TELECOM Digest Sun, 24 Apr 94 09:51:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 182 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson GTE/SF Supervising on Busy Calls? (Douglas Reuben) Delrina Fax MailBox Delivered (Jack Bzoza) What Human Resource Required to Set up Campus Network? (Martin Visser) Saying "NO" to Big Brother (Alan Furman) NANP and Switches (Howard Ramagli) Traffic Measurements (Miguel Rios) Help: Programming Motorola 550 and Fujitsu Commander (Lance Ware) GM-Hughes 500 Channels (A. Padgett Peterson) Telecommuting Policies and Procedures (Matthew L. Blackmon) 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: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: GTE/SF Supervising on Busy Calls? Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 05:03:35 PDT I'm not sure if anyone has discussed this before, but I recently noticed that GTE/SF (00040) is *supervising* if a dialed cellular customer is busy. That is to say, if you call my GTE Mobilnet/San Francisco cell number, and it is busy, the call will be BILLED, ie, you pay whatever local or toll charges to hear a busy signal. I tried calling my number when it was busy with a calling card, got a busy signal, and could NOT hit the "#" sign to make a new call. This was with Pac*Bell's CC service as well as AT&T's, both of which will allow you to make a "sequence call" with the octothorpe/pound/#/whatever key *only* if supervision hasn't been returned or after it is released. So I think this is a pretty good indicator that GTE/SF *is* supervising on busy calls. I don't know how GTE handles cell to cell calls, ie, if one GTE customer calls another who is busy, but if you are calling from a landline you are likely to be billed. If you want to try this, hit *710 (or *73 will work outside SF and San Mateo Counties) to turn off No Answer Transfer/Voicemail, dial some number that won't answer, and then call your GTE/SF carphone with a calling card. You generally won't be able to hit the "#" sign if you get a busy signal, at least that's what I've noticed. (NOTE: You need to turn off NAT by hitting *710 (or *73, which should turn all forwarding off where GTE will 'allow' you to do so, which they should everywhere). For some silly reason, GTE/SF bundles NAT with Busy Transfer (*74), and if you have NAT on, then Busy Transfer is also on, and any "busy" call will go to voicemail or whatever number you have set. For you AT&T people, do the newer Autoplex switches HAVE to work this way, or can they have two separate fields for NAT and Busy Transfer so that each can work independently of the other? [which is better, I think...]) So, if you don't use GTE/SF's voicemail because you think it is outrageous to pay airtime for voicemail deposition or even hang-up calls (and rightly so, may I add! :) ), this busy supervising thing may be a problem for some of your callers. Additionally, if you roam a lot, due to the way that the (IS-41 Rev A?) links work between the systems (ie, between GTE and Pac*Bell), if you make a lot of short calls you may not get Call-Waiting, and a lot of your inbound calls will be directed to a *supervising* busy signal. Many callers may not appreciate this. Finally, as an aside, to get out of your annual GTE/SF contract: Like the Cell One/NY problem with the nearby Motorola EMX switches where you can't get call-waiting when roaming in Motorola territory and calls go right to voicemail, the same thing occurs with GTE/SF. If you have No-Answer-Transfer set to voicemail (ie, *71*8) , and you roam into the Sacramento (00112) or Stockton (00224) systems, you will NOT get call-waiting! Even if you've been on the phone for five minutes and the IS-41 Rev A protocol nonsense where you can't get more than one call per minute is no longer an issue (and WHO wrote that flaky software, anyhow?), anyone who calls you will get sent to Sac or Stockton, the switch(es) will see you are busy, and then redirect your call back to Voicemail in SF (which supposedly violates the MFJ and/or Dept. Of Justice rules, but no one seems to have an answer as to why they can get away with this. Don't get me wrong, I *encourage* other cell co's to *flagrantly* violate these preposterous and onerous regulations! :) ) So if you call up GTE/SF and say "Hey, since I can't get Call-Waiting in Sac and Stockton as long as I have my voicemail on, I want to cancel my contract without penalty since you promised that all my features will work in Auto-Access markets..." they will have to let you out as long as you say it was a *major* reason why you signed up with them in the first place. Actually, I've been told that it is all a matter of software revisions on the Motorola EMXs, ie, the older versions gives Busy-Transfer a higher degree of precedence than Call-Waiting, while the newest version does the opposite, and if Pac*Tel would upgrade to the newest version, this wouldn't be a problem anymore. This is of course also true for ComCast and Metro Mobile (Bell Atlantic in CT), but it is futile to try to have them actually BUY new software, assuming they even DO have to buy it. In the meantime, though, it's an easy and painless way to get out of your annual contracts with GTE/SF or Cell One/NY! (Although I personally recommend them both over their respective "competitors" -- if you can call a duopoly competition! :( Frequent roamers on US-50 in CA may note that the Mountain Cellular (Placerville and South Lake Tahoe, 01080) EMX CAN handle call-waiting with NAT/Voicemail active, so it CAN be done. Mountain Cell, however, seems to think that confirmation tones are uneccessary, so when you hit *28/*29, *71/2/3/4, etc., you get a re-order/fast busy, leading you to think that those feature codes are not valid in the Mountain Cell system when in fact they DO work! (I'm wondering if I should bother calling these guys and try to have them fix this ... I