Fred R. Goldstein   [e-mail]
k1io             or [e-mail]   voice:[phone]
Standard Disclaimer:  Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission.

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

From: [e-mail] (Fred R. Goldstein)
Subject: Re: Info Wanted on Database of White Pages Listings
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1993 03:27:08 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(John Castaldi) writes:

> Does anyone know where I can get a database (hopefully in ASCII) of
> all white pages listings. I would like to load this information on our
> Vax to try to save money on 411 calls.  Any info would help.

 From my "Crazy Bob" flier from ERM Electronic Liquidators, Melrose MA
(orders 800 776 5865, otherwise [phone]):

USA 1993 Yellow and White Pages.  The complete 7-CD [ROM] set.  DOS.
ProPhone 1993.  90 million residential listings, 10 million business
listings, available 1 Feb '93.  A 7-disc set; contains 90 million
names, addresses and phone numbers for every one listed in every white
pages in the USA, plus zip code!  Search can be narrowed by city,
state, street, phone number, or zip.  Contains the SUA Yellow Page
listings - over 10 million businesses on one CD-ROM.  Information can
be searched by company name or telephone number, and narrowed down by
geographic location to find a business in seconds.  Includes the full
address with zipcode and "SIC" code.  New Spring '93.  $222.  The 1992
edition is also available on a 3-disk "starter set" for $77.

Now all it takes is a DOS server with a CD-ROM jukebox ...  I know
nothing about this set than what I've seen in the flier. I'm just a
customer; I bought my CD-ROM drive from them.  Cheap.


Fred R. Goldstein   [e-mail]
k1io             or [e-mail]   voice:[phone]
Standard Disclaimer:  Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission.

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

From: [e-mail] (Dave Ptasnik)
Subject: Re: Telecom Advice For the Lovelorn
Date: 6 Mar 1993 08:24:35 GMT
Organization: University of Washington


[e-mail] (Jeff Hibbard) writes:

> 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.

> I only have one friend who lives in Normal, and talking to him hasn't
> been encouraging.  His stories of dealing with GTE repair service
> (something he's had to do fairly often) bear an amazing resemblance to

Having lived for 20 years in Peoria and two years in Normal, there is
absolutely no question what you should do.  GET THE H*** OUT OF
THERE!!  Downstate Illinois is a terrible mind sucking cesspool!  Go
anywhere but Seattle.  I love it, but I don't want any more people out
here.  Find your own nice place.

By the way, GTE owns Normal.  They used every dirty trick in the book
when I lived there selling telephone systems.  Messing with customer
service when a new (non-GTE) system went in, losing orders, etc.  I
can't even think about the games they played with local government
bids.  It's their way or no way.  A long distance company I worked for
had a switch in an Illinois Bell area, with FX's to Normal.  GTE
messed with us all the time.  Plus the FX's dropped out with great
regularity.  Not infrequently on Friday afternoon.  Even for
residences, their service was a joke.  Feature availability and
reliability was woefully inadequate.  Modem links at 1200 baud to
local boards were a joke.

At one time they had a BIG service center in Normal.  Is it still
there?  I was wondering if they consolidated it out of business.  It
was a major employer in town, and losing it would have been quite a
blow.


All of the above is nothing more than the personal opinion of -

Dave    [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 08:27:55 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Free Radical)
Subject: Re: Number of Simultaneous Forwarded Calls
Organization: College of CS, Northeastern U


> [Moderator's Note: The same service from Illinois Bell allows multiple
> call forwarding to the extent the receiving phone can handle the
> calls, ie. three lines in hunt can get three forwarded calls. But the
> version called 'remote call forwarding' which is a permanently config-
> ured arrangement in the CO will only forward as many calls as you have
> 'paths' you are paying for.  PAT]

Wasn't there some trouble several years back with a variant of this,
Busy Call Forwarding?  Seems someone set up three payphones to have
this feature, each set to the next, and then had all three call the
next at the same time.  Ate up every trunk in the area, almost.  It
happened in Texas I think.


[e-mail] (Rogue Agent)


[Moderator's Note: Are we talking about how many links there can be in
forwarded ONE LINK and handled at the same time?  I don't think IBT
lets you keep forwarding calls around and around forever if that is
what you mean.  Curiously, on a couple of exchanges here, if A
forwards to B and B forwards to C then a call directly dialed to B
goes on to C while a call reaching B via A stops at B and rings
through right there regardless of what B wants done with *his* calls.
On other (maybe most) exchanges here, under those circumstances, a
call to A would go right on through to C. But they seem to be clever
about it; the first time a previously 'passed through' point is found
in the link again, the forwarding stops and a busy signal is returned
to the caller.  In other words, you cannot go A > B > C > D > A > B >
C > D just to have the equipment running around in circles. As soon as
D is instructed to go to A, that's it. Trip's over. All electrons have

to get off the bus; the bus driver is at the end of the line! :)  PAT]

