TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Apr 94 02:25:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 177 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Answering Machine With Voice Mail and Paging? (Frank Clark) Help Wanted - Switch Development (rtopp@delphi.com) Internet and the Info Highway (Scott Pope) Connect a Card Reader to a Cell Phone? (Andrew C. Green) What Does the Serial Port on NT Meridian Phones Do? (David Gingold) Telemarketer Game Rules (Steve Edwards) GSM and Airbags (Stewart Fist) Videocrypt Pirating (Stewart Fist) More on UK Code Change (Peter Campbell Smith) Hughes Gets $80M Indonesia Wireless Contract (Paul Robinson) Need Gammalink Fax Card (Larry Rachman) Access to Unpublished Phone Numbers (Robb Arthur) Telecommunications Development in Asia (Hwa-Lun L Liu) X.25 in Ecuador Needed (gretske@delphi.com) AT&T's ClearSpeak (Alok C. Nigam) Sprint Gopher (was Re: Sprint Upgrades Network to SONET) (Peter M. Weiss) Delaware Memo (Carl Moore) Does Sparc/SunOS Work Well With X25? (H.J. Lu) Unwelcome AT&T "Feature" (Steve Kass) Phone Fraud: How To! (Glen Roberts) Wanted: Books on ATM/Frame Relay/SMDS (Mark A. Cnota) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson Associates of Skokie, Illinois USA. We provide telecom consultation services and long distance resale services including calling cards and 800 numbers. To reach us: Post Office Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690 or by phone at 708-329-0571 and fax at 708-329-0572. Email: ptownson@townson.com. ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. TELECOM Digest is gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom. It has no connection with the unmoderated Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom.tech whose mailing list "Telecom-Tech Digest" shares archives resources at lcs.mit.edu for the convenience of users. Please *DO NOT* cross post articles between the groups. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fclark@deathstar.cris.com (Franclark) Subject: Answering Machine With Voice Mail and Paging? Date: 17 Apr 1994 19:23:37 -0400 Organization: Concentric Research Corporation I need some advice. I own a small refrigeration company (two employees). Currently we lease a phone line from an answering service. When the customer calls in the operator dumps the message in my voice mail and I am paged. This is cumbersome, time consuming, and expensive. With an eye to the future, when I can afford full time office help, I am getting my own business line in June. I would like to be able to capture the calls on an answering machine which would automatically ring my pager(preferrably alphanumeric) upon receipt of each call. Are there answering machines available with this capability? Is software available to do this via modem? Thank you in advance for any information. Frank Clark fclark@cris.com ------------------------------ From: rtopp@delphi.com Subject: Help Wanted - Switch Development Date: Sun, 17 Apr 94 13:22:37 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) I am interested in developing a telecom switch to provide message, admin, security, and accounting to a variety of clients whose messages would be relayed (by the switch) to one or more common carriers for transmission. If anyone has suggestions as to how to begin gathering information about switch development I would be grateful. ------------------------------ From: scott_pope@wiltel.com Subject: Internet and the Info Highway Date: Sun, 17 Apr 94 12:55:31 PDT Organization: WilTel Does anyone have any thoughts on how the Internet will relate to the Information Highway? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not how it *will* relate, but how it *does already* relate to the highway ... the Internet is the backbone for the whole concept, and it has been around for more than a decade as old-timers will attest. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 17:30:37 CDT From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Connect a Card Reader to a Cell Phone? My father is exploring ways of setting up a credit card authorization terminal for one afternoon's use at an outdoor concert. He has the use of a standard card-swipe terminal which is normally installed in a retail installation on what is thought to be a POTS line; i.e. when a charge must be authorized, the card is swiped through the reader, the machine opens the line, dials the local bank and eventually flashes the result (e.g. authorization code or denial) on its display. In other words, connect the box to a telephone line and it does its thing. The problem is that at the concert location, no land line is available. He would like to use a cellular phone if possible, but there appear to be at least two distinct risks: 1) Whether the card-swipe terminal can be connected to the phone and function with it, even if the phone must be dialed manually; 2) Whether the transmission is secure. I suspect that the hardware connectivity might be solvable, but I have some obvious concerns about transmission security. My gut feeling is that a digital cellular connection would be the minimum required, and ideally a spread-spectrum PCS (like I used to have :-( Please note that this is for one afternoon's use for a non-profit organization, so cost is a consideration. If hardware can be specified, we can then go off and hunt it down to ask for one day's loan. In any event, we'd