doubt they even care. Hmmm ... I think the cell co's should pay me for this! :) ) Anyhow, I thought I'd pay a bit more attention to the West coast after some my other postings on the oddities of roaming back East. :) Doug CID Technologies (203) 499-5221 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A lot of the cellular companies are getting away with murder where observance of traditional standards for telephony are concerned. But as you rightly point out, they don't give an iota; they just do their thing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jack Bzoza Subject: Delrina Fax MailBox Delivered Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 12:01:00 -0400 There was a recent enquiry in the Digest for information about Fax Mailbox Services. I posted a introductory summary at that time. Delrina has now delivered the service and I thought that readers would appreciate the whole story, straight from the horse's mouth. ---------- Delrina Delivers Fax Mailbox Service Users Praise Productivity Benefits and Convenience SAN JOSE, CA and TORONTO, ONT April 22, 1994 -- They faxed it to Chicago, but now you're in New York ... your office has been trying to fax a crucial document to your home, but you forgot to turn on your computer ... the fax cover sheet says there are three pages, but the hotel clerk insists he received only two ... you desperately need the fax tonight but the hotel's business office is closed till tomorrow morning ... Now there's a new way to get faxes when and where you need them. Delrina Corporation (NASDAQ:DENAF, TSE:DC), the world's leading vendor of fax communications software, today announced the immediate availability of its fax mailbox service. Delrina Fax MailBox is an enhanced fax messaging service that offers subscribers a +virtual+ fax mailbox with their own 800 number, eliminating the need to leave their PC+s running all the time or maintain an additional phone line for their fax device. Delrina Fax MailBox receives and stores faxes until the subscriber decides to retrieve them. Subscribers can retrieve their faxes at anytime directly into Delrina's fax software, WinFax PRO 4.0, or by simply dialing into their mailbox by phone and forwarding all their faxes to any fax device. Unlike other services, Delrina Fax MailBox allows users to retrieve faxes directly into their computer. The advantage of this is that faxes can be received anywhere and at any time without having a dedicated or incoming line; for example, a subscriber can now retrieve faxes from his or her hotel room and a home user does not require a second phone line to receive faxes. Furthermore, the service is "one button easy" - users select a menu item in WinFax PRO, enter their password and the software takes care of the rest. Alternatively, users can call into their mailbox by phone and forward faxes to any fax device. The service also includes a voice messaging capability, and options for international access and paging notification. Delrina is targeting its installed base of more than four million WinFax users with communication services. For the first time, these services are available +out of the box+ with the purchase of Delrina WinFax PRO 4.0 or Delrina Communications Suite. Delrina Fax MailBox users can retrieve their messages from any location using either their PC, a traditional fax machine, or a telephone. The service is reliable because the phone line is never busy and the system is paperless. Since the retrieval of messages is self-initiated the transmission occurs with complete security. More importantly the service eliminates the need for a dedicated telephone line or a PC which needs to be constantly switched on to receive faxes. For mobile subscribers Delrina Fax MailBox is a boon, since it guarantees that faxes will never be missed, lost or read by the hotel clerk. "Over a period of time and versions, WinFax has been eliminating the need for a fax machine, and has been exploding the uses of fax communication," said Delrina president, Mark Skapinker. "Early versions made sending a fax with WinFax as easy as printing from any Windows program. Then we focused on ease of use and wider functionality by focusing on usability, improving the phonebook functionality, adding file transfer capabilities, and making fax management an integral part of the product. All along our users have been asking us to make receiving faxes easier; they did not want to leave their computers on all the time in order to receive and portable users needed to receive faxes anywhere they might be. Fax mailbox now completes the range of functionality. WinFax 4 with fax mailbox provides the flexibility and reliability of receiving faxes anywhere, anytime with push-button simplicity." In a recent study, Marketfinders, a market research firm in Austin, Texas, forecasts the market for traditional enhanced fax services including fax broadcast, fax on demand, and fax mailbox to grow to $430 million in 1994 and to $940 million by 1996, and that fax mailbox alone will to grow to $122 million of this market within the next two years. The study does not include in its estimates PC-based faxing, in which the proliferation of fax modems and the increased use of fax-enabled software are expected to escalate the need for such services. BIS Strategic Decisions, Norwell, MA predicts that by 1997 seventy-two percent of portable computers and one-third of desktop PC's will have fax modems which enable easy access to services like Delrina's. Beta testers of Delrina's new service have been quick to applaud its benefits. DRK Inc., an advertising and marketing firm in Boston, MA, uses Delrina Fax MailBox to collect responses to a five-page marketing survey that is broadcast by fax to 120 people. "By using Delrina Fax MailBox I am able to receive multiple faxes in a timely manner, reducing the normal time required for such a survey