TELECOM Digest Thu, 28 Apr 94 11:21:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 188 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bell/Beacon Project (Bell News via Dave Leibold) Dial-an-Art (Toronto Star via Dave Leibold) How and Where is Big Brother Watching? (Dave) Getting Caller-ID Out of the Box (Joe Portman) Re: What Does the Serial Port on NT Meridian Phones Do? (Vance Shipley) Re: What Does the Serial Port on NT Meridian Phones Do? (Linc Madison) Re: Equal Access in Canada (Dino Moriello) Re: Equal Access in Canada (Jean Sarrazin) Re: Equal Access in Canada (Vance Shipley) Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed Up?? (John Nagle) Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed Up?? (Brett Frankenberger) Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed Up?? (Dave Levenson) 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. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. 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 edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 27 Apr 94 23:00:24 -0500 Subject: Bell/Beacon Project Organization: FidoNet: The Super Continental - North York, Canada [from Bell News, Bell Ontario 18 Apr 94] Bell and the Beacon Initiative at a glance The Beacon Initiative and Bell Canada: * Bell Canada will invest $5.4 billion in the Beacon Initiative over the next 10 years. * Combined investment from the Stentor owner companies will total $8.0 billion. * Based on preliminary estimates, Bell's investment will fund about 8,000 jobs over the next decade. These jobs will be generated both within Bell and indirectly in other sectors, through spinoff effects. * The total investment from the Stentor owner companies in the Beacon Initiative will fund, directly or indirectly, an estimated average of 12,000 jobs over the next decade. * Between 80 and 90 per cent of all businesses and homes in Canada will have direct access to the new technology by 2005. Bell will use alternative technologies to provide broadband capabilities to the remaining 10 to 20 per cent of its customers. Canada's telecommunications infrastructure: * 99 per cent of Canadian h omes have telephone service, giving Canada one of the highest penetration rates for telephone service in the world. * The Stentor companies invest more than $4 billion a year to expand and develop Canada's telecommunications network. More than $2 billion of this is invested by Bell Canada. * In 1992, Canada's telecom network generated $13.7 billion in operating revenues, provided employment for 97,000 Canadians and generated $1.7 billion in annual tax payments. * According to a recent U.S. study, Canada is among the top four countries with the highest levels of digital access lines. Canada's telecommunications industry: * The telecommunications industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in Canada. In 1990, the sector grew by 8.6 per cent, versus 0.3 per cent for the Canadian economy as a whole. * In 1992, the Canadian telecommunications industry created 5,000 new jobs. Wage rates for these jobs were 30 per cent higher than the Canadian average. * In 1993, the total telecommunications market in Canada was worth $15.1 billion. * In 1992, the telecommunications industry was responsible for 17.5 per cent of all R&D expenditures in Canada. Bell's network: * As of December 1993, Bell's network was: Access Network * 3 per cent fibre penetration Local Network * 95 per cent of local lines served by digital switches * 93 per cent digital trunks * 57 per cent fibre trunks Toll Network * 100 per cent digital switching * 97 per cent digital trunks * 73 per cent fibre trunks * Since 1985, Bell has spent more than $1.4 billion placing fibre optic cable - approximately 600,000 fiber kilometres, including the company's portion of the national fibre optics network. Research and development: * In 1992, Bell Canada, Northern Telecom and Bell-Northern Research together spent $1.3 billion on research and development. ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 27 Apr 94 23:10:07 -0500 Subject: Dial-an-Art Organization: FidoNet Nameserver {The Toronto Star} today reports of an art "faxhibition" by artist Robert Tonks. The idea is that artworks will be transmitted by fax (during the night to control costs and avoid active business periods). The 32 fax-artworks are apparently free. The art is being offered the fax way because it "doesn't belong in a gallery". For information, contact (416) 588.8889 and maybe some art can be faxed your way. This event will happen 3-27 May. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 19:33:27 CDT From: David Causey Subject: How and Where is Big Brother Watching Organization: Southeastern Louisiana University I need articles, and legislative reference numbers for current and future government access to direct and indirect communication. Including but not limited to; cellular, radio, telephone, satellite, computer, or television. I want to identify means of accessing these and other media, and where the government or subgroups is already using simple and high tech means to listen in to public and private communication. Thank you, Dave (please reply e-mail) ------------------------------ From: baron@hebron.connected.com (Joe Portman) Subject: Getting Caller-ID Out of the Box Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 13:44:05 -0700 Organization: Connected INC -- Full Service Internet Providers(tm) I just started using a Caller-ID box (from US West) and I have discovered that I love it. In fact I want to expand on the capabilities of Caller-ID. Basically, I need a device