TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 May 94 10:36:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 208 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Order on Interstate Caller ID (John R. Levine) Searching For High School Classmates ... Help, Please! (Glen Gilbert) Cellular Telephone Pirates (Knight-Ridder via Van Hefner) Graceful Degradation (Jerry Levin) Erlang B Algorithm (James Slupsky) AT&T Major Billing Errors!! (Shantanu Jana) Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number (Barry S. Rein) SRI Ends Two Bobs' MGR (Alfredo E. Cotroneo) Cable Dates (Stewart Fist) 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. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. 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: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: FCC order on interstate Caller ID Date: Wed, 11 May 94 02:39:45 EDT I picked up a copy of the FCC's Caller ID order, which is available by FTP as /pub/Orders/Common_Carrier/orcc4001.txt or orcc4001.wp. (Kudos to the FCC for making this info available so easily and quickly, by the way.) Much of the order is straightforward and not contentious, e.g. delivering CNID between local and long distance carriers is so cheap to implement that neither may charge the other for the data. They also note that per-call blocking is a good idea, and that *67 should be the universal code to block CNID delivery. But the arguments they list against per-line CNID seem, to me, to be astonishingly specious. There are three blocking options 1) per call for anyone, 2) per line for anyone, and 3) per line for special groups. The FCC thinks, not unreasonably, that it's a mare's nest to ask the telco to implement 3, since they have to determine who's in the special groups and who isn't. Then they say: 43. In the NPRM, we tentatively concluded that per line blocking unduly burdens calling party number based services overall by failing to limit its applicability to those calls for which privacy is of concern to the caller. The Commission noted that even in the case of law enforcement personnel, there may be a need to maintain calling number privacy on some calls, but that the same number may be used to telephone other law enforcement personnel, victims of crimes, cooperative witnesses, and family or friends. The Commission asserted that in these types of calls, calling number privacy is not needed and calling number identification can actually be a valuable piece of information for both the caller and called parties. The record reflects the useful nature of CPN based services, and the comments of Rochester illustrate that callers are likely to be interested in blocking only a small percentage of their calls. The comments of USCG illustrate the usefulness of caller ID to emergency services. In contrast, Missouri Counsel's analogy to unlisted numbers is inapposite because caller ID only permits parties called by the calling party to capture the calling party number, and then only if the calling party has not activated a per call blocking mechanism. We find that the availability of per call unblocking does not cure the ill effects of per line blocking. Moreover, in an emergency, a caller is not likely to remember to dial or even to know to dial an unblocking code. For the foregoing reasons, we find that a federal per line blocking requirement for interstate CPN based services, including caller ID, is not the best policy choice of those available to recognize the privacy interests of callers. Thus, carriers may not offer per line blocking as a privacy protection mechanism on interstate calls. We agree that certain uses of captured calling numbers need to be controlled, and address that issue infra. In other words, per-line blocking is a bad idea because subscribers are too dumb to unblock calls when they want to unblock them, although they're not to dumb to block calls when they want to block them. In paragraph 47 they note that where per-line blocking is offered, telcos use *67 as a blocking toggle, so users can't really tell what *67 does, but it doesn't seem to occur to them that the problem is easily solved by requiring a different code for unblock than for block. In paragraph 48 they wave their hands and say that people who care about privacy can just buy a box for "as little as $40.00 per unit" that will stuff *67 in front of each call. Thanks, guys. The docket number is 91-281, with comments due by May 18th. Comments must reference the docket number. Send ten copies (yes, 10) to: Office of the Secretary Federal Communications Commission Washington DC 20554 Before you fire off a comment, please get a copy of the order, since there's a lot of material beyond what I've summarized. For people without FTP access, I've put them on my mail server. Send: send fcc-cnid.txt (for the text version) send fcc-cnid.wp.uu (for uuencoded compressed WP version) to compilers-server@iecc.com. