TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 May 94 11:19:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 236 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Problems With Call Return (Monty Solomon) Anyone Use AT&T Message Service? (markr@mcil.comm.mot.com) Help with Northern Telecom Meridian System (Lance Ware) "Free Trade" Rules (Dale Wharton) Wanted: Hand-held Challenge/Response Units (Paul Gillingwater) CRTC Now Regulates Canadian Independent Telcos (Dave Leibold) Proposed Upgrading of Canada Direct Service (Dave Leibold) Enormous Sprint Rate Increase! (John McHarry) Ruling on 800 Numbers From Payphones (Stephen Goodman) How Can I Ring Up Myself? (Joseph Herl) Free Long Distance via Cellular via Cellular One (Shawn Gordhamer) Wanted: Business Phone System (Drew Benson) Help: Need TyIN 2000 Developer's Kit From National Semiconductor (T Duong) New DLD Digest FAQ Available (Van Hefner) Info on Info Superhighway Wanted (Yanghee Choi) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Monty_Solomon@bmugbost.uu.holonet.net Organization: BMUG Boston Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 06:06:33 EST Subject: Problems With Call Return Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 15:58:07 From: Russ Greene,Planet BMUG Subject: Problems With Call Return Below is a letter I'm sending to Pac Bell and the Public Utilities Commission regarding my dissatisfaction with Call Return. Feedback, comments and discussion are invited. Attn: Manager Pacific Bell P.O. Box 31024 Walnut Creek, CA 94598 May 15, 1994 Dear Madam or Sir: I'm writing to express my concern and dissatisfaction with the current implementation of Call Return. Furthermore, I urge the discontinuance of Call Return service. It is a bad idea. My situation dictates that I make numerous calls to people who have answered an ad that I run: people I do not know: When I reach someone's answering machine I often choose to leave no message. Sometimes I may reach a wrong number. Many times I get rude phone calls from people who are utilizing Call Return. These calls come at all hours of the day and night; sometimes moments after my call, sometimes days later. Here is an actual example of one of the problems I've had. I made a phone call to someone on a Monday. Upon getting her answering machine I elected to hang up. On Tuesday, more than 24 hours later, I received a phone call from someone saying "Who is this?". I said "Whom do you wish to speak with?". She said "You paged me. Who are you and what do you want?" I said "I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number, I didn't page anyone." (Remember, this is a day after I originally called this woman. There was no way for me to make a connection in my mind between the call I made on Monday and the call I received on Tuesday.) She said "Well somebody from your number called me. I just used Call Return." Eventually, after a heated discussion, I was able to convince this woman that I wasn't going to give out my name and number to someone who refused to identify herself, and that, were the tables turned, she wouldn't want to do so either. I also educated her to the reality that since she initiated the call it was appropriate for her to identify herself to me first. When she did I was able to figure out who she was by running her name through my data base file on my computer, a luxury not everybody has at their fingertips. Everything worked out in the end, this time, but it was a very uncomfortable process to get there because she did not have the education or level of courtesy to deal effectively with Call Return. In many cases things don't turn out as well as they did in this example. The lack of awareness and common courtesy, as exemplified by this woman, is part of the problem. She was ill equipped, as so many people are in our society today, to utilize Call Return in an effective and courteous manner. If used properly the difficulties with Call Return would be fewer. Even so, people utilizing Call Return are placed in the awkward position of making phone calls to unknown numbers and parties. This is wrong. If you don't know who you are calling and the number you are dialing you don't belong on the phone. Period! It follows then, that Call Return is a bad idea. With the wide availability of answering machines and electronic voice mail systems there really is no need for Call Return. Call Return, at best, is another tool for telephone companies to profit from. In reality, since it puts people in the position of calling unknown numbers and parties and demands more skills in the communications arena than many people have, it is more of a disservice to the general public than anything else. Please, see that this service is terminated. Short of discontinuing Call Return as an available service, if free, universal, Call Return Blocking was available I would be satisfied that the public would be served. BMUG Boston 617-721-5840, East Coast BBS of The World's Largest Mac User