appreciate any input you might have, either here in TELECOM Digest with PAT's approval or privately via Email. My father can be contacted directly at the CompuServe address below: Anthony R. Green 73211.1200@CompuServe.COM Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com 441 W. Huron Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ From: gingold@Think.COM (David Gingold) Subject: What Does the Serial Port on NT Meridian Phones Do? Date: 17 Apr 1994 18:51:45 -0400 Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation I've got a Northern Telecom Meridian phone on my desk. It has a DB-25 connector on the back, which I suspect is a serial port. (The connector hooks to a small PCB in the base, which in turn plugs into what might be an ISDN plug inside the base?) Is this a serial port? Does anyone know how to talk to it and what I can do with it? In particular, I'd like to program my workstation to dial the phone. dg ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 22:30:36 PDT From: Steve Edwards Subject: Telemarketer Game Rules About six or so months ago, someone posted the "rules" to a game to play on telemarketers. It was based on a point system -- x points if you got the telemarketer to tell you their name, y points if you got them to lose their temper, z points if you got them to curse, etc. It was quite humorous. Do you remember this post? Can you repost it or point me to it in the archives? Thanks in advance, Steve Edwards Internet: steve@newline.uucp Voice: +1-619-723-2727 Newline CompuServe: 73677,3561 Fax: +1-619-731-3000 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If I had the time I would go back in the archives and look for it. I'm sure it was more than six months ago. If anyone has a copy and sends it in I will try to find room to print it here again. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 18 Apr 94 00:03:44 EDT From: Stewart Fist <100033.2145@CompuServe.COM> Subject: GSM and Airbags I've just received by fax a photocopy of a story from the {Guardian Weekly} (UK) dated April 3. It is headlined "Mobile phone set off airbag" and the story is about a couple of instances where (it is claimed) GSM handsets have set off airbags in luxury cars in Europe. I'm interested to find out whether this stuff is true, or an urban myth. I think it's probably myth, because I can't imagine anything easier to shield from EMI than an inertia switch in a car. However the story quotes Lawrence Donegan and says "Safety experts issued a warning ... not to use mobile phones while driving..." The story also quotes Viv Stephens, head of the Industry Research Centre as saying that it is possible for mobiles to trigger airbags. Can anyone give me a contact to either Lawrence Donegan (possibly a technical journalist) or Viv Stephens (Industry Research Centre) - which I presume is in the UK? I've tried to track similar stories in Germany, and sources tell me that the German Road Transport Research Unit is working on the problem, but when I contact them they deny it. BMW, VW and Mercedes are also reported to have had airbag blow-outs with GSM, but they also all deny it. Someone's not telling the truth. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 94 07:03:36 EDT From: Stewart Fist <100033.2145@CompuServe.COM> Subject:Videocrypt Pirating I've been told by a usually reliable source that the full confidential, proprietary details of the Videocrypt video scrambling system are being released this week on some international bulletin boards. This is the system licensed by (and part-owned?) by Rupert Murdoch's News Datacom and used by the Sky network across Europe. The decoding system has apparently been successfully pirated for some time in Europe, and a flourishing business has grown up around it. One source says that there are almost as many pirated Sky systems as legit at the present time. Now someone is about to publish the full details. My information also is that once the information becomes public, it will be relatively easy for anyone with above-average technical ability to break the code in real-time on a home PC, and view Sky for free. If all the above is true, I'm interested in knowing what the pirates stand to gain from releasing the information on bulletin boards. Surely, it is more profitable to keep the information to yourself, and have something to sell. Or is this a move to force Videocrypt's hand in some way? Once a scrambling system has been compromised to this degree, it is probably better that it is broken up completely, but it still seems to be a strange thing for anyone to do. Does anyone have information or an explanation? ------------------------------ From: campbellsm@lish.logica.com (Peter Campbell Smith) Subject: More on UK Code Change Organization: Logica, London Date: Mon, 18 Apr 1994 02:56:54 GMT From the Oftel leaflet "A day to renumber" (Oftel is the UK government telecomms regulatory body): Code changes will start to be available mid-June 94, so call-barring equipment or payphones that analyze the dialed number need to be changed by then. The new codes will be available everywhere from 1 August 1994, and the 00 prefix for outgoing international calls will be available then also. Old and new codes will run in parallel from 1 August 1994 until PhONEday, 16 April 1995, when the old codes will cease to be available. The new national codes are the old ones with an added 1 after the 0 (so 071 becomes 