TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 May 94 13:30:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 248 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Equal Access is Not Available Here (Jeff Shaver) FedEx Tracking Software "Covers Up" Mistakes? (Alan Boritz) Software For Fraud Detection? (Sandra Oudshoff) Listing of Telecom EZines (Bob Allison) Book Review: "From Somaphore to Satellite" by ITU (Bob Allison) RBOCS and Video Remote Learning in Schools? (Gerry Moersdorf) Info Highway to Bypass Poor and Minorities (Anthony Wright) OSI Computer Based Training Package Available (Tom Worthington) ANI and Class of Service (was Re: 800 Number Billback) (Danny Burstein) Worldwide Areacode/Telex/Internet List Available by FTP (Paul Robinson) Miss Manners Replies to Call Return (Clarinet/AP via Steve Cogorno) Leaving a Message (Carl Moore) 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: Jeff.Shaver@f615.n14.z1.fidonet.org (Jeff Shaver) Date: 25 May 94 09:51:28 -0500 Subject: Equal Access is Not Available Here Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway My local telephone company is an independent cooperative. I have very few complaints regarding their service as a whole, except that they won't offer equal access. I can't even use the 10XXX codes, or 1-700-555-4141! The only way to access a carrier other than AT&T is to use calling cards, and that *really* adds up. I've really bugged them about this in the last several years, but they tell me the long distance carriers are "all the same, they all just lease AT&T's lines." I've called and written letters to the major carriers encouraging them to make the first move, but to no avail. I know for a fact that my telco's equipment _has_ the capability to do this, and US West customers only a few minutes away can access the other carriers. *Who* has to initiate the process -- my telco or the other carriers? Who can I write to or call to complain? I realize there are costs involved, but I'm not willing to wait until December 31, 1999 (a generic date, as quoted by an MCI representative). Will the Public Service Commission do anything about it? Anything you can tell me would be very helpful! Jeff Shaver jeff.shaver@f615.n14.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Subject: FedEx Tracking Software "Covers Up" Mistakes? From: drharry!aboritz@uunet.UU.NET (Alan Boritz) Date: Wed, 25 May 94 09:39:14 EDT Organization: Harry's Place - Mahwah NJ - +1 201 934 0861 You've probably seen the commercial where the screaming obnoxious boss is one-upp'ed by his clever secretary who uses the Federal Express package tracking software to verify delivery of priority next-day deliveries. Well, it seems that if Federal Express screws up your package delivery, the tracking software will be the LAST place you'll find out about it. I checked on a pretty important package destined for Oklahoma City, OK, today. As of 8:30 a.m. (EST) they only had it leaving Newark as of last night. When there was no update as of 11:30 a.m (the "guaranteed" delivery time), I called a customer service rep and found out that the package was actually in Denver, CO. The tracking software support people couldn't understand why none of the activity since the previous night (showing the actual location of the package) wasn't available. Federal Express's high-tech tracking software surely hasn't improved customer's efficient or cost-effective use of their services. If they mishandle your package, they'll keep the information from you and won't make good on their guarantees. Data censorship to only give good news and nothing bad (at least in print)? You bet. aboritz%drharry@uunet.uu.net or uunet!drharry!aboritz Harry's Place (drharry.UUCP) - Mahwah NJ USA - +1-201-934-0861 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 11:23:02 GMT From: A.M.Oudshoff@research.ptt.nl (Sandra Oudshoff) Subject: Software For Fraud Detection? Organization: PTT Research, Groningen, The Netherlands Hi, I'm looking for information about software available (freeware or commercial) that performs fraud detection functionalities, particularly in the area of telecommunications. If you have any information that you think might be helpful, please share this information with me. Thanks a lot in advance, Sandra Oudshoff replies preferably by e-mail to: a.m.oudshoff@research.ptt.nl ------------------------------ From: boba@gagme.wwa.com (Bob Allison) Subject: Listing of Telecom EZines Date: 25 May 1994 09:17:38 -0500 Organization: WorldWide Access - Chicago Area Internet Services 312-282-8605 Here is a list of EZines that are related to telecom, either specifically or generally. They cover things like telecom privacy, government telecom policy, etc. ______ __ ___________ _ /_ __/__ / /__ _________ ____ ___ / ____/__ / (_)___ ___ _____ / / / _ \/ / _ \/ ___/ __ \/ __ `__ \ / __/ / / / / __ \/ _ \/ ___/ / / / __/ / __/ /__/ /_/ / / / / / / / /___ / /__/ / / / / __(__ ) /_/ \___/_/\___/\___/\____/_/ /_/ /_/ /_____/ /____/_/_/ /_/\___/____/ A N D R E L A T E D E L E C T R O N I C N E W S L E T T E R S Here are some interesting electronic magazines and newsletters that are currently available. They