TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 May 94 20:31:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 228 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: San Carlos Joins Internet (Andrew Laurence) Re: San Carlos Joins Internet (Paul Robinson) Re: San Carlos Joins Internet (Steve Cogorno) Re: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number (Anton Sherwood) Re: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number (bigbob@netcom.com) Re: Radio Frequency Interference on Residential Telephone Line (Bill Tighe) Re: Wireless Data Services (Rob Lockhart) Re: Used Telco/Test Equipment Suppliers? (John Lundgren) Re: Verifone Programming Manuals (Glenn McComb) Verifone Junior Programmed! (Ry Jones) Re: Radio by Phone (Paul Robinson) Re: Replace POST-MAIL by FAX (Herb Effron) Re: Cellular Call Forwarding (James Holland) Re: Caller-ID Gets Me Jealous (David Hayes) Re: Annoying Delays: LD Customer Service (Jonathan Loo) 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: laurence@netcom.com (Andrew Laurence) Subject: Re: San Carlos Joins Internet Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 19:43:08 GMT RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM writes: >> Anyone who has access to the Internet ... can reach City Hall by >> addressing their message to scarlos@crl.com. > Why are they in the Commercial domain, and not the Government domain? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Because, as I understand it, '.gov' only > applies to the *federal* government. I don't think it was ever defined > for local or state government use. PAT] Wrong! It's because the entire city appears to be using an individual account at CRL, a well-known public access provider in the San Francisco Bay Area. Andrew Laurence Oakland, California USA laurence@netcom.com Pacific Daylight Time (GMT-7) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 23:25:51 EDT From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: Re: San Carlos Joins Internet Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA >> Anyone who has access to the Internet ... can reach City Hall by >> addressing their message to scarlos@crl.com. > Why are they in the Commercial domain, and not the Government domain? Probably because they obtained a mailbox on that system. The FCC has a mailbox at Federal_Communications_Commission@MCIMAIL.COM the same way. CRL.COM is listed as a domain server and as a site, so they can probably handle domain service in the future. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Because, as I understand it, '.gov' > only applies to the *federal* government. I don't think it was ever > defined for local or state government use. PAT] Doing a lookup on the Internic database, I think the following would disagree with you: Hawaii State Government (HAWAII2-DOM) Domain Name: HAWAII.GOV Iowa State Government, Department of Public Safety (IA-DOM1) Domain Name: IA.GOV Maryland State Government (MD-DOM) Domain Name: MD.GOV North Carolina State Government (NC-DOM) Domain Name: NC.GOV Ohio Data Network (OHIO-DOM) Domain Name: OHIO.GOV Paul Robinson - Paul@TDR.COM ------------------------------ From: cogorno@netcom.com (Steve Cogorno) Subject: Re: San Carlos Joins Internet Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 22:36:36 PDT >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Because, as I understand it, '.gov' only >> applies to the *federal* government. I don't think it was ever defined >> for local or state government use. PAT] > I obtained a copy of all US sites that have an Internet connection > from Internic via the whois command (whois -h rs.internic.net "domain > *") on my Sun workstation (other systems may vary) and it listed > federal, state and local governmental entites as '.gov' > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for the clarification and > correction. I guess I've no idea why they are in .com then. PAT] Look at the account name again: scarlos@crl.com. The reason is that they have ONE account on a dial-up host. The company is CRL, which is based in San Francisco. I think that there use of "joins the internet" is a little misleading when they really only have one accout. Steve cogorno@netcom.com #608 Merrill * 200 McLaughlin Drive * Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1015 ------------------------------ From: dasher@netcom.com (Anton Sherwood) Subject: Re: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number Organization: Crackpots for a Better Tomorrow Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 20:09:57 GMT In article , Hugh Pritchard <0006348214@ mcimail.com> wrote: > ... be warned that repeating digits increase the chances of people > dialing your number by accident. Some people tend to double a digit > by mistake when they're dialing. The doubled digit may make the > dialed number into YOUR number. I have a phone number of the form > -xxyz. People trying to dial -xyzt sometimes, "mysteriously," find > they've dialed me instead. I haven't had much trouble with that -- except when my number was 5333, I got a lot of calls for a furniture store at 5533. Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Many years ago a friend of mine had an almost identical situation. His number was 2588, and the bus terminal was 2558. No matter what the hour, day or night, his phone would get calls from people wanting to know what time the bus was coming through town, etc. He finally gave up and got his number changed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bigbob@netcom.com (Lord of Love!) Subject: Re: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 20:16:15 GMT The solution is simple ... First of all: CallerID isn't gonna be offered in California for some time to come! So put that fear (if you ever had one) to rest. Second: When I choose my new phone number I picked 310-XXX-7777. It's very easy to remember and will cause you no trouble at all! People just keep it in their minds VERY easily. Trust me. Third: Don't call Pac Bell and ask if the number is free! Check for yourself! When I called for my number they told me it was unavailable ... when I checked my requests it was not in use ... don't rely on their help. Once you get the number ... it's yours to enjoy and believe me ... people will rarely forget it. bigbob@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just because a number is not in service does not mean it is available. The old owner may have it on temporary suspension, or he may have paid to have an intercept there to refer it elsewhere for a few months. Also, a number not in service may in fact be reserved for some other customer who also requested it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bill@noller.com (Bill Tighe) Subject: Re: Radio Frequency Interference on Residential Telephone Line Date: 15 May 94 14:44:18 GMT mds@access.digex.net (Michael D. Sullivan @ Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA) once wrote.... > paulb@coho.halcyon.com (Paul N. Bates) writes: >> In article , wrote: >>> My home is wired for two residential telephone lines. Because of my >>> proximity to an am radio transmitter (am 1550khz), many of my audio >>> and telephone devices suffer from "radio noise", from that one station >>> only though. Some days it is worse than others, some days there is no >>> interference at all. > This is apparently an increasingly common occurrence, prompting the > FCC to issue an information sheet that lists two phones that have > tested as being highly resistant to RF interference. I don't have the > info at hand, but it might be available on ftp.fcc.gov. At K-Mart yesterday I saw an in line RF filter for telephones. It was a small plastic box with RJ-11 connectors on two ends and a short RJ-11 extension cable. The price was $8.95 and it was in an AT&T bubble pack. This might solve your problem. Bill Tighe Email: bill@noller.com Phone: 707-778-0571 FAX: 707-778-0235 ------------------------------ From: rlockhart@aol.com (RLockhart) Subject: Re: Wireless Data Services Date: 15 May 1994 12:08:05 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , petef@well.com (Pete Farmer) writes: > I've noticed that there's been very little posted to this list > regarding wireless *data* services. Anyone know why? There are some > very interesting developments in the wireless arena, both for short, > bursty text messaging (a la RAM or Ardis) and for higher bandwidth, IP > connectivity within metropolitan areas. Certainly the most successful (read 'profitable' ) of the 'short, bursty text messaging' services, alpha paging, gets some coverage here as do the CDPD and circuit-switched cellular data links in the Wireless Data Food Chain, but you're right in that there's not a lot on the packet data services (e.g., ARDIS, RAM, generic DataTAC, upcoming NexTel and the rest of the SMRs (pronounced SMuR like in those little blue guys that used to be on Saturday morning cartoon television :))) and eSMRs). Some of these other links in the Wireless Data Food Chain are covered in various places like comp.std.wireless or comp.protocols.misc or ... but none seem to cover the overall breadth of TELECOM Digest (or get the coverage on the commercial services that Pat does). Just out of curiousity, what does 'Tetherless Access Ltd.' do? (If that's an inappropriate question, Pat, my apologies.) Rob Lockhart, Resource Manager, Interactive Data Systems Paging Products Group, Motorola, Inc. Desktop I'net: lockhart-epag06_rob@email.mot.com Wireless I'net (<32K