TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 May 94 13:38:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 230 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Wireless Communication Course (Richard Tsina) Pac-Tel (PC) Communication Software (Rick Przebienda) 1-800-OPERATOR Question/Problems (Danny Burstein) Samples From Telecomworldwire (Darren Ingram) Directory Map Shows NNX Area Codes (Linc Madison) SONET Management Standards? (A.N. Ananth) Need List of Area Codes Across U.S. (Joshua Kantro) Re: Bulk Call Display (Derek Andrew) Re: Bulk Call Display (Randy Gellens) Re: Loop Start to Ground Start Converter (Dave Ptasnik) Re: Loop to Ground Start converters (Sheldon Kociol) Re: Nationwide Name and Address Service (Blake R. Patterson) Re: Mail Order Source for Cell Phone Accessories (Steve Brack) Re: FCC Releases Fiber Deployment Analysis (Bob Keller) Re: AT&T Major Billing Errors!! (Steve Brack) Re: Need Weather-Resistant Phone (John Lundgren) Re: Annoying Delays: LD Customer Service (John Lundgren) 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: Tue, 17 May 1994 17:12:22 GMT From: course@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Wireless Communication Course Organization: University of California, Berkeley U.C. BERKELEY Continuing Education in Engineering Announces a short course on Wireless Technology: WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS (July 26-27, 1994) There are technical bottlenecks to developing a ubiquitous wireless multimedia environment: the capacity of the radio link, its unreliability due to the adverse multipath propagation channel, and severe interference from other channels. This course covers the principles and fundamental concepts engineers need to tackle these limitations (e.g., a thorough treatment of channel impairments such as fading and multipath dispersion and their effect on link and network performance). Topics include: Introduction to Wireless Channels, Cellular Telephone Networks, Analog and Digital Transmission and Wireless Data Networks. Comprehensive course notes will be provided. Lecturer: JEAN-PAUL M.G. LINNARTZ, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. His work on traffic analysis in mobile radio networks received the Veder Prize, an innovative research in telecommunications award in the Netherlands. At Berkeley he works on communications for intelligent vehicle highway systems and multimedia communications. Professor Linnartz is the author of numerous publications and the book "Narrow Land-Mobile Radio Networks" (Artech House, 1993), the text for the course. For more information (brochure with complete course descriptions, outlines, instructor bios, etc.,) send your postal address to: Richard Tsina U.C. Berkeley Extension Continuing Education in Engineering 2223 Fulton St. Berkeley, CA 94720 Tel: (510) 642-4151 Fax: (510) 643-8683 email: course@garnet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: przebien@news.delphi.com (PRZEBIENDA@DELPHI.COM) Subject: Pac-Tel (PC) Communication Software Date: 17 May 1994 01:48:46 -0000 Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation Hi, We had a home grown telecommunication package that allowed us to send alphanumeric messages to our PAC-TEL pagers. We are interested in updating the softwaree. We are interested in reasonably priced commercial software or in the protocol specs of the 800 number we communicate with the old package. Any help would be appreciated. Rick PRZEBIENDA@DELPHI.com ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: 1-800-OPERATOR Question/Problems Date: 17 May 1994 07:55:50 -0400 I recently stayed in a hotel (Richmond, Va. Marriot) which had the usual hotel phone surcharges. So, not wanting to burden myself with huge add-ons to my hotel room, I decided to call collect. Now, since I didn't know what extra costs would be added by the hotel's contract with their service provider, I specifically used '1-800-Operator' rather than "0" or "10288-0". Well, I got the AT&T 'boing', the request for my name, and then got the message 'enjoy your stay at the Marriot Hotel'. Note again, that this was a call placed through 1-800-opertor, NOT through a default '0'. Alas, the call did not go through. Why? Because the person I was calling was using his phone line and had call waiting. I heard the ring, heard him click into my call and ask who was there. Yet the AT&T switch somehow got this confused and, while the person I was calling was still asking 'who's there', I got the synthesized voice saying 'your party appears to have hung up, please call again later'. So this brings up two issues. First is the relationship with Marriot and