Group [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The fact that she used it in an extreme way does not make Call Return a bad idea. And there is something to be said about the writer's discourtesy in reaching an answering machine and simply hanging up without speaking, if even only to say that he did not wish to leave a message and would call again later. Ordinarily, Call Return is a good idea since it allows a person who has just missed (typically within seconds or minutes) receiving a call due to being somewhere else. However in this case the fact that the answering machine contained a blank spot -- however discourteous that may have been of the caller -- should have told her the caller did not wish to speak with her at that time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: markr@mot.com (Mark) Subject: Anyone Use AT&T Message Service? Reply-To: markr@mcil.comm.mot.com Organization: MCIL Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 11:24:16 GMT Has anyone used the AT&T Message Service yet ? I am currently living outside of the USA and usually use AT&T USA-DIRECT to call the US. Well, a few weeks ago, I called, using my calling card, and got a busy signal. After a few seconds, I hear a [computer generated] voice asking me if I want to record a message and have it sent at a later time followed by the prices. (I think it was $1.75 or $1.25, something like that per minute) All I had to do was press '#123' and I was prompted for a message and then was prompted at the end for an OK message. (i.e. press 1 or 0 or something like that) Well, it worked great ... has anyone else used this service? I assume it has been available in the USA for a while already. Comments ? Mark ------------------------------ From: lware@voxel.com (Lance Ware) Subject: Help With Northern Telecom Meridian System Organization: VOXEL Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 23:30:38 GMT I am hoping to tap into some of the wisdom of the net for assistance with our Meridian phone system. Specifically, I want to integrate our 800 number into our system. Currently the line terminates at one phone, and goes unanswered if the desk where the phone sits is vacant. I am not sure how to do this, and PacBell's support is not very helpful. The 800 line has no incoming information, like the DIDs that we have, and my manual doesn't seem to cover anything but the basic installations. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Lance Ware IS Manager & VOXEL Guru VOXEL ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 08:26:29 EDT From: Dale Wharton Subject: "Free trade" Rules This item appeared on a political economics network. Dale Wharton dale@dale.cam.org M O N T R E A L Te souviens-tu? Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 NAFTA AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS by Sid Shniad, Burnaby BC In the runup to the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Telecommunications Workers Union warned members and the general public that the deal posed a threat to the Canadian telecommunications industry. An article in the May 16 issue of the Canadian Communications Network Letter that focuses on the issue of NAFTA and telecommunications indicates that our fears were well founded. The Newsletter quotes Muriel Bradford, the newly-appointed assistant vice president of corporate affairs at Teleglobe Canada. Prior to being hired by Teleglobe, Bradford worked at the Department of External Affairs and participated in the negotiations leading up to the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, and the Uruguay Round of GATT. In Bradford's view, telecommunications policy today is being driven by an increasing preoccupation with trade liberalization. She feels that as a consequence of liberalization, government bodies like the Canadian CRTC and the US Federal Communications Commission will have less and less control over telecommunications activities within their domestic jurisdictions. Speaking at the Canadian Telecommunications Superconference in Toronto in early May, Bradford observed that "Domestic economic policymakers and regulators will be left with fewer options than ever before, and domestic carriers will no longer be able to expand and upgrade their networks secure in the knowledge that their national markets will remain shielded from foreign competitors." This development doesn't seem to bother Bradford, who sees it as providing her new employer with an opportunity to gain market share in larger foreign markets, thereby allowing Teleglobe to move from seventh place to third place among intercontinental carriers by the end of the century. For the rest of us, the prospect of government helplessness and all-out international competition in the communications industry does not appear so attractive. --------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for passing this along. Sid used to send things here to the Digest occassionally, but I have not heard from him