TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 May 94 08:39:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 214 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NPA Readiness For 1995 (Gregory P. Monti) Emerging Cellular Systems (U. Ezechuk) ID Card Stories -- Reality Check (Lauren Weinstein) Cell One/NY Rates For DC and Boston (Doug Reuben) Help Needed With Speech Recognition..."Word Processing" (Peter Flower) 3270 Emulation (Windows) (Michael Anderson) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 07:13:53 EDT From: Gregory P. Monti Subject: NPA Readiness for 1995 North America's Countdown to NPA Interchangeability in 1995 Interchangeable Codes Day is January 15, 1995, which is a Sunday! (Does Hallmark have a line of cards out for it yet?) For purposes of this table, "toll calls" are calls that are *individually itemized* on your local or long distance company phone bill. "Message unit" or "Zone Unit Measurement" or "Extended Area" calls are not individually itemized on bills and I don't consider them "toll" even though they cost something over and above local service. If the local telco doesn't force you to dial them differently, and doesn't bill them individually, then they are treating them like local calls and so will I. Premium calls like 976 are mentioned if I know about them. Otherwise, consider this table to be unreliable as to 976, etc., calls. The "Ready for 1/95" column states whether the NPA has eliminated a dialing plan that won't work once NPAs 281, 334, 360, 520, 563 and 630 come on line. There could be multiple interpretations of what "yes" and "no" could mean, so I took these shortcuts: no 1995 plan announced = no new plan announced, don't know if implemented = yes new plan announced, definitely not implemented = no new plan now implemented, but not mandatory; old one still permitted = yes new plan now implemented and is mandatory = yes I have removed the interchangeable NPAs that will begin 1/95. They will always be "ready for 1/95". NPA Stat Toll Ready Notes Prov calls for within 1/95? NPA dialed as 201 NJ 7 yes 202 DC not applicable yes there are no toll calls within 202 203 CT 1+7 no 204 MB 1+10 yes 1+10D to be mandatory 9/94 205 AL 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 1990 206 WA 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1991, mandatory 1992 207 ME 7 yes 7D announced 1992 208 ID 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993 all US West states 209 CA 7 yes 210 TX 1+10 yes has always been 1+10D toll 212 NY not applicable yes there are no toll calls within 212, 540 & 976 premium services are 7D 213 CA 7 yes has always been 7D for toll 214 TX 1+10 yes 215 PA 7 yes "no 1" campaign ran in 1992, when 1+7D eliminated 216 OH 1+10D yes 1+10D mandatory 1/1/95 217 IL 7 yes Urbana book mentions "10D" without "1", which won't work unless local calls within 217 are also 10D; later Bellcore source says 7D, which I consider more reliable 218 MN 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 12/93, mandatory late 1994 219 IN 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 8/93 301 MD 1+10 yes 302 DE 1+10 yes 1+10D permitted 4/1/94, mandatory 1/7/95 303 CO 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993, mandatory 2/27/94 304 WV 7 yes 305 FL 1+10 yes 1+10D announced early 93 306 SK 1+10 yes 1+10D to be mandatory 9/94 307 WY 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993 all US West states 308 NE 1+10 yes 1+10D announced for all US West states 12/93 309 IL 7 yes per Bellcore source from varney@uscbu.att.com 310 CA 7 yes 312 IL not applicable yes there are no toll calls within 312 313 MI 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993 (was to be 7D) 314 MO 1+7 no 315 NY 7 yes per Bellcore source from varney@uscbu.att.com 316 KS 1+7 no 317 IN 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 8/93, mandatory 12/1/93 318 LA 1+7 no 319 IA 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 12/93 all US West states 401 RI 1+10 yes 7D announced 1992, but 1+10D announced 1/94 to become mandatory 402 NE 1+10 yes 1+10D announced for all US West states 12/93; Lincoln Tel portion 1+10D mandatory late 94 403 AB,NT,YT 1+10 yes 1+10D to be mandatory 9/94 404 GA 1+10 yes 1+10D implemented 1989 405 OK 1+7 no 406 MT 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993 all US West states 407 FL 1+10 yes 1+10D announced early 93 408 CA 7 no inter-NPA calls are 10D, must change to 1+10D 409 TX 1+7 no 410 MD 1+10 yes 412 PA 7 yes not sure if 7D announced 9/93 later Bellcore source from alan.leon.varney@att.com says 