characters): rob_lockhart-erl003e@email.mot.com ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Used Telco/Test Equipment Suppliers? Date: 14 May 94 16:08:13 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Eric Pearce (eap@ora.com) wrote: > Are there dealers for used telco and test equipment in the Bay Area > (or by mail order catalog)? > I'm looking for stuff like test sets, digit grabbers, T-BERDs, etc. Check out the latest Nuts & Volts magazine. They have tons of ads for used test equipment and much of them are from the Bay Area and Silicon Gulch. Also, the trade rags such as Communications Week, Data Comm, Network World, etc. You might call the local electronics stores, since they may have surplus equip, but they probably have copies of N & V available, too. Best of success. John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 VOI (714) JOHN GAB \ FAX (714) JOHN FRY jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com \ jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ From: gmccomb@netcom.com (Glenn McComb) Subject: Re: Verifone Programming Manuals Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 06:49:31 GMT Ry Jones (rjones@poseidon.usin.com) wrote: > With all this talk about Verifones, I am reminded that I have one (a > Verifone Junior, tan model, green LED screen) with no manual. I bought > it at a Tru Value going out of business sale; they didn't have the > manual, or password, or anything. I called Verifone in Hawaii, and > never got a response (and that was not a cheap call!). I would be willing to sell you my verifone programming manuals. Email or call for details. Make an offer, pay by check or credit card. Glenn McComb +1-408-725-1448 McComb Research Fax +1-408-725-0222 10440 Mann Drive Internet gm @ mccomb.com PO Box 220 Compuserve >MHS:gm@mccomb Cupertino, CA 95015 ------------------------------ From: Ry Jones Subject: Verifone Junior Programmed! Date: Sun, 15 May 94 14:53:57 PDT Many thanks to the person who sent me the Verifone Junior default password! For my version, 2.05, the code "166816" was indeed the password. I am posting this to the list for posterity. If anyone ever needs this code again, it will be in a well-known place. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 23:00:01 EDT From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: Re: Radio by Phone Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA "Gregory P. Monti" , writes: > An FM radio newsletter {FMedia!} notes that a Dallas firm, Media > Technology, is offering a service called Media Dialup. Subscribers > can monitor live radio using touch tone commands.... As a sampler, > the firm allows you to listen to Dallas radio stations using > touch tone commands on 214 330-8821. For FM, press 1. For > AM, press 2. To scan to the next lower station, press 4. > Next higher station, press 6. Ordinary toll charges apply. > I guess the market for this service is program directors and > consultants who want to hear what the big-market boys are doing. Or it could be used to allow people to dial up a system that provides announcements and listen to several different ones, or provide for announcements in foreign languages. If they can design a touch-tone programmed radio, they can do it for tape recorders and other things. Some examples would be offering conference call audio to multiple callers without their being heard by the participants. Another would be to allow someone to set up a series of "feeds" for various events and let other stations call up a number and tap into them, live as opposed to needing a specialized downlink. For a telephone connection the sound was adequate, about what you usually expect for radio piped over the telephone, e.g. some of the information is clipped in a noticable way. Adequate for speech broadcasts, not so good for music. Paul Robinson - Paul@TDR.COM ------------------------------ From: herb@halcyon.com (Herb Effron) Subject: Re: Replace POST-MAIL by FAX Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 08:22:37 +0800 Organization: Seagopher I have never had a fax machine. Instead, I use a 14.4 fax modem (which is always set to receive) to handle almost all my correspondence today. I also use e-mail of course. BTW I'm a 28-year user of computers. That's 'years'! not 'years old'. ;-) After the first two years of using a fax modem ('upgraded' myself from my old 1200 baud modem), I was prompted from my experience with it to make two major changes in the way I carry out routine business. New way #1: I now send a "Quick Fax" -- when I want to ask a brief question or send someone an item. This avoids obligatory 'socialization' time when calling someone by phone. By faxing a note, the recipient's answering machine is not cluttered up with junk, provides a pre-prepared note which