that will allow me to capture the incoming Caller-ID info and transmit it to my home computer. Why, you ask? Simple, I write and maintain Voice Mail systems for a living and I want to put together a custom home voice mail package that will respond to the incoming calls based on the Caller-ID information. For instance, calls with out-of-area or private or no Caller-ID will get a generic greeting, with no personal information. Calls from friends will get my "warm personal greeting". Calls from undesired numbers will get either nothing (hang up) or a warning not to call again. So, does anyone know of a Caller-ID box with a serial port? Or something similar? Any good ideas, and: what do you think of the overall idea? Thanks, Joe Portman (Westin Hotels & Resorts) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your idea has already been elaborated on by various organizations, and has been discussed here a few times. There are modems available with Caller-ID capabilities built into them and Caller-ID display units with serial ports. Shop around for them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Vance Shipley Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 08:08:01 -0400 Subject: Re: What Does the Serial Port on NT Meridian Phones Do? Organization: XeniTec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada In article , David Gingold wrote: > 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. Ask your administrator for a User's Guide for the data adaptor; they are easily available. You may use the data port as a Hayes compatable "modem" to communicate with other data ports in your office. You may also use it to control your telephone. There are two ways of doing this. The simplest is to use AT dialing commands to initiate a voice call; send the following string to the port to dial 9-1-555-1212: ATDP915551212 Since pulse dialing would make no sense they chose it as the command to dial the voice line of the telephone instead of the data line. The second way is to put the port in a transparent mode which will send all signalling between the set and the switch throught the port to your computer and accept signalling from your computer on behalf of either the switch or the set. This allows you to read the incoming callers number (which is sent to the set's display by the switch) or transfer the caller to another destination as an example. To put the set in transparent mode send the following string to the port: ATSP! I'm afraid that if you want to use this mode you'll either have to buy Northern Telecom's Visit product or reverse engineer the protocol. They aren't too eager to share. I did the later. Vance Shipley, vances@xenitec.on.ca ------------------------------ From: lincmad@netcom.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: What Does the Serial Port on NT Meridian Phones Do? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 08:32:34 GMT David Gingold (gingold@Think.COM) wrote: > 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. I had just such a beast on my desk two years ago. I don't know all the technical details, but the way our phone system was configured, each station had three different extension numbers: 2XXX, 4XXX, and 5XXX, which were, respectively, the normal extension, "priority" call extension (warble the ringer even if you're off-hook), and data extension. The last of these ran out through the serial port thingie. I could use this to plug my desktop computer directly into the phone and dial as if it were a modem. I never tried, so I don't know if it could dial '9' and seize an outgoing line; I only ever connected to the company's internal port server. (They were sufficiently security-paranoid that I won't even tempt fate by mentioning them by name, even though I'm no longer employed there.) Linc Madison * Oakland, California * LincMad@Netcom.com ------------------------------ From: dino@CAM.ORG (Dino Moriello) Subject: Re: Equal Access in Canada Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 00:50:35 -0500 Organization: VE2DM In article , jeffb@audiolab.UWaterloo.ca (jeff bamford) wrote: > My latest bill from my LD company has a little form to return > for equal access dialing. They did not indicate when equal access would > be arriving anywhere in Canada. The CRTC has given July 1st as a starting date. Dino Moriello PO BOX 105 Internet: dino@CAM.ORG Radisson,Quebec Compuserve: 76120,1472 Tel.: 514-974-0773 CANADA J0Y 2X0 Packet: VE2DM@VE2FKB 819-638-8281 Please E-mail replies since I can't always read the USENET postings. ------------------------------ From: jeans@CAM.ORG (Jean Sarrazin) Subject: Re: Equal Access in Canada Date: 28 Apr 1994 12:38:11 GMT Organization: Communications Accessibles Montreal, Quebec Canada jeff bamford (jeffb@audiolab.UWaterloo.ca) wrote: > My latest bill from my LD company has a little form to return > for equal access dialing. Currently, you need to dial into a local > port. They did not indicate when equal access would be arriving > anywhere in Canada. They only wanted me to know that I could make the > switch when it becomes available. Presumably it will happen first in > the larger centres and then make its way to the smaller centres. Does > anyone else have target dates? I'm also curious as to when we'll get > carrier codes like in the U.S. We are already getting some "universal access" via the Unitel calling-card. At last, you don't have to spend a quarter just to access an alternate LD company from a public phone-just use the 800 number. Unitel is pressing Ottawa to allow a nation-wide "survey" to let every customer decide for themselves which