7D 413 MA 1+10 yes originally to be 7D; Mass DPU was thought to have ordered 1+10D in 10/93, but J. Covert reports no such order exists; bill stuffer reported here confirms 1+10 is correct; becomes mandatory 6/1/94 414 WI 1+10 yes 415 CA 7 yes has always been 7D toll 416 ON 1+10 yes there are no toll calls within 416 except 976, which are dialed 1 416 976-XXXX 417 MO 1+7 no 418 QC 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 10/93 419 OH 1+10D yes 1+10D mandatory 1/1/95 501 AR 1+7 no 502 KY 1+7 no 503 OR 1+10 yes 1+10D announced mid 1992 504 LA 1+7 no 505 NM 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993 all US West states 506 NB 1+10 yes 1+10D to be mandatory 9/94 507 MN 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 12/93, mandatory late 1994 508 MA 1+10 yes see note under 413 509 WA 1+10 yes 1+10D permitted 5/15/94, mandatory 9/17/94 510 CA 7 yes has always been 7D for toll 512 TX 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1991 513 OH 1+10D yes 1+10D mandatory 1/1/95 514 QC 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 10/93 515 IA 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993 all US West states 516 NY 7 yes inter-NPA calls to be forced to 1+10D; 540 & 976 premium services are 7D 517 MI 1+7 no 518 NY 7 yes per Bellcore source from varney@uscbu.att.com 519 ON 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 10/93 601 MS 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 12/93 602 AZ 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 1990 603 NH 7 yes 7D announced 1992; but per-line blocking to be available to subs who don't want 7D toll; they will be forced to dial 1+10D 604 BC,NT,AK 1+10 yes 1+10D intra-NPA toll to be mandatory 9/94; Hyder, AK, is in 604 per previous postings here 605 SD 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 12/93 606 KY 1+7 no 607 NY 7 yes per Bellcore source from varney@uscbu.att.com 608 WI 1+10 yes 609 NJ 7 yes 1+7 disallowed beginning 9/93 per bill stuffer 610 PA 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 12/93 (was to inherit 7D from 215) 612 MN 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 12/93, mandatory late 1994 613 ON 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 10/93 614 OH 1+10D yes 1+10D mandatory 1/1/95 615 TN 1+10 yes 1+10D posted on pay phones 9/93 616 MI 1+7 no 617 MA 1+10 yes see note under 413 618 IL 7 yes per Bellcore source from varney@uscbu.att.com 619 CA 7 yes 7D toll announced 9/93 701 ND 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 12/93 702 NV 1+7 no 703 VA 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 1987 704 NC 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 1990 705 ON 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 10/93 706 GA 1+10 yes inherited 1+10D from 404 707 CA 7 yes 7D announced 10/93 708 IL not applicable yes there are no toll calls within 708 709 NF,NT 1+10 yes 1+10D to be mandatory 9/94 712 IA 1+10 yes 1+10D announced for all US West states 12/93 713 TX 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 12/7/91 714 CA 7 yes 7D toll began in early 1980s 715 WI 1+10 yes 716 NY 7 yes Rochester LATA, per Telecom Digest 787; matches Bellcore source from varney@uscbu.att.com 717 PA 7 yes 7D announced 11/93 718 NY not applicable yes there are no toll calls within 718, 540 & 976 premium services are 7D 719 CO 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993, mandatory 2/27/94 801 UT 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 1993 all US West states 802 VT 1+10 yes 7D announced 1992; but 1+10D announced 2/94 to become mandatory 803 SC 1+10 yes 1+10D posted on pay phones 9/93 804 VA 1+7 no 805 CA 7 yes 1+7D still allowed in Pac Bell portion, for now 806 TX 1+7 no 807 ON 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 10/93 808 HI 1+7 no 809 Caribbean 1+7 no 810 MI 1+10 yes 812 IN 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 8/93 813 FL 1+10 yes 1+10D announced early 93 814 PA 7 yes not sure if 7D announced 9/93; later Bellcore source from alan.leon.varney@att.com says 7D 815 IL 7 yes per Bellcore source from varney@uscbu.att.com 816 MO 1+7 no 817 TX 1+10 yes 1+10D currently mandatory 818 CA 7 yes has always been 7D toll 819 QC 1+10 yes 1+10D announced 10/93 901 TN 1+10 yes 1+10D posted on pay phones 9/93 902 NS,PE 1+10 yes 1+10D to be mandatory 9/94 903 TX 1+10 yes has always been 1+10D toll 904 FL 1+10 yes 1+10D announced early 93 905 ON 1+10 yes has always been 1+10D toll 906 MI 1+7 no 907 AK 1+7 no 908 NJ 7 yes has always been 7D toll 909 CA 7 yes 910 NC 1+10 yes 912 GA 