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: gilbert@cs.ucsd.edu (Glen Gilbert) Subject: Searching for High School Classmates ... Help, please! Date: 10 May 94 21:54:13 GMT At the suggestion of someone more knowledgeable than I, relative to the power of computer-aided search, I have been directed to this group to ask for help. I am wanting to locate a list of people (or do a search for these people via net), about 300+ of them, who are being sought for our thirtieth high school class reunion. One (manual) way is to go to the telephone books for the general area, available here in out University library for most all of the US, (Oakland, CA and San Francisco Bay Area) and go through each of them (there are about two dozen covering the Alameda County area and outlaying districts!) to find the names of the people who are "missing". But, aside from being a gargantuan task and extremely time consuming, I am wondering if there is a manner of doing a search of users in that area -- those who are connected to some computing system that is readable from this net? (My lack of expertise is about to show here 8-( ) I don't know if a list of names could be given as a list for a script to do searches of computing resources it that particular area. And, how time-consuming it would be. But, is it a feasible task? And, how would I go about it? I have some pretty good resources (personnel) who could help with the script, but I wanted to throw it out to this group since the numbers who read/write to this group certainly must exceed my wildest dreams -- including the depth and breadth of knowledge!!! Or, would it be a better thing to send a blanket list to cites in the area (SF/Bay Area) and/or the USA to ask others to look thru the list for names of friends/employees whose names they recognize and ask that they ask them to be in touch with me? [Now _that_ one is a task that I shudder to think about. How many would be willing to receive a list of 300+ peoples' names and search through them for people they might know? But, then again, if I knew someone from the Boston area as a coworker and read about a class reuniong from that area, I might look thru the list for his/her name. Then again, I may not! 8-/ ] Have I given enough information to warrant a thumbs up, =b d=, or a thumbs down, =p q=, on this thing? Comments are most welcome. And, if this is not the most appropriate group, then where would you suggest I send this? Oh, yes, I was also thinking of setting up a Group called alt.rec.class.reunions. Does this sound like a good idea? I've not done anything like that before. My experiences have been in reading, replying to and posting articles in the netnews. Thank you for your help. Glen W. Gilbert CSE Operations, UCSD (ggilbert@ucsd.edu) Glen Gilbert, UC San Diego Computer Science & Engineering Dept (619) 534-0454 email: ggilbert@UCSD.EDU ------------------------------ From: vantek@aol.com Date: Tue, 10 May 94 19:47:42 EDT Subject: Cellular Telephone Pirates CELLULAR TELEPHONE PIRATES IN CARIBBEAN COST FIRMS HEAVILY BY DAVID KIDWELL Knight-Ridder News Service MIAMI -- Modern-day pirates of the Caribbean are sailing the waves -- the high-tech airwaves of cellular telephones. So pesky and adept have they become at cloning cellular telephones and running up thousands of dollars in fraudulent overseas bills that Florida cellular companies have begun to block direct dial service to the Bahamas and parts of the Caribbean. BellSouth Mobility this month stopped direct-dial service to Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. Cellular One blocked the Dominican Republic last fall and Jamaica in February. "It's a few bad apples," said Jim Walz, BellSouth's regional vice president. "This cloning problem didn't really hit us until late last year. It's now enough of an inconvenience to our customer base to do something about it. "We don't want any more of our customers to get these exploding phone bills," he said. "And we want them to know if they do get one of these bills, it's not their problem. It's ours. We eat it." Customers can still use their cellular telephones to call the blocked countries, but must use an operator and a personal credit card. Here's how the pirates pillage the airwaves: With a special radio scanner and the right computer equipment, they can pluck from the airwaves the cellular code numbers of legitimate customers. From there, they are able to load the codes into other telephones, then sell them to drug dealers, smugglers or immigrants who can't afford regular long distance service to their former homelands. Charges for the calls, sometimes reaching $10,000 in a month, then show up on the legitimate customer's bill. When the customer complains, the phone codes are replaced, making the duplicate phone inoperable. But catching the pirates is difficult, especially because they're calling numbers overseas. "This particular area -- Miami in particular -- has become a mecca for cellular phone fraud," said Brian Stafford, assistant agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service's Miami Office. "We're getting dozens of reports every month, and the average for one of these bills is about $6,000." Stafford said South Florida's large Caribbean immigrant population makes it a natural market for cellular pirates. "It's tempting when they can make free calls home for price of a clone phone," he said, adding that the phones sell for an average of $150. Nationwide, the cellular industry estimates fraudulent calls cost about $1 million per day. South Florida is among the top three markets, both in legitimate and fraudulent calls. The others are Los Angeles and New York City. Walz said the battle against the pirates is being waged on computer screens. BellSouth has already persuaded the Bahamas to install computer software like that used in the United States that makes easier to detect duplicate phones and shut them down. "We expect to have service restored to the Bahamas sometime next month," Walz said. Van Hefner Discount Long Distance Digest vantek@aol.com ------------------------------ From: levin@1.121.159.165.in-addr.arpa (jerry levin) Subject: Graceful Degradation Date: 10 May 1994 23:58:45 GMT Organization: Trident Data Systems Can anyone explain to me what is meant by graceful degradation when referring to a data bus? Thanks for your help in advance. Jerry Levin Voice-mail, 703-802-3685 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 04:57:54 +0700 From: jslupsky@pwss.gov.ab.ca (James Slupsky) Subject: Erlang B Algorithm If you are looking for the Erlang-b formula, it is: B(C,A) = [(A**C)/C!]