cover telecom from the specific to the general, on such topics as telecom privacy and government policy to electronic communities and networks. Generally if an ezine is available on a news group, the publisher prefers it to be obtained that way, especially if you are just looking for a sample to read. EFFECTOR | The Electronic Frontier Foundation's membership newsletter. | It covers telecom policy updates. | E-mail: send request to brown@eff.org | FTP: ftp.eff.org | Usenet: comp.org.eff | Gopher: gopher.eff.org | EDUPAGE | Covers information technology and media. Three times a week. | Short summaries of media articles. | E-Mail: listproc@educom.edu | SUB EDUPAGE YOUR NAME | COMPUTER | Covers happenings in cyberspace, such as government policy. UNDERGROUND | E-Mail: listserv@uiucvmd.bitnet DIGEST | listserv@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu | SUB CUDIGEST YOUR NAME | Usenet: comp.society.cu-digest | FTP: etext.archive.umich.edu:/pub/CuD/ | HOTT | Gathers the latest info on computer, communications, and | electronics technologies from trade magazines, newspapers and | net resources. | E-mail: listserv@ucsd.edu | SUBSCRIBE HOTT-LIST | PRIVACY FORUM | Bit and pieces on threats to privacy. | E-mail: privacy-request@vortex.com | FTP: ftp.vortex.com | Gopher: gopher.vortex.com | NETWORKS | Focuses on the 'community' more tha technology. & COMMUNITY | E-mail: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu | SUBSCRIBE YOUR NAME) | Gopher: gopher.well.sf.ca.us | gopher.nlc-bnc.ca | COM NET NEWS | Recently introduced newsletter on community networking on the | infobahn. | E-mail: contact rbryant@hydra.unm.edu boba@gagme.wwa.com Please vote for rec.arts.ascii - CFV is available on news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, alt.ascii-art, rec.humor, comp.graphics, alt.bbs, and others. ------------------------------ From: boba@gagme.wwa.com (Bob Allison) Subject: Book Review: "From Somaphore to Satellite" by ITU Date: 25 May 1994 09:08:43 -0500 Organization: WorldWide Access - Chicago Area Internet Services 312-282-8605 For those of you interested in the history of Trans-Atlantic cobles, or the history of telecom, there's a book you might want to search for. My copy is rather old, so if there was no update to it; you may have to look for an old edition. The book is called 'From Somaphore to Satellite'. It was published by the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) in 1963. It covers everything up to that year. It's a big format, 344 page volume. The parts covering the history of the Trans-Atlantic cable were very interesting, at least to me. The book has some interesting old pictures too. ---------------- Please vote for rec.arts.ascii - CFV is available on news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, alt.ascii-art, rec.humor, comp.graphics, alt.bbs, and others. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Perhaps you or someone else with a copy of the book would like to quote some of the more interesting excerpts here in the Digest. Please send them in. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gerry@aisun.aiinet.com (Gerry Moersdorf) Subject: RBOCS & Video Remote learning in Schools? Date: 25 May 1994 13:19:36 -0400 Organization: Applied Innovation, Inc. Reply-To: gerry@aiinet.com Does anyone have an opinion on what the RBOCS are trying to do by pushing TV remote learning grants and equipment to school systems? The schools in our district don't even have telephones in classrooms let alone a LAN for a client server teaching tool. To me the priorities are all turned around. What possible business could RBOCS build with the "poor" school districts? Gerry Moersdorf --- Applied Innovation Inc gerry@aiinet.com 614-798-2000 Dublin, Ohio 43017 The datacom pbx guys [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You raise an excellent point, and I would refer interested readers to a related article which is presently circu- lating in alt.dcom.telecom which discusses the 'information highway' and how it seems to be bypassing a lot of poorer communities in the opinion of the author of the article. I am attaching it as the next item in this issue of the Digest. I do not agree entirely with the conclusions of the article, but it is worth thinking about. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cme@access2.digex.net (Center for Media Education) Subject: Info Highway to Bypass Poor and Minorities, Groups Reveal Date: 25 May 1994 00:03:20 GMT Organization: Washington, DC [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Forwarded from alt.dcom.telecom FYI. PAT] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MAY 23, 1994 FROM: Center for Media Education (CME) Consumer Federation of America (CFA) Media Access Project (MAP) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Office of Communication, United Church of Christ (UCC) For more information, see contact persons listed at the end of this note. "INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY" COULD BYPASS LOW INCOME AND MINORITY COMMUNITIES Consumer and Civil Rights Groups Urge FCC To Prevent "Electronic Redlining" by Baby Bells WASHINGTON, DC -- A