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 8/92 913 KS 1+7 no 914 NY 7 no inter-NPA calls are 10D, must change to 1+10D; 540 & 976 premium services are 7D 915 TX 1+7 no 916 CA 7 yes 7D announced 9/93 917 NY not applicable yes there are no toll calls within 917; however, since all outbound calls from 917 are cellular, there is a premium airtime charge on all of them 918 OK 1+7 no 919 NC 1+10 yes 1+10D mandatory 1990 143 Total NANP NPAs 117 NPAs ready for 1995 26 NPAs not ready for 1995 31 ready NPAs using 7D solution so far 80 ready NPAs using 1+10D solution so far 6 ready NPAs not requiring a solution (no intra-NPA tolls) 2 non-ready NPAs using 7D but still 10D for inter-NPA 24 non-ready NPAs still using 1+7D Corrections are welcomed. Mail to me, I'll re-post summary. Thanks to Bob Goudreau for suggesting the more detailed breakout. Greg Monti Arlington, Virginia, USA gmonti@cap.gwu.edu ------------------------------ From: uezechuk@mlsma.att.com Date: 12 May 94 10:29:00 GMT Subject: Emerging Cellular Systems Hi, I am compiling material on new generation cellular systems, and would appreciate any help. I will post the summary of responses if there is enough interest. My questions are: 1) What is PCS, PCN, with relevance to cellular systems? 2) What advantages do digital cellular systems have over analog? 3) For a cellular operator, what are the ideal frequencies to operate in and why? 4) What impact does the frequency in #3 above have on operational costs, equipment costs, etc? 5) What are the impacts of operating in the higher reaches of the spectrum, e.g. at GHz levels? What are the impacts of low power systems and their advantages? 5) What are the advantages of CDMA over TDMA radio access technologies? What are the relative costs of these technologies? 6) Any ideas on how to obtain the QUALCOMM CDMA specs? 7) What impact will emerging cellular systems like Steinbrechers Minicell systems have on the cellular operator in terms of cost, operation and equipment? Note: The minicell is based on technology whereby a base station can handle different radio access methods (CDMA, TDMA) as opposed to the traditional approach of hard wired access methods. 8) Does anyone have any ideas of names and addresses (email?) of manufac- turers of Cellular base stations, switching equipment etc? What are the technological merits and demerits of these equipment? Thanks, U Ezechukwu Network Sys UK. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 94 20:31 PDT From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: ID Card Stories -- Reality Check Greetings. As moderator of the Internet PRIVACY Forum Digest, I'm of course interested in the privacy issues surrounding ID cards, information access and related issues. However, the current round of stories regarding supposed plans for national "smart" ID cards, database tie-ins, etc. seem to have taken on a life of their own, escalating with (as far as I can tell) little real new information to drive them. In other words, there are signs that at least part of these stories are tied to rumors that may have been expanded in the telling. For example, PRIVACY Forum received a message a few days ago that was a first hand report of some comments made by a career government official at a conference, where they were apparently sort of "blue-skying" about the possibilities for increasingly simplified tax collection through various sorts of data tie-ins. There was no sign that these ideas had been incorporated into any sort of formal plan. In a similar vein, a story from the recent past had the U.S. Postal Service talking about the ability to issue millions of smart cards on short order for universal identification purposes. Once again, the impression I got from that piece was of talking about the possibilities for use of such technology -- not that such a plan was about to be implemented in some sort of surprise move! Next I saw items where the messages' authors seemed to be combining the two prior stories into some sort of integrated plan, and were now claiming that "President Clinton is considering signing executive orders to implement parts of these plans." Then the message escalation got even more pronounced -- a message in TELECOM claiming that President Clinton was about to sign such orders. It seems that the entire sequence of messages escalated with little if any real new information being added. One can't help but wonder if we might be looking at a classic case of rumors gone wild. Obviously, these are important issues worthy of widespread discussion and debate. I have no special