/[sum from i=0 to C of ((A**i)/i!)], where C=# of trunks and A=offered load (in erlangs=CCS/36). A neat recursive formula (for calculating on a computer) is: (taken from "An introductin to Telecommunications Network Traffic Engineering", by Dr. Lansun Lee, 1986 Edition, Alta Telecom International Inc) B(0,A) = 1, B(C,A) = [A*B(C-1,A)]/[C + A*B(C-1,A)] Hope this helps! James ------------------------------ From: sjana@chaph.usc.edu (Shantanu Jana) Subject: AT&T Major Billing Errors!! Date: 10 May 1994 19:08:25 -0700 Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Hi everybody, This is Shantanu Jana from Los Angeles warning you about the present misdeeds of AT&T. I believe that most if not all of you have seen the aggressive campaigning of AT&T on television, wherein they started by offering True USA rewards of 20% of all US calls totalling to more than $25, and True World savings, to all numbers in one country of your choice, giving 50% off to all the numbers. Well, I signed up in March 1994, and in the March bill, I did not receive the 20% off, and also on one weekend, when AT&T went to match MCI and offered 73 cents a minute on weekends to India. Guess what, I was billed 86 cents a minute, which is more than half which was guaranteed otherwise. Calling them is no joke too. I called the billing inquiries number, and was put on hold for 24 minutes, after which I went through the operator and managed to reach them. I was given the figure for the credit, and they also noted my complaint for their billing irregularities and for the difficulty in reaching them. Now, a month later, my second bill contains only the True USA credit and not the True World credit, and my billing for International is far from the half off at 78 cents a minute. They billed me at $1.33 per minute. When I spoke to the customer service representative, she could not even give me the credit amount to appear in my future bills. She mentioned something about two working days. Then I asked to be connected to a supervisor, and I was connected to VICKI GARCIA, who managed to find the credit amounts owed to me. I requested her to send me a letter of apology mentioning how they mess up the billing, which she declined, and so I asked her to attach to the bill, a statement informing the subscribers that the bills were messed up and that they should go through them carefully. This too could not be done. At this stage in exasperation, I asked to speak to a person in charge, who could own up to their mistake and send the apology note, only to be informed, that in AT&T (A phone company I believe) beyond the supervisor, you need to write to the Vice President, and you could not speak to anyone further, even if they cannot answer your questions or solve your problems. This I believe speaks highly of an establishment as big and spread out as AT&T. I am really surprised that in a country like the US, such a firm, with such a terrible customer service exists and thrives. GOD SAVE AMERICA!!! I believe that many subscribers who trust AT&T as a good phone company, are being cheated out of what is promised to them, unless they are willing to go through this ridiculous (suposedly customer service), who are only out to con. When, in their advertisements, they have the audacity to ask you to ask them to give it in writing, they are the ones who are covering the big fraud. An obviously harassed subscriber, Shantanu Jana (213) 747-0855. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Part or all of the problem lies in the fact that AT&T billing is done by the various local telephone companies and they (the local telcos) seem to not always be up to snuff at having the right software for billing in place. Probably AT&T should have mentioned to you when you first enrolled in their various offerings that in the event your bill -- as prepared and sent to you by the local telco -- was incorrect you should call them (as you have done) and they would issue a manual credit covering the differences between what they advertised and what the local telco in fact charged. I think you may be coming down a little to hard on them demanding a written apology, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: barry.s.rein@jpl.nasa.gov (Barry S. Rein) Subject: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number Date: 10 May 1994 23:32:09 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory We're moving soon and we'll have to get a new phone number. For $10.00 Pacific Bell will let me choose any phone number with the right prefix as long as it's not already taken. I'm looking for criteria on what makes a telephone number easy to remember. Restaurants are supposedly willing to kill for a memorable phone number, so I wonder if there is any research or recommendations on how to select one, ie what combinations are remembered; what combinations are most often mis-dialled, etc. Incidentally, our exchange prefixes are 398, 791, 794, 797, and 798 -- 818 area code. Thanks very much for your advice, Barry Rein barry.s.rein@jpl.nasa.gov ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 94 01:17:28 EDT From: Alfredo E. Cotroneo <100020.1013@CompuServe.COM> Subject: SRI Ends Two Bobs' MGR Swiss Radio International announces a restructuring of its services which will come into effect on June 6, 1994, and will bring -- among other things -- the close down of the popular weekly DX program "The Swiss Merry Go Round", hosted by the "Two Bobs", Bob Thomann and Bob Zanotti. Details on what has been heard today on SRI follow. As reported today by Paul Saffren on the "Grapevine" on Swiss Radio International, in an interview with Nicholas Lombard, Head of the English Satellite Project, these are the dramatic changes coming into effect at SRI on June 6, 1994: - SRI will establish a 24 hours English service on European satellite (Astra, current transponder/subcarrier?), with 1/2 hours news (bulletins, commentaries, press reviews, and Swiss matters to interest to Intl audience) and 1/2 hour feature programs (life, science, economy, culture in Switzerland) every hour; - The current twenty-five people of the news room and English Service will be amalgamated into a one single Dept. for both Shortwave and Satellite service; - There will be an addition of commercial and financial news (advertising?) to the current programs; - There will be definitely a loss of emphasis on Shortwave transmissions, especially in Europe, justified by the "inevitable further decline of Shortwave", especially after the introduction of "mobile satellite receivers". Shortwave transmissions in Europe will be available "only during prime time (morning, midday and evening)", while at the moment there seem to be "no intention to close down overseas". (Might this prelude to a close down of Shortwave in Europe?). No details were given on where "mobile satellite receivers" to receive SRI can be purchased, and at which price. - It was stated that one of the reasons behind the change in broadcast policy is that "satellite is much cheaper" vs. Shortwave as far a the technical infrastructure is concerned, although this choice means "losing autonomy" and depending on other organizations/countries for satellite usage. - On Shortwave only the first half hour (i.e. news, no feature programmes) will be used. Features will be only aired once at 14:30 on SW to Europe, but not to overseas. - The Grapevine and the Swiss MGR as they are now will not continue. As for the two Bob's MGR Nicholas Lombard made a strong comment on the air stating that as "a DX program we will forget about that particular program". There might be a replacement -- perhaps -- strictly in the form of a media program, and on European satellite only, but it will be very different from the current DX program. ----- No mention of the restructuring was given at all on the MGR this week (following the Grapevine program), maybe due to the fact that the MGR was recorded before the announcement was given. Bob Zanotti in today's MGR, however, seemed to anticipate what might be explained on one of the next and last editions of the two Bobs', before closing down on June 6 : "The whole field of telecommunications is changing, moving, and we are moving with it". You get all the irony and sadness of the sentence, once you know the full story. I immediately contacted Bob Zanotti, who has been a good friend of mine for many years, but he declined to add any further comments besides what has being heard today on the air. He only mentioned his sadness and disbelief in hearing himself the complete details of the project on the air. The restructuring of SRI was apparently announced internally only a few days ago. SRI may not be reached by e-mail, but you may contact them by fax on +41-31-350 9569 for inquires or comments on the above. I am sure the two Bobs will be glad to have your support, and hear your comments (maybe there might be a last minute change if there are enough protests). We have offered to relay any e-mail directed to them to us here (100020.1013@compuserve.com or Compuserve: 100020,1013). Well forward all comments to them, if you want to convey your support or protest. We will also appreciate receiving by direct e-mail copy or echo of any comment on the above which appears on Internet/USENET, and on other media, since we do not have a direct Internet/USENET connection. We will also try to interview the two Bobs and other SRI representatives on the next edition of the "Hello There" on IRRS-Shortwave on the air on the week-end of May 15, in an effort to better understand the reasons behind what appears an insane decision. Thank You. 73, Alfredo E. Cotroneo, President NEXUS-IBA is a NEXUS-Int'l Broadcasting Association non profit org. PO Box 10980, I-20110 Milano, Italy which operates Phone: +39-337-297788 / +39-2-2666971 IRRS-Shortwave & email: 100020.1013@compuserve.com IRRS-GRM on FM [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Although there is a lot of nostalgia and romanticism where shortwave radio is concerned, the SRI people *are* correct that satellite is less expensive and probably it is more reliable also. Consider all the changes in the past few years: radio (in general) yielded much of its influence to television. For a half century or so, Hollywood reigned supreme with radio in the lives of Americans at least. Then television began to replace going to the theatres since talking-pictures were now common in one's own home. Why just listen to the radio when you could listen and *see* what was going on? Now television has been to a large extent been made obsolete by cable and satellite programs. All the inconveniences of listening to shortwave radio have been rendered moot by the ease of a couple buttons on a receiver. People went to motion picture theatres in the 1940's for entertainment which was impossible to obtain elsewhere and to watch the newsreels. We had a theatre here in Chicago called The Forum which showed nothing but newsreels; the news of the day in a 50 minute program which started every hour on the hour from 