0171, 0234 becomes 01234) except: 0532 xxxxxx becomes 0113 2xx xxxx 0742 xxxxxx becomes 0114 2xx xxxx 0602 xxxxxx becomes 0115 9xx xxxx 0533 xxxxxx becomes 0116 2xx xxxx 0272 xxxxxx becomes 0117 9xx xxxx The following are unchanged (no added 1): (free) 0500, 0800, (local rate) 0345, 0645, (premium rate) 0336, 0338, 0640, 0660, 08364, 0839, 0881, 0891, 0898, (mobile) 0374, 0385, 0802, 0831, 0836, 0850, 0860, 0956, 0958, 0973, 0976, (paging) 0941, (other) 0910. Paging numbers other than 0941 will get the added 1. Service codes such as 100, 151, 999 etc remain unchanged. Incoming international calls change accordingly, eg +44 71 222 1234 becomes +44 171 222 1234 and so on. Further details: Oftel leaflet line 071-634 8756, BT 0800 010101, Mercury 0500 041995. Peter Campbell Smith, Logica plc, London. Voice: +44 71 637 9111 Fax: +44 71 344 3638 Internet: campbellsm@lish.logica.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 18:04:35 EDT From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: Hughes gets $80M Indonesia Wireless Contract Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA {Washington Post} Digest, April 14, Pg D12: "Hughes Network Systems of Germantown [Maryland], a unit of GM Hughes Electronics, won a contract for a fixed wireless telephone system in Jakarta Indonesia, valued at more than $80 million. The system will initially serve 250,000 subscribers and is expected to grow to 800,000 subscribers." ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 94 21:50:12 EDT From: Larry Rachman <74066.2004@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Need Gammalink Fax Card I'm looking for a used Gammalink Gammafax XPI (I believe its called) fax card, or something similar. The right card will sit in a PC next to a Dialogic D41 and talk to it via the MIVP connector. What I'm NOT looking for is a conventional fax modem that connects directly to a phone line via an RJ-11. Reply via email, phone, or fax. Larry Rachman 74066.2004@compuserve.com 516-427-1112 (voice) 516-427-0656 (fax) ------------------------------ From: Robb Arthur Subject: Access to Unpublished Phone Numbers Date: Sun, 17 Apr 94 20:54:25 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) To anyone who can help us out: We are looking for the phone number to a Mr. John Patrick Quirk, 44 Boston Post Rd., Guilford, CT., 06437. The number is unpublished, he is running scams that have totalled over $200,000. We are trying to locate him and serve him with a subpeona. If you can find out his phone number or can confirm his address as it shows, I would appreciate it. Send any information by fax at (602)443-4040 or voice 1-800-966-2468, Attn. Darryl Biggs. Thank you. ------------------------------ From: hliu@mason1.gmu.edu (Hwa-Lun L Liu) Subject: Telecommunications Development in Asia Date: 17 Apr 1994 17:32:51 GMT Organization: George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA I am a graduate student majoring in Telecommunications at GMU. I am currently working on a paper entitled "Telecommunications development in Asia". My focus is on the marketplace in Asia, for the emerging technologies(e.g. ISDN, ATM, Frame Relay), covering China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia. If anyone is interested in this topic, or has something to contribute to my paper, please contact me at hliu@mason1.gmu.edu. Lynn ------------------------------ From: gretske@delphi.com Subject: X.25 in Ecuador Needed Date: Sun, 17 Apr 94 21:24:16 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) I need an X.25 connection in Ecuador. Can anyone help? The Public networks such as BT and Sprint are not there. Gene ------------------------------ From: nigam@mitre.org (Alok C. Nigam) Subject: AT&T's ClearSpeak Date: 18 Apr 1994 01:51:31 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation I have heard that AT&T speaker phones use something called ClearSpeak, which allows full duplex communication and much improved communications. Does anyone know if this technology makes their speakerphones better than others, or if this is just a marketing ploy? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The very same question has been asked by at least a few people regards AT&T's other product with a similar name, TruVoice. It is also intended to provide 'much improved communi- cations'. Your guess is as good as anyone's. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 16:29:15 EDT From: Peter M. Weiss Subject: Sprint Gopher (was Re: Sprint Upgrades Network to SONET) Organization: Penn State University Other SPRINT PR can be found by gophering to gopher.sprintlink.net. Pete-Weiss@psu.edu "The 'NET' never naps" +1 814 863 1843 31 Shields Bldg. -- Penn State Univ -- University Park, PA 16802-1202 USA ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Apr 94 17:20:23 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Delaware Memo In a separate mailing from my latest Delaware phone bill, I have received a letter with the new Delaware dialing instructions, which have previously been discussed in the Digest. "To free up additional numbers, area codes will look like the first three digits of a telephone number; i.e., will use the numbers '2' through '9' as a middle digit, beginnin in January 1995." -- Not QUITE right; the NNX area codes will appear as new area codes are needed. Notice that, for remote call forwarding, "Bell Atlantic will automat- ically reprogram, if