knowledge of any possible underlying realities to these stories, one way or another. But it did appear that the items seemed to be spreading around the net feeding upon themselves, becoming more dramatic with each iteration. I thought it was worth raising a warning that it might be prudent to not rush to judgment about the validity or veracity of these stories until more specific information, drawn from sources other than the same items that have been circulating the net, become available. Lauren [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Lauren, the story which appeared here was from that fellow via the EFF. The main reason I ran it was because I tend to use EFF stuff when it is sent to me even though I personally have to wonder about their motives from time to time. The story I had here was in the EFFector recently. Maybe I will start being more careful about printing some of their news releases. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: Cell One/NY rates for DC and Boston Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 14:12:51 PDT I noted about a month ago that Cell One/NY implemented new roaming rates for a large area surrounding the CO/NY system. Specifically, these systems were Metro Mobile (Bell Atlantic)/CT (00119) and Litchfield Cellular (now McCaw), Dutchess County-Poughkeepsie NY/(00479?), ComCast/NJ-DE-PA (00173, 00575, 01487, 00123, 00029), the small Newton, NJ-based Ericsson system (forgot the SID), and the Atlantic City (ComCast?) and Ocean County, NJ systems. In each of these systems (most of which also have automatic call delivery), CO/NY customers pay their home airtime rates, and no daily roam charges. Additionally, in Northern and Central NJ and Fairfield County, CT, you pay only *local* rates (6 cents per minute) to reach anyone from Fairfield County, CT, all the way down to Central NJ, and the airtime charges for these calls are applied to whatever pre-paid airtime allotment you may have, if any. However, I believe I incorrectly mentioned that the Baltimore-Washington (00013) system was $.99 per minute, whereas in actuality it is ALSO included in CO/NY's plan! Thus, you pay your home peak/off-peak rates when roaming in Baltimore/DC. Additionally, the SW Bell/Boston system (00007), Metro Mobile/RI (00119), and the insidious Franklin County, Mass "Let's sit on out fat roam charges and do nothing" system are also included in CO/NY's plan. (The Franklin County system is also SID 119, and is owned by a company called Boston Communications, (617) 247-1112. They have been very intransigent in dealing with other Cell Co's which have tried to set up low-cost roaming there, especially Cell One/Boston, which is trying to set up "New England Network" rates (.44 peak/.29 off-peak) there. The insidious thing about these guys is that they are operated by Metro Mobile [no, that's not that worst part! :) ], and have the same 00119 SID. So roamers, especially those with New England Network rates, have no idea when they place and receive calls that rather than $.44 peak or $.29 off-peak they will instead pay $3 day/$.99 per minute!.This makes me very cautious when using my phone anywhere near their system, since in their vicinity, you simply CAN'T TELL what you will be paying! :( I hope that McCaw's market power convinced Boston Comm to modify rates for NY customers, and not that McCaw is just eating the roam charge and handing them over to those greedy little dweebs and Boston Comm. I tried calling Paul Tobin at Boston Comm about this a number of times, needless to say he never returned my calls.) Thus, CO/NY customers pay home peak and off-peak rates in ALL of Mass, ALL of RI, ALL of CT, ALL of New Jersey, the Metrophone 00029 system in PA, all of Delaware, the Baltimore-DC SW Bell system, and Dutchess County, NY. Moreover, auto call delivery will soon be available (next month?) to Boston and Rhode Island. Note that CO/NY, unlike SW Bell/Boston, does not charge any "home airtime" for calls delivered to you while roaming. SW Bell/Boston has this (IMHO) really cheap policy of charging their OWN customers home airtime rates in addition to roaming rates [and let us not forget the $2 Roam-Department-Christmas-Party Fund ... err ... I mean of course "roamer administrative fee"]. For a company with generally enlightened roaming policies, these charges are a throwback to "soak-the-roamer" practices, except that this time the roamers are also their own customers. Convenient for SW Bell, eh? Pretty cheap and petty, really ... As a result of the above, an account with Cell One/NY suddenly