AT&T (remember, again, that this was a 1-800-operator call). Second is the glitchy supervision when making calls to someone with call-waiting. Has anyone else had these problems? I eventually got through to my friend by -paging- him and having him call me back ... Take care, dannyb@panix.com (or dburstein@mcimail.com) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 May 94 16:36 BST From: Darren Ingram Subject: Samples From Telecomworldwire - Part 1 Reply-To: satnews@cix.compulink.co.uk We would like to offer TELECOM Digest readers a special price on subscription to Telecomworldwire. The UK price is gbp700 per year for fax. We would be pleased to offer **ALL** businesses a single-copy price of the same (payable in Sterling or credit card) for delivery to an electronic mail box connected to the Internet. The companies would have to sign a piece of paper (yes, old fashioned!) saying they would not redistribute the material and basically subject the copyrighted works in the same way as a printed publication. Site archive licences are available. For genuine bona-fida non-commercial users a very generous (in excess of 50 percent) discount would be offered upon signing a similar warranty which also says that the information would be for their sole use only and for non-commercial purposes). Also we have another product called Satnews, which I will forward similar offer details on later next week. Here are some sample stories from a recent issue: -THAILAND EXPANDS INTERNATIONAL CALL ACCESS TWW-12 May 1994-THAILAND EXPANDS INTERNATIONAL CALL ACCESS TELECOMWORLDWIRE--(C) 1994 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD BANGKOK, THAILAND- A plan by the Communications Authority of Thailand to install a further 10,000 international telephone communications circuits has been approved by the Thai Cabinet. The Communications Authority is to install 10,000 new circuits for international phone calls, making up its fourth international transmission switching centre. Around Baht6,400 million will be spent on the project, based at CAT's Bang Rak office. The new circuits are set to be operational by 1997, adding to the 7,000 existing international circuits in use by CAT. The Thai National Economic and Social Development board had previously approved the plan, set to provide enough international capacity until 2002, but plans are already being formulated to add a further 25,000 international phone circuits between 1999 and 2017. -AT&T WINS 'CONTROVERSIAL' SAUDI TELECOM CONTRACT TWW-12 May 1994-AT&T WINS 'CONTROVERSIAL' SAUDI TELECOM CONTRACT TELECOMWORLDWIRE--(C) 1994 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD WASHINGTON, USA/RIYADHI, SAUDI ARABIA- AT&T Corp has won a six-year US$4 billion contract to provide state-of-the-art digital switching and fibre-optic networks to Saudi Arabia, and within hours of the news being confirmed the contract was dogged with controversy. There are allegations that President Clinton assisted AT&T in its contract win to the detriment of competitors. The massive contract will see around 1.5 million new fixed lines being installed as well as a cellular and wireless data providing service for around 200,000 subscribers. Ericsson said that it was surprised at the scope of the bid and the way in which it had been handled, and Northern Telecom said that it half expected the move as negotiations between AT&T and the Saudis were advanced when AT&T ended its exclusive supplier agreement with Bell Canada Ltd -- a NT offshoot -- earlier this year. Intense lobbying by Clinton and other US officials is said to have also helped secure a US$6 billion contract in March for commercial aircraft from the Saudis, awarded to Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. The Australian Financial Review reported that Clinton had personally wrote to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, urging him to look favourably on the AT&T bid. The New York Times added that Ronald Brown, Commerce Secretary made two personal appeals during trips to Saudi Arabia since last September and Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, spoke on AT&T's behalf during his own trip there a month ago. -BELLSOUTH IN BELGIUM MOBILE DATA PARTNERSHIP TWW-12 May 1994-BELLSOUTH IN BELGIUM MOBILE DATA PARTNERSHIP TELECOMWORLDWIRE--(C) 1994 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD BRUSSELS, BELGIUM- As revealed in Telecomworldwire (TWW090594) BelllSouth Corp's Mobile Data Inc business unit has joined forces with France Telecom Mobiles International SA to jointly build and operate a mobile data network in Belgium. This will be the first mobile data network in the country. The new venture, known as RAM Mobile Data Belgium, will spend around US$50 million on building the network, with service scheduled to start in Brussels early next year. The network will conform to the Mobitex mobile data standard, developed by Ericsson and Swedish Telecom. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In another issue of the Digest to follow later, a few more samples from a recent issue of Telecomworldwire will be presented. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 23:03:22 -0700 From: LincMad@netcom.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Directory Map Shows NNX Area Codes It's May, which means the new San Mateo County directories are out from Pacif*c Bell. Of course, I immediately turned to the area code map page, where I saw little inset maps showing area codes 520, 360, and 334, which will come into use during the life of the directory. No mention yet of any other NNX area codes. Zowie kapowie! Linc Madison * Oakland, California * LincMad@Netcom.com ------------------------------ From: ananth@access.digex.net (A N Ananth) Subject: SONET Management Standards? Date: 16 May 1994 23:49:12 -0400 Organization: Prism Communications Inc, Annapolis MD Can some knowledgeable soul throw light on the following questions: - What protocol stack is specified by the SONET standard for Operation, Administration, Maintainence & Provisioning? [I suspect the answer is full blown CMIP, ACSE, ROSE as in Bellcore TR-303] - What management platforms are currently in use at RBOCs in the US that implement such standards? Are these proprietary platforms or commercial implementations? - In practice, do SONET equipment manufacturers implement the mgt protocol specified for the OAM&P channel or is there some other protocol is common use? thanx for any help. ananth Phone: (410) 765-9281 Prism Communications Inc ------------------------------ From: JZK@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu (KANTRO JOSHUA) Subject: Need List of Area Codes Across U.S. Organization: Graduate School and University Center, C.U.N.Y. New York, NY Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 04:00:42 GMT Does anyone have or know where I can find a fairly up-to-date list of all U.S. area codes -- listed in numerical order and with the corresponding region? Thanks for any tips. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Check out the Telecom Archives in the /areacodes sub-directory. We have reasonably up-to-date lists there in numerical order. Use anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 09:48:54 GMT From: andrew@jester.usask.ca (Derek Andrew) Subject: Re: Bulk Call Display Reply-To: andrew@jester.usask.ca Organization: University of Saskatchewan In article , Tony Harminc wrote: > So what interface are they using to receive the Call Display data ? > It must be some sort of bulk interface, since they are certainly not > letting it ring once and waiting for the data to come down the wire > between the first and second rings. I wasn't aware that any such > interface was tariffed or standardized. We have a service from our local telco called Bulk Calling Line ID. We have a dedicated line to the telco, attached to a Bell 202 modem. At 1200 baud, we receive a line of ASCII text with the date, time calling line, called line, and an indication of whether the called line was busy or idle. Derek.Andrew@USask.CA ------------------------------ From: RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM Date: 17 MAY 94 23:12:00 GMT Subject: Re: Bulk Call Display > So what interface are they using to receive the Call Display data ? I believe there is just such a bulk interface available, called something like SMDA (Service Message Desk Accounting?). Anyway, I think the deal is you order trunk connections, and one SMDA line for a bunch of trunks. Whenever a call comes in on one of your trunks, info about the calling and called number (and maybe other stuff) is sent on the SMDA line. I think it is for answering services, voice mail providers, and so forth. But I imagine anyone could order it. Randall Gellens randy@mv-oc.unisys.com Net**2 656-6350 (Please forward bounces to Mail Stop MV 237 rgellens@mcimail.com) ------------------------------ From: davep@u.washington.edu (Dave Ptasnik) Subject: Re: Loop Start to Ground Start Converter Date: 17 May 1994 17:47:01 GMT Organization: University of Washington Leroy Casterline writes: > Does anyone know of an existing device which could be connected > between our box and the PBX, and between our box and the CO, so that > we can work in the above environment without re-engineering our analog > interface or changing our software?