frees the receipient from having to write down the message, its phone number, when I called, etc. -- and then remembering where she put the note. If the recipient uses a fax modem also, then there's no paper to lose either. Some of my colleagues tell me this is good for the environment and they we should ask for a tax credit. :-) The time it took for the 'comfort level to move from my brain to my 'gut' (having it feel 'natural') was about three weeks. New way #2: I now send _only_ fax correspondence (in place of 'paper') whenever possible. This includes all of my business correspondence on letterhead w/logos from two companies. A Mactintosh computer make this very easy to do. The letter that's received is 'visually clean', i.e. it has no streaks, spots, etc. The time it took for the 'comfort level to move from my brain to my 'gut' (having it feel 'natural') was much longer in this case. About two months. I think it was the absence of a conventional 'signature' that was most difficult for me to accept. At first I 'pasted' in my signature from a scan. Now, I just put: /s/ Herb Effron and no one has yet complained. BTW ... visit Seattle USA on the Internet. You can get there by gophering to: gopher.seattle.wa.us or just look for us in Washington State or under "S" in the gopher directories. Herb Effron ------------------------------ From: holland@perot.mtsu.edu (Mr. James Holland) Subject: Re: Cellular Call Forwarding Date: 15 May 1994 16:56:01 GMT Organization: Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee In mwearle@netcom.com (Mark W. Earle) writes: > I'm in the process of closing out my cellular account with Southwestern > Bell Mobile Systems of Corpus Christi, TX. In the last bill was an > insert sheet (yellow) indicating that starting with the July bill, > calls forwarded would incur full airtime for the duration of each > forwarded call. Presumably, the set up "star" code call to activate > and deactivate forwarding will now cost a minute also. > This is a significant change -- previously, there was no call to set > up the forwarding (or turn it off) and no charge for the forwarded > calls. Many folks used this as a super local area extender ... forward > your phone, dial your cell phone number, and talk free for a long time > to an area that was a LD/Toll call from the regular phone. I have Cellular One service here in middle Tennessee. They offer a service called "Super System" which basically makes the whole state a local call. I combine this with free weekends (for $10 extra/month) and call-forwarding ($2 extra/month) [Super System is $15] and I have the entire state as a local call. I use it extensively for modem communications as well as voice. This state is fairly large and both area codes (615 and 901) are local to me (on the weekends). Also, I can call FROM any area in the state that has Cellular One coverage. I can use it from Memphis to call to Nashville and it either costs me my regular local airtime rate or it's free on the weekend. Call forwarding used to be free here also, but they changed that after businesses started abusing it. They could forward to their business number and get a much larger 'free' dialing area. Are there other states/systems with something similar to Super System? I'm curious ... James Holland holland@knuth.mtsu.edu ------------------------------ From: dhayes@onramp.net (David Hayes) Subject: Re: Caller ID Gets Me Jealous Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 14:39:09 -0600 Organization: ISIS, Inc. In article , Joseph Romero <1jcr7732@ ibm.mtsac.edu> wrote: > I hear of caller ID and I get jealous ... it is not offered here in > Los Angles, CA. However, we do offer the services of call return and > call block. Pac-Tell proposed Caller ID to the California Public Utilities Commission. The Commission said "Yes, provided ..." The "provided" is the crux of the problem. Some people do not like the idea that every business they call will be able to build a telemarketing list from the calls of the general public. Some people value privacy, and buy unlisted phone numbers. Thus, Caller ID has technical answers to this problem. The answers are called "blocking". There are two kinds of Caller ID blocking. "Per-call blocking" is activated when the caller dials a special prefix, *67, before a phone call. If the telephone subscriber wishes to block all their calls, they must dial *67 before every call they make. The other type of blocking is "per-line blocking". Under this system, the caller's phone number is blocked for all calls placed from that phone. If the caller wants to, they may unblock a specific call by dialing *67 before that call. So the difference between these two is that the default with per-call blocking is "Block when I tell you to," while