emerges as the preferred roaming method for frequent Northeast Corridor travelers. With no daily charges from Mass to northern Virginia, airtime-free call delivery throughout most of the area, and the use of the (overpriced yet better than the B side) NACN in areas outside of the Northeast, CO/NY stands clearly above its sister "A" carriers in the region, and positions itself substantially ahead of NYNEX (the B side carrier). NYNEX/NY offers, at best, 75-cent per minute roaming in CT, 99-cent per minute roaming in BAMS (Philly and DC), 75 or 99 cent in Boston/RI and Maine, and may still be billing $3 daily charges (incorrectly) for incoming calls to Baltimore/DC. Additionally, I am *still* not sure what their policy is for outgoing calls in "Mobilreach" call delivery areas, as I think some (most?) areas will bill you a $3 daily fee for outgoing calls. And of course, these is still that problem where roamers in DC can not turn call delivery off, so calls can't go back to voicemail -- I only mentioned it to them six months ago, so let's give them another year to finish their squabble with Bell Atlantic -- who cares if the customers can't use it in the meanwhile..:( NYNEX does offer auto-call delivery to both Orange and Dutchess Counties, lower Delaware, Litchfield, CT, and Ocean County, NJ (CO/NY doesn't deliver to these areas, and no Nationlink either), so they do come out ahead of CO/NY in some roaming areas. The also have somewhat better and cheaper rate plans, and don't seem to need to do as much switch work so their system is up more often at night. However, if you intend to do any degree of roaming in the Northeast Corridor, CO/NY is the way to go now, without question. BTW, CO/NY also has voicemail calls bounce back from ComCast/NJ now. Thus, if you receive a call in SIDs 00173/00575/01487, and don't answer it, it WILL go back to voicemail. Previously, outside of the NY system, only Philly and Delaware featured this, using IS-41 RevA. I think this was also placed in service now for ComCast/NJ, as cell delivery in NJ behaves similarly to the IS-41 RevA regime inn Philly and DE. (And no, Call-Waiting will STILL not work in ANY of the Motorola EMX-based switches connected to NY or the NACN, so if you are on the phone, calls will go to voicemail without you being aware of it. Why is it so hard for ComCast and Metro Mobile -- not to mention Pac*Tel in CA -- to get the appropriate software upgrade from Motorola or do whatever is necessary to get this fixed? It seems like other customers may care about this deficiency, not to mention the fact that they can use this to get out of their annual service contracts!) Overall, though, a very impressive roaming package from CO/NY, which is miles ahead of what anyone else -- especially NYNEX -- is offering. And none of thos silly "Please hold on, your party is being located" messages which NYNEX and SNET use for auto-call delivery. I can see why I get so many hangup calls when roaming -- no one wants to wait! :) Doug CID Tech (203) 499-5221 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Doug, you have written to the Digest on many occassions over the past few years on cellular systems and their various shortcomings. Do any of the cell companies *ever* respond to your articles here, or your inquiries of them and make the desired changes? Have any of them ever corrected their problems after you gave them notice? PAT] ------------------------------ From: pbflower@uts.EDU.AU (-s89432566-p.bflower-ele-500-) Subject: Help Needed With Speech Recognition ..."Word Processing" Date: 11 May 1994 23:56:40 GMT Organization: University of Technology, Sydney I'm looking for info on "Word Spotting". I'm doing a report on it and need some of the latest available information. I'm hoping to advance a HMM model program to do this. I'd most appreciate any information on Word Spotting or even speech recognition. Thanking you in advance, Peter ------------------------------ From: ssi@winternet.com (Stillwater Systems) Subject: 3270 Emulation (Windows) Date: 12 May 1994 00:17:58 GMT Organization: StarNet Communications, Inc I'm looking for a good Shareware 3270 Emulator for Windows. I do a great deal of work in the VAX/VMS environment and use WRQ's Reflection 2 for Windows, however, this is not suited for the IBM mainframe environment. If you know of any 3270 Emulators for Windows, could you please provide me with the information I need to obtain them. Thank You, Michael E. Anderson ssi@winternet.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #214 ******************************