LD company to choose. I guess they want to beat the inertia and dig deeper into Bell's base of "do-nothing" customers. Full universal is indeed on its way -- but it's still up to the CRTC to determine when. My concern is: when will we be able to choose our own LD company when using Canada Direct -- right now, you can only use Bell ... Jean B. Sarrazin jeans@cam.org Montreal ------------------------------ From: Vance Shipley Subject: Re: Equal Access in Canada Organization: XeniTec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 08:18:15 GMT In article , jeff bamford wrote: > My latest bill from my LD company has a little form to return > for equal access dialing. Currently, you need to dial into a local > port. They did not indicate when equal access would be arriving > anywhere in Canada. They only wanted me to know that I could make the > switch when it becomes available. Presumably it will happen first in > the larger centres and then make its way to the smaller centres. Does > anyone else have target dates? I'm also curious as to when we'll get > carrier codes like in the U.S. The Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), in it's 92-12 decision, directed Canada's federally regulated telephone companies to provide "Equal Ease of Access" to competetive long distance providers. The access methods were to be FGB, FGD and FGD with CCS7. On July 1st, 1994 Bell Canada will begin providing trunk side access in virtually all it's service areas. Carrier access codes (CICs) will be available to select the long distance provider to handle any toll call. Equal access will also start on July 1st. The default long distance provider for a given telephone line will be programmed into the serving switch by the telephone company at a long distance providers request. Bell Canada's CIC is 323, Northquest has 289. To make a casual call through Northquest's network a telephone user would dial 10289-905-893-3210 while Bell's network could be used by dialing 10323-905-893-3210. In these examples the destination telephone number is 905-893-3210. (Don't bother, it's an out of service recording. :) Once your telephone line has been presubscribed to your carrier of choice (Northquest I hope :) you may dial as before; 1-905-893-3210. While it seems likely that Bell will make the July 1st date for trunk side access, it remains to be seen whether they will provide any reasonable amount of equal ease of access availability. Putting the connections and routing in place is one thing, data filling millions of presubscriptions is another. Long distance providers gain access to the telephone company networks at the access tandem level. There are eleven access tandems in Ontario. By gaining FGD connection to an access tandem a provider may accept calls from all telephone subscribers served by central offices under that tandem. The CRTC stipulated the amount which a telephone company could charge for switching and aggregation (and a further settlement to offset the cost of upgrading the telphone companies network to equal access). This charge is consistent across the country and does not reflect the distance from the subscriber to the tandem or the number of subscribers in the service area. This should mean that barriers to ubiquity of service are minimized. In other words; equal access will be available nearly everywhere, right away. BCTel, in British columbia, and AGT in Alberta will follow suit later this year. Vance Shipley, vances@xenitec.on.ca ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed Up?? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 17:19:43 GMT hsingnan@ivo.jpl.nasa.gov (Daniel H. Chang) writes: > I am ordering DID service for the first time and have run across a > strange situation. The DID lines ride in our case on eight time slots > of a T1 line. We discovered the following: > * Here's the weird part: we discovered that at this point, after > we've sent the wink and *before* we seize the line, we are able > to patch that line to a phone and perform *full duplex* > communications through it! We asked Pac Bell about this, who > said the behavior is normal and the caller is not charged until > we seize the line, and if we do not seize a timeout will > eventually occur. We have determined that timeout is longer > than ten minutes! That offers a possibility for a useful PBX feature -- fax/voice/ data routing. The PBX could listen for fax and modem setup tones before routing the call within the PBX. There's also the possibility of determining whether a call is fax, voice, or data before accepting it. So would this work generally, or is it just a fluke? John Nagle ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed Up?? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 12:20:50 GMT hsingnan@ivo.jpl.nasa.gov (Daniel H. Chang) writes: > I am ordering DID service for the first time and have run across a > strange situation. The DID lines ride in our case on eight time slots > of a T1 line. We discovered the following: > * When someone calls one of the DID numbers, we get an appropriate > A/B signal on our side. > * We are responsible for sending a wink to get the DID digits > (that works fine), then providing the ring signal on the > voice band for the sake of the caller on the other end. > * Presumably at some point the intended guy picks up the phone, > and our equipment seizes the line by raising the A/B bits and > patches the call. > * Here's the weird part: we discovered that at this point, after > we've sent the wink and *before* we seize the line, we are able > to patch that line to a phone and perform *full duplex* > communications