by more than half," said Jeff Freedman, Supervisor of Media and Marketing Services. "A never-busy fax line and the convenient 800 access results in a higher than usual response to our surveys." "The accessibility to both fax and voice messages gives me the freedom and convenience to dial my 1-800 number to retrieve messages either at the office, at home, or on the road," said Alan Morris, programming consultant at Land Rover North America in Lanham, Maryland. "I am able to do this without having to leave any equipment on. And, I am guaranteed to be reached anywhere." Subscribers to the Delrina Fax MailBox service receive their own personal 800 telephone number. Users can customize Delrina Fax MailBox by purchasing additional services, such as 24 hour / 7 day call forwarding and rerouting, from their local telephone company. International access and paging notification are also available. An alternative number is provided for international calls. Different service plans are available to accommodate users+ volume and messaging needs with monthly payments as little as $9.95 (Cdn $19.95) plus retrieval charges. Volume discounts are also provided. International access and paging notification are provided for an additional $4.95 (Cdn $6.95) each per month with a 25 cent fee per paging notification. Billing options include a corporate account or credit card billing through VISA, Master Card, and American Express. Delrina develops, markets and supports PC-based software products and services for the fax and data communications, electronic forms processing and consumer content markets. Founded in 1988, Delrina employs more than 450 persons with headquarters in Toronto, Canada; and offices in San Jose, CA; Washington, DC; Kirkland, WA; the United Kingdom; France; and Germany. Delrina Fax MailBox customer service can be contacted at 1-800-670-8777. ------------------------------ From: Martin Visser Subject: What Human Resource Required to Set up Large Campus Network? Date: 14 Apr 1994 02:53:18 GMT Organization: BHP Steel - Slab and Plate Products Division Hi, We are about to undertake a project to set up the backbone and distribution communications network infrastructure at our Port Kembla Steelworks. The intention is use ATM as the backbone carrier, and 802.x LANs as the access media into the network. The "campus" is about 6 x 4 km and we should be interconnecting around 2000 end user nodes. We expect to be installing 30km backbone and 60km distribution fibre, as well as umpteen switches, hubs, routers, etc. As part of our final estimate and capital funding we are examining the personnel required to run this project. Outside of the physical installation what sort of people and for our long will we need them? We have estimated that the project life will be about two years, including a small trial period at the beginning. We also expect that because of the showcase nature (the first commercial ATM network in an industrial in Australia if not the world) that the prospective network vendors will be more than willing to help us in the technical aspects, especially to set up the generic solution that meets all our requirements. I guess I'm asking what manhour requirement there would be to do the technical design in association with the vendors, network configuration, change control, QA, management etc. to get the job done. Also what organizational structure is appropriate? Ordinarily large engineering projects (e.g. a blast furnace) have about 8-10% engineering, but is this is a different kettle of fish? I would appreciate input from those that may have been involved in large campus networks, or WANs, especically if they were done with "bleeding" edge technology, such as FDDI a few years. In expectation and appreciation, Martin. (PS We have selected our tenderers for the project and no correspondence will be entered into.) Martin Visser BHP Steel - Slab & Plate Products Division Engineering Technology - Computer Systems PO Box 1854 Wollongong NSW 2502, AUSTRALIA A.C.N. 006 476 218 Phone +61-42-753852 Fax +61-42-757897 Internet MARTIN.M.C.VISSER@ bhpmelmsm.x400.bhp.com.au X.400 G=MARTIN I=MC S=VISSER OU=BHPMELMSM O=BHP P=BHPMEL04 A=TELEMEMO C=AU ------------------------------ From: atfurman@cup.portal.com Subject: Saying "NO" to Big Brother Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 00:08:04 PDT NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY 1528 Pennsylvania Avenue SE Washington DC 20003 For additional information: Bill Winter, Director of Communications (202) 543-1988 Libertarian Party Announces Opposition to Digital Telephony Act Calling it a "serious infringement of civil liberties and a gross violation of property rights," the Libertarian Party National Committee unanimously voted to oppose the Digital Telephony and Communications Act of 1994. At their quarterly meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, the governing body of America's third-largest political party charged that "the Digital Telephony Act would make furnishing the FBI with easy wiretapping capability the overriding priority for designers of telephone equipment and related software." "It is a lie to call this legislation a 'Privacy Improvement Act,'" said Bill Evers, the National Committee member from California who sponsored the resolution. The Digital Telephony Act, noted the resolution, "requires telephone, cable television, and computer network companies to ensure that the government can conduct surveillance while private communication is going on. It requires the installation of surveillance-facilitating software in telephone switching equipment to expose personal information -- such as telephone-calling patterns, credit card purchases, banking records, and medical records -- to the view of the government." "Such personal information should be the private property of either the company that assembles it