per-line blocking says "Block unless I tell you not to." These two types of blocking can coexist. Some phones can have per-line blocking, and others per-call blocking. The California PUC told Pac-Bell that they could sell Caller ID if: 1. They notified all subscribers that Caller ID and the two blocking services were available; 2. They provided an opportunity for subscribers to select which type of blocking they wanted on their phone; 3. If a subscriber with an unlisted phone number did not take action to select a particular blocking option, their phone would have per-line blocking. So Pac-Tell does have permission to offer Caller ID. This service is not available in your area because Pac-Tell chooses not to offer it, not because the government prohibits it. This same sort of thing has happened in other states, as well. The phone companies have been extremely reluctant to offer Caller ID in states where the public utilities commissions have required per-line blocking. Personally, I believe that the phone companies are afraid that so many people would select per-line blocking (rather than per-call) that no one would want to pay for Caller ID service. David Hayes PGP public key available on request, or send dhayes@onramp.net mail subject: help to pgp-public-keys@demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 14:44:44 -0400 From: Jonathan Subject: Re: Annoying Delays: LD Customer Service I agree that delays when calling the telephone company or anybody else are troublesome. In particular, the telephone company should answer calls to repair service and the operator quickly, because many of these calls are quite urgent: some people call 0 for emergencies, and 611 resembles 911, and the telephone company even recognizes that a few calls to 411 are about life-threatening emergencies. The repair service at C&P Telephone, a Bell Atlantic Company (now simply Bell Atlantic) was a bad culprit; not only was the wait sometimes in excess of 5 minutes, but the initial recording when calling Maryland 611 failed to identify itself as Repair and not 911. The automated system that C&P/Bell Atlantic uses is not the best way to handle this. C&P has since hired more representatives, and Bell Atlantic (formerly C&P) is now routing more calls to the smaller, but less busy, Washington, D. C. office. There are several ways to further improve the situation: allow both the Maryland and D.C. repair offices to accept Maryland trouble reports but continue to send calls from the Maryland suburbs to the D. C. office, for example. If there is more room available in the D. C. office then they could even expand the D. C. office, answer more calls there, and allow users to dial the repair number with an area code to choose an office. Automatic routing to the least busy office is not recommended, because if the system fails then it could be a serious problem. On a different topic, TELECOM Digest Editor noted: What is really annoying though is when they leave their desk (at any time of day or night) and *forget to unplug their headset* from their work station. The Automatic Call Distributor which tosses incoming calls out to the reps uses a plugged in headset as its basis for thinking a position is occupied and a person there is willing to take calls. Normally the rep sits there and a 'click' in their headset followed by hearing a person breathing on the other end tells them a call has been given to them. If no headset is plugged in, the ACD bypasses that position and moves to another idle one. So if you ever call, wait on hold awhile and get 'answered', only to sit there and hear talking in the background but no one actually talking to you then you'll know what happened -- a headset is laying on the desk plugged in while its owner has gone out to the bathroom or for coffee or whatever. Given the volume of traffic they get, as soon as you abandon the call to dial in again, there'll be an immediate seizure and some other poor devil is now on that line waiting for a rep who never will speak to him! I agree. There should be a better way to handle the representatives' leaving their desks; what happens if they remove the handset just after a new call arrives? I have had the experience that Pat has described; if I wait a while then sometimes they hang up on me after I sit there for a few minutes. Sometimes it appears that people unplug their handsets right after my call goes in; this may happen to the 0 operator once in a while. (The experience that Pat describes does not seem specific to any one company.) Either way, it is very annoying. Jonathan D. Loo 8147 Ellicott Hall College Park, Maryland 20742 (301) 314-4453 (spring 1994 address good through May 16) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #228 ******************************