lately. I think he grew angry at what he felt was the anti-union stance of many readers here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: paul@eunet.co.at (Paul Gillingwater) Subject: WANTED: Hand-Held Challenge/Response Units Date: 18 May 1994 21:36:50 GMT Organization: EUnet EDV-Dienstleistungsgesellschaft m.b.H I'm looking for suppliers of hand-held challenge/response cipher key systems. These will be used to improve security for a sensitive on-line (dial-up and Internet) access. I envisage they'll work as follows: 1. User connects via public network to our system; 2. Our system lets them log in as normal, but they then are "challenged" with a long code. 3. The user must enter the code into the hand-held unit, which provides the "response" using RSA or similar. 4. The user then enters the "response", which is validated against the expected value. This may involve the use of a public/private key system also, for encryption of transmitted material. I'm very hopeful that units such as I've just described exist -- if not, perhaps someone wants to make them? (e.g. based on HP-100LX). Please reply in e-mail. Commercial replies welcome (i.e. if you wanna sell me something, go ahead.) NB I'm posting from a guest account, so don't bother anyone else here. paul@actrix.co.at (Paul Gillingwater) :: Home Office in Vienna, Austria ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 19 May 94 00:30:46 -0500 Subject: CRTC now regulates Canadian independent telcos Organization: FidoNet: The Super Continental - North York, Canada [from Bell News, 16 May 94] CRTC to regulate independent telcos Only the federal government -- not provincial governments -- has the authority to regulate the 50-some independent telephone companies in Canada. So decreed the Supreme Court of Canada which ruled that Telephone Guevremont Inc. -- a Quebec-based independent telephone company -- should be regulated by the federal Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The court's decision, handed down April 26, affects all other independent telephone companies, including those that are members of the Canadian Independent Telephone Association. Prior to the decision, these companies were regulated by provincial agencies. In its decision, the Supreme Court said that, as Telephone Guevremont provides interprovincial and international communications services to its customers, it should fall under the CRTC's jurisdiction. The decision settles a dispute between Telephone Guevremont and the Regie des telecommunications, the provincial regulator of Telephone Guevremont and several other independent telephone companies operating throughout Quebec. ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 19 May 94 00:40:46 -0500 Subject: Proposed Upgrading of Canada Direct Service Organization: FidoNet: The Super Continental - North York, Canada [from Bell News, 16 May 94] New Canada Direct feature to make calling from one foreign country to another cheaper, easier Our mission to be a world leader in helping people communicate will take another leap forward if the CRTC gives the green light to enhance the Canada Direct[tm] service we offer. We want to give our customers the opportunity to use their calling cards to call from one foreign country to another and to make long distance calls within foreign countries. The Canada Direct service has been available since 1989 for customers to call back to Canada from over 90 overseas destinations. The country-to-country calling enhancement to Canada Direct that we and our Stentor partners are proposing is a convenient way for Calling Card[tm] customers to make international calls from one foreign country to another or within a foreign country. The new country-to-country calling feature of Canada Direct initially will be offered from over 50 countries where Canadians do the most international business. However, the service will not be offered from the United States. Ideally, we'd like to offer foreign country calling to all the countries where the Stentor owners currently terminate overseas calls direct dialled today. However, Stentor and Teleglobe will respect the wishes of foreign telephone administrations and will not originate or terminate calls in countries whose foreign administrations have not given us approval to offer the enhancement. Teleglobe will continue to negotiate with foreign administrations to add more countries to the service. A special long distance rate structure has been developed for the country-to- country calling enhancement that is, in most cases, lower than those rates for similar services offered by the major U.S. carriers. If the enhancement is approved by the CRTC, it will be introduced to our customers starting June 20. [sub-article] "If we'd only known!" About this Canada Direct enhancement we're asking the CRTC to approve -- is it a "nice to have" or a "need to have"? Read what an article in Ottawa's The Citizen Valley had to say about calling Canada from one foreign country. Marjorie Evers of Nepean says she almost choked when she saw the size of the bill for a call her daughter Tamara, 18, made from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. "We told her to call so we'd know she was safe," says Marjorie. "It wasn't easy." The Mexican operator insisted the call be billed to a third party. Tamara has an uncle in Florida, and the call for approval, and the bill, went to him. He passed it along to Nepean. The 14-minute call cost $130 Canadian. "And we're still waiting for the bills for four more calls." In the remaining four, Marjorie accepted the charges. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 May 94 10:21:48 EDT From: mcharry@cwc.com (McHarry) Subject: Enormous Sprint Rate Increase! Sorry about the tabloidiac header, this concerns Sprint local service in downstate Illinois. Sprint very recently obtained an effective rate increase of almost 100%, according to my parents' local paper. What they have done is to get a 5c per call charge added on to the basic service charge, which may have increased somewhat also. The area has been flat rate for at least 40 years. I wonder how they could justify such a massive increase to the Illinois Commerce Commission. Have they been operating at a loss for years? Curious. John McHarry (mcharry@cwc.com or mcharry@digex.net) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 May 94 11:20 EST From: Stephen Goodman <0003945654@mcimail.com> Subject: Ruling on 800 Numbers From Payphones Greetings all: I seem to recall about three years ago there was a ruling from Judge Greene regarding blocking 800 numbers on payphones. It seems alot of independent payphone vendors were blocking 800 number dialing on their equipment thereby preventing people from using the long-distance calling cards which used 800 numbers for access. Does anyone know if there is a document anywhere on the ruling? (The ruling was made prior to October 1992. I found an FCC document: CC Docket 92-77 10/8/92 which ordered AT&T to provide 800 access on their proprietary cards when I was doing my research.) Thanks!! 3945654@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: jherl@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph Herl) Subject: How Can I Ring Up Myself? Date: 18 May 1994 15:50:59 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Our family is moving to a new house next week, and we will have the same telephone number at both places for several days. How can I call between them? Our phone company (Ameritech) representative doesn't think this is possible, but I remember that it used to be possible years ago to "call another party on the line," and this is similar. We used to dial a code number, hang the phone up and wait for it to ring, then pick up the phone and talk when it stopped ringing. Does anyone know whether this is still possible? Joseph Herl Internet: jherl@uiuc.edu School of Music University of Illinois Telephone: +1 217 333 8733 Urbana, Illinois 61801 USA Home phone: +1 217 355 9040 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's a great service that Illinois Bell provides, allowing a number to ring at multiple locations for simply the cost of two local services. Several years ago when I moved from one place to another I used that arrangement to keep my phone service intact during the move. After about a week, I had the old location discontinued. At least in the Chicago 312/708 area, ringbacks are accomplished thus: Dial 1-57x-last four digits. The 'x' is a digit 1-9. It varies from one exchange to another so you have to test to see which works. For example, if your phone number was 555-1212 then a ring back would be generated by dialing 1-57x-1212. If you select the wrong 'x', then the result will be a fast busy signal. If you select the correct 'x', then the result will be a fresh dial tone. On hearing that new dial tone, quickly click the hook once and note that the dial tone changed to a high pitch tone. Then dial '6', and hang up. The phone will commence ringing and will ring for up to three or four minutes in the normal way before timing out. You can tell the other end has answered when the ringing stops. But when you then lift the receiver again, the high pitched tone remains on the line. It won't go away, so you have to talk over it. Obviously short to the point calls are recommended. Once you hang up, the line returns to normal in a few seconds. As a final example, if your number was 234-5678 then you would dial 1-572-5678, but the '2' might be something else depending on which exchange you are in. This works all over 312/708 but I do not know about 217, which is the area for Champaign-Urbana. This is *not* an approved or tariffed service. It is for telco testing/repair purposes only so do not abuse it or count on it being there. PAT] ------------------------------ From: shawnlg@netcom.com (Shawn Gordhamer) Subject: Free Long Distance via Cellular via Cellular One Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 