coalition of consumer and civil rights groups today called upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to outlaw "electronic redlining" as local telephone companies start to construct the "information superhighway." In two petitions filed today, the coalition submitted to the Commission research documenting that these companies are designing their advanced comunications systems to bypass many low income and minority communities. The research was based on an examination of applications from each of the Regional Bell Operating Companies which have filed video dialtone proposals with the FCC. "Our analysis reveals a clear pattern," concluded Jeffrey Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Media Education. "Low income and minority neighborhoods are being systematically underrepresented in these plans." In their petitions, the groups urged the FCC to clarify the rules that prevent such practices and to issue a policy statement reaffirming the Commission's commitment to the goals of universal service and nondiscriminatory deployment. "At each phase of video dialtone deployment," the coalition argued, "providers should be required to make that service available to a proportionate number of lower income and minority customers." The groups also called on the FCC to revise its policies to ensure greater public participation in the development of these new communications networks. For example, they urged the Commission to require telephone companies to hold public hearings with local officials and consumers in order to get permission to provide video dialtone services. "Right now," explained Bradley Stillman, Legislative Counsel of the Consumer Federation of America, "the phone companies get to decide when, where and how these networks will be built and paid for without any input from the communities that will be served by them. That is not the way we deployed either telephone service or cable TV, which are merged in the video dialtone proposals." Added CME's Jeffrey Chester, "These video dialtone networks could become the primary communications system for millions of Americans. They must be made available in an equitable and nondiscriminatory manner." "The building of the information superhighway is the civil rights issue of the 21st century," stated Anthony Pharr of the Office of Communication, United Church of Christ. "As in the banking and insurance fields, this sort of discrimination is patently wrong. It hurts the communities that need help the most." "Redlining within the telecommunications industry is a front-line challenge to the civil rights community and must be addressed in the national telecommunications legislation now before Congress," added Wade Henderson, Director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP. The research compared census tract data to maps and other documents submitted to the FCC by the local telephone companies. At least two cities for each of four Baby Bells were analyzed: the Ameritech applications in Indianapolis, IN and Chicago, IL; Bell Atlantic applications in Toms River, NJ and the Washington, DC metropolitan area; Pacific Telesis applications for the California areas of Orange County, San Diego, and the South Bay of San Francisco; and U.S. West applications for Portland, OR, Minneapolis, MN, and Denver, CO. These networks would intitially reach approximately 4 million homes. Applications for the construction of these and other video dialtone platforms are currently under review at the FCC. The analysis revealed two patterns. In some cases entire counties were bypassed, while more affluent neighboring counties were selected for service. For example, Bell Atlantic chose the wealthier suburbs of northern Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland rather than the District of Columbia and Prince George's County, Maryland both of which contain large minority populations. In other cases, the unserved areas comprise a section carved out of the middle of a city. For example, as one of the petitions explained, "The map of U.S. West's scheduled deployment in Denver depicts a large slice running through the center of the city where video dialtone facilities will not be initially constructed. Lower income and/or minority persons are heavily concentrated in the excluded area." A separate computer analysis of Ameritech's proposal for the Chicago area, undertaken by the Office of Communication, United Church of Christ, led to similar conclusions. The Center for Media Education's "Future of Media" Project supported the demographic research of Dr. Mark Cooper, Research Director of the Consumer Federation of America. Groups supporting the petition include the Center for Media Education (CME), Consumer Federation of America (CFA), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), National Council of La Raza (NCLR), and the Office of Communication, United Church of Christ (UCC). The Institute for Public Representation, Georgetown University Law Center (IPR), and the Media Access Project (MAP) provided the legal counsel in preparing the petitions to the FCC. The issue of electronic redlining is expected to be discussed by the Senate Commerce Committee in hearings sheduled for tomorrow, May 24. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Jeff Chester, Center for Media Education (202) 628-2620 Bradley Stillman, Consumer Federation of America (202) 387-6121 Anthony Pharr, Office of Communication, United Church of Christ (202) 331-4265 Andrew Schwartzman, Media Access Project (202) 232-4300 ---------------- Anthony E. Wright cme@access.digex.net Coordinator, Future of Media Project Center for Media Education 1511 K St, NW, #518, Wash., DC 20005 Tel: 202-628-2620 Fax: 202-628-2554 ------------------------------ From: tomw@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Tom Worthington) Subject: OSI Computer Based Training Package Available Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 05:22:01 GMT THE ESSENTIAL GOSIP EDUCATION PROGRAM STANDARDS AUSTRALIA The Essential GOSIP is an interactive training and development program which provides a framework for developing a plan for GOSlP (Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile) implementation. THE ESSENTIAL GOSIP PROGRAM Assists in the planning, development, implementation and management of adopting GOSIP within your organisation. The interactive GOSIP educational material provided allows the user to work through the three key GOSIP planning stages. These stages - Where are we now?, Where do we want to be? and How do we get there? are as used in the Commonwealth Information Technology Planning Guidelines (CITP). A wide range of supporting theory and research information is available on line: * a library covering more than seventy topics * a full glossary of terms * case studies from Australia and overseas * extra resources - such as access to on-line documents. THE PURCHASE OPTIONS The Essential GOSIP is available for purchase as a single user licence, a site licence for up to eight users or as a customised program. To obtain a free demonstration disk of the Essential GOSIP package, contact: Standards Australia PO Box 1055, Strathfield NSW 2135 Phone (02)7464600 Fax (02)7463333 X.400: S=BASSETT;O=SAA;P=SA;A=TELEMEMO;C=AU Internet: bassett@saa.sa.telememo.au Posted by TOM WORTHINGTON, Director of Information Management Policy HQ Australian Defence Force, Fax: +61 6 2653601 G=T;S=Worthington;OU=CM-DIMP;O=HQADF;P=ausgovdefencenet;A=telememo;C=au ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: ANI and Class of Service (was Re: 800 Number Billback) Date: 25 May 1994 09:40:51 -0400 In steven@sgb.oau.org (Steven Bradley) writes: > Well, here is my two cents worth ... if you really want to aggravate > these legal con-artists, do this: > Call the service as much as you want and as often as you can from PAY > PHONES and see how easily they (don't) get their money then! [some more stuff deleted} to which our Esteemed Moderator added, in part: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What actually happens is that the > Information Provider has a database of pay telephone numbers and > yes, you will waste ten cents of his money dialing him and getting > him to answer but you certainly will not get him to part with any > of his valuable 'information'. [stories of calling various 800-to-billing services deleted] to which dannyb@panix.com explains: Not quite. The usual technique for sorting out incoming calls is to have the telco provide teh phone number, -and- the 'class of service'. This is part of feature group d and might be in 'c' as well. This lets the tele-sleaze opertor know whether the call is coming from a residential phone, a business, a telco coin phone, a cocot (if properly registered at the local office), and a few other designations such as prisons and, if I recall corectly, phones at a hospital. BTW, some groups -do- use ANI for a related purpose, namely to reduce 'excess' calls to their number. (Remember the huge volume of calls that were sent to Falwell's number?) A good example of this is the 1-800-WHY-GUNS setup. If you call it you get a recording describing the need for gun control, etc. Call it a second time and you get the same message. Call it a -third- time and you get a message saying something like 'because try to jam our phone lines, we have to limit you to three calls to our number. Please call xxx-yyyy in the future' Calling it a fourth time gets you a busy or intercept. BTW #2: There is, sensibly enough, a time-out on the restriction. I just called them again from a phone line which had been blocked in the past and got through. Seems they figured out that a two week hold on calls was a good compromise. dannyb@panix.com (or dburstein@mcimail.com) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 13:05:36 EDT From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: Worldwide Areacode/Telex/Internet List Available by FTP Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA I am in the process of final submission of a replacement document for my Internet RFC 1394. This document contains a list of all international as well as US Area codes, telex area codes in both international and F.36 formats, time zones, data network numbers, large Internet Gateways and Internet Base-Level domain names. I would like to request comments on