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

From: MPA15AB![e-mail]
Date: 05 MAR 93 17:21
Subject: Re: Number of Simultaneous Forwarded Calls


I kept complaining about only one call being forwarded at a time, and
finally they gave me to the GTE Consumer Action Group.  Someone there
took the information, and said I'd get a call back.  A few hours
later, a rep called me to say what I wanted should work, and they
would open a trouble ticket.  They just needed the PacBell number to
which the GTE line was forwarded (as if it had anything to do with
it).  The next day I got a call from GTE repair, telling me the
problem had been fixed.  When I asked what the limit was on
simultaneous forwarded calls, she said there was no limit.  I said
there had to be some limit for loop prevention, didn't there? but she
didn't understand.  I tested it, and it still failed.  So I called the
GTE CAG rep back, and said it was still broken, and suggested she
contact someone at the CO who understood how to operate a GTD-5.

Well, today I received a call from someone at the CO, who had been
given a totally incorrect description of the problem.  When I
explained it, he punched in my GTE number, verified that the customer
call forwarding queue was set to 1, and changed it to 2.  He said the
service office could have done the same thing.  I thanked him, and
before I could test it, I received a call from the GTE CAG rep, who
told me that she had contacted GTD-5 analyst, and was told that what I
wanted was possible, but not tariffed, so I would have to live with
only one call at a time.  She said I could order multiple numbers with
hunting and it would work.  I said that didn't make sense, and asked
to speak to the CO person who had called me earlier.  They said they'd
have him call me.

Finally, I got a chance to test it, and it works!  The CO guy did what
he said.  So I called the GTE CAG rep back and said everything was
fine, please don't do anything else.  She wanted to know what the CO
guy had done.  I was vague, saying he had changed the CCF parameters
for my line, because I was afraid she might be right about it not
being tariffed and would reset it to one.  She said she'd call him and
find out, because she needed to update my records to indicate what was
done.

Anyway, for now it works and I am happy.  Now, if only I could get
PacBell to make their three-way calling let me hang up on a vacant
side and get ring-back everything would be great.


Randy Gellens                [e-mail]|
A Series System Software                 if mail bounces,  forward to|
Unisys Mission Viejo, CA                         [e-mail]|
Opinions are personal;   facts are suspect;   I speak only for myself|


[Moderator's Note: Again, are we talking about the number of calls
which can be forwarded at one time from A > B or are we talking about
the extent to which A can be chained linked to B then to C and D, etc?
If the former, there is no problem with the number of circuits which
are available. As soon as the place to which calls are being forwarded
runs out of places to put them (i.e. two, three or how many lines in
the hunt group) then subsequent callers to the first number will get a
busy signal.  If we are talking about chains that run forever, then
the important thing is to stop the process when a previously visited
number is found again in the chain. If this were not the case, then
any call forwarding could be a potential problem because what would
happen if A forwarded calls to himself, ie *72 <number I am calling
from>?  Would an incoming call hit the CO and run in circles forever?
No -- we know it sees a place where it has already been (original pass
through A) and gives up, returning busy to the caller.  PAT]

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

From: Vance Shipley <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 1:50:17 EST
From: [e-mail] (Vance Shipley)
Subject: Re: Costs to Telco: Leased vs Dial
Organization: Xenitec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1993 06:50:12 GMT


> [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

This is the assumption I have been making; that telco is somehow worse
off if you elect to have endless calls as opposed to just jumpering
copper.  I am beginning to suspect that they might just prefer to keep
everything on the switch.  Witness the following quote from the DMS
Feature Planning Guide describing ENET, Northern's current switching
fabric and the heart of their central office switch:

  "As the switching platform for the DMS SuperNode system. ENET is a key
  hardware element for implementing high-capacity, bandwidth-intensive
  services, such as Dialable Wideband Service.  The Enhanced Network
  (ENET) decreases expenses through network simplification and
  increasing revenues by enabling a range of future wideband services."

Network simplification has to be important to the telco, their manpower
costs are a high percentage of operating costs.  Also, as another poster
pointed out automated loop testing, etc. are not possible (or more costly
and difficult) on special service facilities.


  "With BCS34, the single-cabinet ENET, with a capacity of 64,000
  fully duplicated channels, will become the standard ENET
  configuration.  However, the dual-cabinet ENET (128,000 channels)
  will continue to be available for offices requiring higher
  capacity"

  "As a junctorless, non-blocking switching matrix, ENET does not
  require complicated engineering.  Unconstrained by traffic and
  load balancing, its provisioning is based only on peripheral link
  terminations.  ENET provides the platform for circuit-switched,
  channel-switched, or nailed-up digital service."

So the switch is non-blocking.  So if it's not taking up common
resources in the switch the telco shouldn't care how long your calls
are.  Now the other thing here is that if you live in area which has
unmeasured local service, as I do, and one day they change to
measured, odds are many of these dialup circuits will remain for a
while generating more revenue.


Vance Shipley, [e-mail]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V13 #156
******************************