through it! We asked Pac Bell about this, who > said the behavior is normal and the caller is not charged until > we seize the line, and if we do not seize a timeout will > eventually occur. We have determined that timeout is longer > than ten minutes! You are right. But it would be improper, and probably illegal, for you to implement this hack to get free calls. Just as you have the responsibility to not use stolen credit card numbers, you have the responsibility to properly report supervision to the telco. > I guess if the DID were carried on analog lines and the PBX had to > supply the ring, then the CO having to offer full duplex is inevitable > since there is no half-duplex in analog. You could do the same thing in analog. The two wire analog local loop is immediately converted to a four-wire (two for transmit, two for receive) once it hits the telco office. > To me this just says that it is unlikely for the CO to assign the > ring responsibility to the PBX -- They have little choice, because your PBX might not always return ring. If the called number is busy, it will report busy. While today they could have you digitally tell the CO switch which to provide, when DID originally came out, there was no easy way to signal the CO whether to provide ring or busy. (Especially since CO switches usually see the DID customer as just another witch with a trunk connection, and it has always been standard that the far end of a trunk connection privide ring-back or busy signal). > otherwise the resulting loophole and possibility for abuse seems > enormous! Not too enormous. And it would be fairly easy for the telco to detect if they wanted to. Also note that AT&T will NOT open the forward path until supervision is provided. That is, if the call is long-distance via AT&T, the AT&T part of the call will only carry voice one way until you report answer. (I'm told the reason is that an AT&T PBX once has a bug that prevented it from always reporting supervision. To fix it, they released a patch then closed the talk path on their network until supervision was returned, to make sure that everyone implemented the patch). > Can anyone with more experience shed some light on whether what I > described is typical, and what factors am I not taking into account > which would make this the signalling behavior which Pac Bell (and I > presume other RBOC's) finds advantageous to implement? Some > historical perspective would be really interesting too. It is indeed typical. As I said, it would be trivial for the telco to detect. (Calls that ring for a long time. No one will really listen for ring for ten minutes). Also, as I said above, if you want to use this hack to give free incoming LD to friends, make sure they call with Sprint or MCI. Most, if not all, RBOCs DID works the same way. (All require the terminating PBX to provide ring or busy, as there is no standard (short of ISDN) way for them to digitally indicate to the CO whether to provide ring or busy, but some might close the forward path until superivison is returned). Brett Frankenberger brettf@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed Up?? Reply-To: dave@westmark.com Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 01:54:09 GMT It has been the case for many years that the destination CPE is responsible for returning off-hook supervision on DID trunks when cutting the call through to a live person or voice mail or whatever. In some cases, two-way communication is possible before off-hook supervision is sent; in other cases, only one-way communication, allowing the caller to hear call-progress tones or recordings, is supported. If the DID call arrives via the AT&T network, they typically block forward audio until the reverse supervision shows off-hook. The local telco often does not do this. Yes, there is some opportunty for fraud ... but like most fraud, if you do it to any large extent, you'll probably be noticed and asked to correct the situation. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not only asked to correct the problem, but in some instances if telco really wants to get tough about it they may choose to back-bill an estimated amount lost on completed calls which went unsupervised. Illinois Bell found a company here in Chicago deliberatly playing games like that and back-billed them a half-million dollars covering calls over a five year period. The company protested of course, but all the facts pointed to them doing it on purpose as toll-avoidance; they were slow to answer their phones because they did not want to hire the help needed to do so promptly and they were playing a tape recorded music on hold 'all positions busy please wait for an available agent' message to their callers for five or ten minutes at a time. Their customers squawked about the cost of *their* calls as a result so the company gerry-rigged the system to not supervise until they got ready to handle the call. IBT said it wasn't *their* problem ... they wanted their money! Instead of going back to each individual caller (thousands of them) to collect the couple dollars each of them would have paid had they been supervised properly, telco told the company since they pulled this stunt they could pay for it instead ... or get sued with the resulting publicity, etc. Telco did not get all they asked for, but they collected a nice chunk of it. So be careful about playing games with supervision. If telco wants to do so, they'll work you over good to show who is boss. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #188 ****************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------