necessary". Long distance within Delaware is affected. "Remember to include the area code when dialing local fax machines outside of your area code." -- What does this mean? Local calls to other area codes will continue to be just seven digits. (From Delaware, this is all along the Pa. border and at a FEW places along Md. border; but FROM Pa. TO Del. is 1 + 302 + 7D.) ------------------------------ From: hjl@nynexst.com (H.J. Lu) Subject: Does Sparc/SunOS Work Well With X25? Date: 17 Apr 1994 21:24:50 GMT Organization: Nynex Science & Technology, Inc. Hi, We are using a Sparc 10 running SunOs 4.1.3 to talk to many remote hosts with SVC over x25 links. The average size of the messages is about 2K. Assume the traffic is not very heavy, we are wondering how many remote hosts a process on the local host can handle with reasonable performance. Our mains concerns are: 1. The number of files a process can open. 2. The nummber of SVCs a process can handle without heavy performance hit. Does anyone have experiences with x25 and Sun? Please email me. I don't read this group very often. Thanks, H.J. ------------------------------ Subject: Unwelcome AT&T "Feature" From: skass@drunivac.drew.edu (Steve Kass) Date: 17 Apr 94 22:22:18 EDT Organization: Drew Univ Academic Computing I had to leave an important message after hours tonight, and the party I was calling warned me that to reduce their voice mail load, the system was set up not to answer for 16 rings or longer. The sanity of that aside, I placed the call through AT&T and was unable to get through. Before the call was answered, AT&T informed me that my party did not answer, and that they were sorry, I would now be disconnected. I then successfully placed the call by dialing 10222+ . I couldn't help wondering if an AT&T operator could have placed the call with this "feature" disabled. Steve Kass/Math & CS/Drew University skass@herne.drew.edu/(201) 514-1187 ------------------------------ From: glr@rci.ripco.com (Glen Roberts) Subject: Phone Fraud: How To! Organization: RCI, Chicago, IL Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 22:42:27 GMT PHONE FRAUD! The enticing brochure claims "Now, receive a discount on your long distance calls -- including every toll call over 23 miles, Interna- tional and Directory Assistance calls -- all without having to cancel you current long distance carrier." Budget Call says to dial "10368" before your number. Well, I called and asked the cost. They said, I'll "save 10%" I asked for the per minute rate. They wanted to know calling from where to where. Ok, "708-356" to "312-670" Here are their rates: Day Evening Night 1st Min $.304 $.273 $.1825 Addtl Min $.145 $.131 $.087 I asked if this would save me 10% "exactly" came the response "10% off Illinois Bell" rates that is. What does Illinois Bell charge me for that 708-356 to 312-670? 1st Min $.163 $.147 $.098 Addtl Min $.065 $.059 $.039 So, a ten minute call in the day with Budget call will cost: $1.609 The same call with Illinois Bell (AmeriTech) will cost : $0.813 That's not quite a 10% savings, but more like paying double! When I confronted the Budget Call representative with this fact, she claimed that she was sorry if she mis-spoke and that it was her first day on the job. Well, the written literature gives no indication that the service will help me pay twice as much for my calling. Donna Reeves, Vice President of Budget Call returned my call and said that they had old rates for Illinois Bell (and their checking tonight confirmed what I said). She said on Monday she'd check with the Public Service Commission and they would revise their rates to be at least 10% lower than Illinois Bell (AmeriTech). Additionally, she said that no bills had been issued and any calls placed now would be billed at a rate 10% lower than Illinois Bell's current rates. Incidentally, she said that Budget Call is owned by Rochester Telephone. Here's the info on Budget Call Long Distance Inc. 1-800-941-0368 Customer Service Center, 3441 W Henrietta Rd, Rochester, NY 14623 Glen L. Roberts, author, How To Spy On Anyone Without Getting Caught Host Full Disclosure Live (WWCR 5,810 khz - Sundays 7pm central) Box 734, Antioch, Illinois 60002. Fax: (708) 838-0316 Call the Surveillance Hotline: (708) 356-9646 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A cute cartoon I saw today showed a picture of the Devil putting up a poster on a payphone which said, 'Save money on long distance calls: dial 666 before your number; your eternal soul the first minute; 99 cents each additional minute." I thought it was funny. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mac@rci.ripco.com (Mark A. Cnota) Subject: Wanted: Books on ATM/Frame Relay/SMDS Organization: Ripco Internet BBS Chicago Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 19:27:10 GMT Could anyone give me the names/authors of some good books on the subjects of ATM, Frame Relay, or SMDS? Anything from introductory to advanced would be appreciated. If anyone knows of a bookstore in the Chicago area that would have such books, let me know. I think the subject matter is too specific to be found and most regular bookstores. Thanks in advance! Mark A. Cnota (mac@ripco.com) Ripco Internet BBS (312) 665-0065 Chicago's Low-Cost Internet Alternative ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #177 ****************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------