6 AM until 3 AM the next day. (They closed for a couple of hours in the early morning so the janitor could clean the place up.) During the intermissions between shows they piped in the BBC over a loudspeaker. People were angry when The Forum closed its doors about 1960 saying that television news had put them out of business. And now computers and satellites have largely replaced television and Hollywood. So, I feel shortwave radio served us well and continues to serve us to some extent, but if the purpose is communication among the people of the world over a large geographical span in a very short period of time -- almost instantly -- then there *are* better ways to go about it than shortwave radio with the unreliable and unpredictable problems of radio transmissions as they were done in the past. Which magazine was it a few years ago that grumbled about how the 'challenge' behind receiving shortwave transmissions was now gone. They cited all the shortwave stations which were using repeaters all over the world and how there no longer was any challenge or need for skill in tuning in distant, weak transmissions; no longer any need to know anything at all about how to construct an antenna for best reception. But that was the point, you see: the broadcasters of the world did not want a challenge or stumbling block in the way; they wanted their information widely available. As an information provider, I want the same thing. I don't want it to be hard for you to read this Digest, I want it to be easy ... in the case of SRI and others, I guess their conclusion is they can reach more people for less money and less effort by ditching the old techniques and going with new methods. In that sense, can you blame them? I also love to live in the past, but ... well I think you get the point. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 94 07:43:21 EDT From: Stewart Fist <100033.2145@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Cable Dates Bill Brasuell asks: > Does anyone know the date of the first undersea cable between the USA > and Europe/UK? You'll probably get a couple of different replies to this query, because of the three attempts. I've got a database on this trivia, so let me straighten it out now. This is the main sequence of events: Back in 1852 the cable crossed the Irish Sea from the UK. This was the first essential step. Dover to Calais had been completed in 1851, thus making the continental connection possible. In 1854 Cyrus Field established a company in America to construct the Atlantic cable from Ireland to be landed in Newfoundland. Lord Kelvin led the push on the English end. It was to be 4000kms (end-to-end) and laid to maximum depth of 4400 m. In 1856 two cables were laid from Canada to Newfoundland to get ready for the Atlantic connection. On August 7, 1857 laying began on the main Atlantic cable but it broke on third day. They tried again early in 1858 and failed again. On the third try later in 1858 they succeeded in laying the cable and getting messages across it. On August 7, 1858 Queen Victoria and US President James Buchanan exchange telegraphed greetings. The cable only carried messages for 27 days, and failed. They laid another using the "Great Eastern" in 1866, and on August 4, 1866 the first permanently-operating Atlantic telegraphy cable link was opened from New York to London -- and via London onto Paris. And later: December 12, 1901 was the first trans-Atlantic radio signal. The letter 'S' was send from Cornwall to Newfoundland by Marconi. The Anglo-American Telegraph Company (cable owners) threatened him with legal action because they claimed exclusive rights to electrical communications in the British colonies. September 25, 1956 was the day the first trans-Atlantic coaxial telephone cable came into operations. Let me add another bit of trivia. November 20, 1871 was the date the first overseas telegram reached Australia. It came via India, Singapore, Djakata to Darwin (later Djakata (then Batavia) was by-passed) and was then carried overland by horse messager to Sydney. Because of many problems, the overland link from Adelaide to Darwin (1937 miles) was only completed on August 22, 1872 when it joined the cable to Melbourne and Sydney. The signals needed to be rekeyed 18 times between Sydney and London, and many of the Morse operators couldn't speak English. Shortly after the official opening of the London link, a Sydney Reuter's correspondent sent a news story to the UK about a ground-breaking ceremony for the new Queensland railway. His despatch began: "Governer turns first sod ..." Unfortunately, by the time it reached London and went into print it had been translated by the Morse operators into "Governer twins first son ..." As he was 80 years old and well-known in London society circles as a gay batchelor, this created some consternation! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for a neat article to close this issue. Does anyone remember the game played by children in the past called 'Chinese Telephone'? A group of people stand in a circle (the more the merrier; twenty or more people are recommended) and the first person must whisper a short sentence one time only to the person to his left. That person in turn must whisper one time only what he *thought* he heard to the person to his left; and on it goes until the final person in the circle tells the person to his left (the originator) what he *thinks* he heard said by the person to his right. The deviation between the original message and the final report can be hilarious. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #208 ******************************