the and content of the information (e.g. is there related information I should have considered adding) as well as any inaccuracies in the information I have provided. This document is, in my opinion, essentially finished but I would like to offer members of the Internet Community the opportunity to view the document and point out any possible errors. The document is 141K in size uncompressed and is obtainable through FTP at: ftp.digex.net: /pub/access/tdarcos/newrfc.txt or in compressed forms of: newrfc.txt.gz, newrfc.txt.Z, newrfc.zip and newrfc.zoo, so you can grab whichever one is easiest to handle; the compressed forms must be extracted with BINARY mode ftp. Those without FTP access should write back to this address; the FTPMAIL server at decwrl is probably too slow to provide a response in time. Indicate if you can accept a MIME coded document or UUENCODE, or if you need plain text. I intend to submit this document as a proposed RFC by June 7, e.g. in a little over one week unless I receive reports of a "showstopping" error in the document. Corrections and comments will be appreciated. Please feel free to forward this note elsewhere. Thank you for your interest and attention. Paul Robinson ------------------------------ To: telecom@coyote.channel1.com Subject: Miss Manners Objects to Being Used On Wednesday, May 25 in issue 14-248 of this Digest, a reprint of an article by Miss Manners appeared as item 11 of 12. Submitted by Steve Cogorno, it originally appeared in Clarinet and apparently Steve had not obtained permission to reprint it here. I made the erroneous assumption he had. Although it ran intact, with some added commentary by Steve, and the copyright notices, etc were all intact, with credit given to Clarient and the syndicate which distributes Miss Manners, Brad Templeton of Clarinet says it should not have appeared in TELECOM Digest without his permission. In a note to both Steve Cogorno and myself, Mr. Templeton demanded that the article be removed from circulation. He also sent along a little pre-printed apology form letter which everyone involved is supposed to publish in a conspicuous place in the same manner in which the original article was published. Steve sent me his copy of the notice to be run under his name, and it is identical to the one sent directly to me. Note that it includes a blurb on how one might subscribe to Clarinet if one wishes to do so. So, article 11 of 12, issue 248, volume 14 is being overwritten in the archives with this note of explanation, and I must ask all readers to likewise remove the Miss Manners article on 'Call Return' and substitute this message in its place. There now follows Mr. Templeton's suggested notice, for the record submitted by Steve Cogorno and myself. He says this will serve as our pennace for violating his copyright. ------------------------------- From: cogorno@netcom.com (Steve Cogorno) Subject: ClariNet News Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 20:08:07 -0700 (PDT) Cc: brad@alto.clarinet.com Recently I posted an article from Miss Manners regarding the use of Call Return to this newsgroup from the ClariNet electronic newspaper. This was a copyrighted item that I should not have posted without permission. It has been deleted. Those wishing to know how to get such articles legitimately for their site can contact ClariNet at info@clarinet.com. Steve cogorno@netcom.com #608 Merrill * 200 McLaughlin Drive * Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1015 From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: ClariNet News Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 12:00:00 CDT Cc: brad@alto.clarinet.com Recently I posted an article from Miss Manners regarding the use of Call Return to this newsgroup from the ClariNet electronic newspaper. This was a copyrighted item that I should not have posted without permission. It has been deleted. Those wishing to know how to get such articles legitimately for their site can contact ClariNet at info@clarinet.com. Patrick Townson ---------------------- It would be best in the future I think if readers would simply refrain from sending me stuff that has appeared in Clarinet. There are lots of other sources for the same news. Thank you. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 94 16:30:56 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Leaving a Message I saw the blurb about call-return. I don't have that feature. However, I wonder what sort of calls are getting filtered out when they reach the answering service operator at my Delaware and Maryland telephone numbers. I know there are calls going to there from both numbers, because they cost me on my phone bills (message units in Delaware and tolls in Maryland). Pos- sibly those are unwanted sales calls that get filtered out, but I had a case several years ago where someone reached that answering service and left only a message that (making up the name) "George Smith called". I had no way of knowing who that was, so I could do nothing until that person called again a week later and left a telephone number as well. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #248 ******************************