or the individual to whom it pertains," said Evers. Libertarians also oppose the Digital Telephony Act because it "would require a fundamental re-engineering of the communications infrastructure at great expense to American taxpayers, and to the owners of private communications systems," said Evers. The Libertarian National Committee also unanimously voted to oppose the National Security Agency's Escrowed Encryption Standard - the so-called Clipper Chip system - or any "government policies promoting or requiring specific encryption methods for civilian use." The party also urged the "repeal of the U.S. ban on export abroad of Clipper-free encryption devices produced by American companies." "Government-mandated encryption standards will foster indiscriminate surveillance of private communications by the government," charged Evers. The resolution said "the Clinton Administration plans to induce American manufacturers to install government-readable encryption devices in every telephone, fax machine, and computer modem made in the United States." "The Clinton Administration is explicitly denying that the American people have the right to communicate in private," said Evers. By contrast, he said, "The Libertarian Party has long upheld the civil liberties of the American citizen." Approximately 120 Libertarians serve in elected and appointed office around the country, including four State Representatives in New Hampshire and two mayors in California. The Libertarian Party platform calls for vigorous defense of the Bill of Rights, free enterprise, civil liberties, free trade, and private charity. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Apr 1994 13:04:59 CST From: Howard Ramagli Subject: NANP and Switches I have just joined this list and have tried to scan the archives and the FAQ for an answer to the following questions and have found nothing that seem to address them. We currently have a Northern Telecom Meridian Option 61 (software relase 17) with 44 DID trunks, a T1 for long distance, and about 1300 active phones. We have been told by Ameritech that, in order for us to be able to comply with the implementation of the new North American Numbering Plan (NANP) on January 1, 1995, we must upgrade our switch with an additional memory card, another ROM board and software release 19. My questions are (1) is this really necessary and (2) can we wait until the middle of 1995 before doing this and still provide access via NANP? Any help out there would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Howard Ramagli Director, Information Services and Technology Lake Forest College 708.735.5115 INTERNET: ramagli@lfmail.lfc.edu APPLELINK: RAMAGLI.H ------------------------------ From: mrios@lascar.puc.cl (Miguel Rios) Subject: Traffic Measurements Organization: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 18:14:04 GMT I would appreciate if some reader of the Digest can give me an insight about the following problem: -In a multicarrier long distance telephone system, we need to check for the QOS, so as to asure that all the available carriers give a certain QOS. What kind of measurement equipment is available on the market, that can perform the job?. (We need to check both national and international connections). -With respect to to the previous problem, what kind of statistics do we need (and what are the sizes of the samples needed). Thank you in advance, Miguel Rios Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Universidad Catolica de Chile mrios@lascar.puc.cl ------------------------------ From: lware@voxel.com (Lance Ware) Subject: Help: Programming Motorola 550 and Fujitsu Commander Organization: VOXEL Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 08:40:23 GMT I need help with programming these two cell phones. Specifically I need to program the phone numbers, and get the ESN so that I may have them both put on the same phone number. This is legitimate, I am not interested in going to jail for many years! Lance Ware IS Manager & VOXEL Guru VOXEL ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 04:50:17 -0400 From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson) Subject: GM-Hughes 500 Channels A couple of months ago Hughes was advertising for technicians to service their new small-dish satellite TV system (500 channel?). Does anyone know what the status is, when it will become available, or have a contact phone or E-Mail number ? Reply to: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com Warmly, Padgett ------------------------------ From: blackmon@cs.utk.edu (Matthew L. Blackmon) Subject: Telecommuting Policies and Procedures Date: 23 Apr 1994 21:29:02 -0400 Organization: CS Department, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Greetings: I have been charged with the task of locating some resources on telecommuting policies and procedures that are in use in industry. We here at the University of Tennessee Medical Center are just entering this arena, and are interested in learning as much as possible. The particular areas of interest are personnel policies and procedures, such as, work hours and ethics, pay scales (ie, do you pay more or less for telecommuters?), payment of services and equipment (ie, do you pay for the equipment and the ISDN or data lines to the house, or does the telecommuter?), and etc. We are looking for any ideas and pointers along this line. Please email me and I will post a summary if there is sufficient interest. Thanks, Matt Blackmon blackmon@cs.utk.edu | mblackmo%utmck_mis@wpgate.utk.edu Department of Computer Science | Manager, Network Engineering and Tec The University of Tennessee | The University of TN Medical Center Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 | 615.544.6110 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #182 ****************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------