17:58:37 GMT If a person has a cellular phone in Rochester, MN (507) and forwards calls to another Rochester number, a person in Minneapolis (612) can call the Cellular One roamer number, enter the Rochester cellular number, and be forwarded to the Rochester number. There are no fees for using call forwarding, and there is no airtime charges. The "roaming coordinator" said that there would be no charges billed, and this is not a "normal" thing to do. Shawn Gordhamer shawnlg@netcom.com Rochester, Minnesota USA ------------------------------ From: drew@mtu.edu (Drew Benson) Subject: Wanted: Business phone system Date: 18 May 1994 13:23:48 -0400 Organization: Michigan Technological University Reply-To: drew@mtu.edu Greetings, I'm looking for an inexpensive phone system designed for small-scale kinds of things. Not more than eight outgoing lines. I'm open to suggestions of brands, features, etc. I don't care whether it's new or used either. Features and price are what matter. Thanks, Drew Benson (drew@mtu.edu) ------------------------------ From: anhtai@engin.umich.edu (Tai Duong) Subject: Help: Need TyIN 2000 Developer's Kit from Nat. Semiconductor Date: 18 May 1994 14:44:58 GMT Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor Hello everyone. I need the Developer's Kit for National Semiconductor's TyIN 2000 voice/modem/fax card. They gave many "Beta" copies out for free but I missed the boat. I'll be willing to pay you for a copy for what ever it is worth. I don't think they have restrictions on them since they were free and is basically a small manual. For those who don't know what it is, the kit is mainly a manual that gives specs on writing software to work with the card. It also has some simple examples. I need to get my hands on some specs. I want to write a TSR that will automatically record a phone conversation as soon as you pick up the phone for any incoming or outgoing calls. Also, I want to write a simple executable to play and fast forward the phone conversation. I'll make the program freeware if anyone is interested. By the way, the TyIN 2000 is an excellent card. It costs $89 right now and has NSC's software to do voicemail and fax. I found the voice quality recordings excellent. I would recommend it to everyone. The only thing I don't like is that Nat. Semi. Conductor is a bit secretive on their cards specs since I am having a hell of a time getting some so I can write these two programs. Appreciate any help anyone can give me. Tai Duong (anhtai@engin.umich.edu) ------------------------------ From: VANTEK@aol.com Date: Wed, 18 May 94 23:40:30 EDT Subject: New DLD Digest FAQ Available We have just released a new version of the Discount Long Distance Digest Frequently Asked Questions file. Included in the FAQ is an index of all subjects covered in previous issues, a short history of the reselling industry, a resellers telecom Glossary, a brief listing of major resellers, reseller/telecom books and magazines, a breakdown of the latest carrier DDD rates and calling plans, and an appendix of agencies and companies involved in various aspects of reselling. Subscription information on Discount Long Distance Digest is also included. To receive a copy of our FAQ File e-mail us at: telconet@aol.com. Be sure to include the phrase: 'Request-FAQ' in the Subject: Field. Discount Long Distance Digest is a weekly moderated mailing list and newsletter delivered free to any e-mail recipient with internet access. We cover mostly issues pertaining to the resale of long distance telephone service. We also give specific information on resellers for people looking to get into the reselling industry, including commission schedules, rates, underlying carriers, marketing strategy, and requirements for becoming an agent. We also cover other business oppertunities in the telecom industry such as pre-paid calling cards, payphones, Operator Assisted Services, international callback services, aggregation, and telephone bill auditing. Van Hefner Moderator Discount Long Distance Digest ------------------------------ From: yhchoi@cd4680.snu.ac.kr (Yanghee Choi) Subject: Info on Info Superhighway Wanted Organization: SNU Date: Thu, 19 May 94 06:42:28 GMT Please send me any info (or info sources) on information superhighway related documents/files/announcements/seminars/servers. I'll post what I'll collect. Please send the info to yhchoi@smart.snu.ac.kr Yanghee [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, that is a rather tall order. The documents on the 'info highway' go on and on. In a way, it is almost like asking 'send me what information you have on the Telephone Company'. Everyone is running seminars on it these days it seems, and the speeches being made and testimony being given before government agencies and others has filled many an issue of this Digest among other things. Maybe you should try to narrow your request somewhat. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #236 ******************************