TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Jun 94 13:04:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 287 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Still Another 800 Forwarding Service (TELECOM Digest Editor) Long Range Radio Modems (Dinesh Rehani) France and Germany to Buy Sprint (Clive D.W. Feather) Call Progress Tones (Scott Coleman) IXC's and InterLATA CID (Jeffrey W. McKeough) More Sneaky MCI Marketing (T. Stephen Eggleston) Oncor Slam (Rob Boudrie) Sprint, eh? (John R. Levine) Smooth Operator (Compass Voice Mail) (Eric A. Litman) Nine Track IBM Standard Labels (Aaron Jones) Assured Service (Bob Schwartz) International 900 Numbers (Joe Bowker) Problem With Telecom Archives pager.bin.uqx (Neil Weisenfeld) List of NACN Cities Wanted (Don Wegeng) Pac Bell to Offer Remote Access to Call Forwarding (Richard Kashdan) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:22:47 CDT From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Still Another 800 Forwarding Service After posting that message last week about 'My Line', I got a fax from another firm offering the same service located here in the Chicago area, and I will tell you about it today. Arch Telecom is located in Northbrook, Illinois; a suburb of Chicago and just a couple miles northwest of where I live. Steven Friedlander, President of the Sales Group at Arch Telecom sent me a fax describing their 800 service, and it appears to be quite similar to 'My Line'. The major difference seems to be in the pricing, which also is quite similar to 'My Line' but handled differently. Depending on your own application it may work out better for you. Arch Telecom includes a fraud protection/cost control feature. They guarentee not to charge a customer for more than $50 if there is fraudulent usage on the account, and they allow the customer to set geographic restrictions on the outbound calling portion of their service to further guard against abuse or misuse of the service. Like 'My Line', the 800 service from Arch allows outbound calling via an inbound call to your personal 800 number. Arch also offers voicemail for incoming 800 calls, and an additional feature they offer which 'My Line' seems not to have is a toll-saver arrangement. If you call your 800 number, it will answer immediatly if there are messages in voicemail; otherwise if there are no messages calls to your number will ring two times before answering. If all you wish to do is check for messages you can hang up if you hear the ring and save yourself the cost of the call. Arch offers ANI/DNIS capture on all calls which make it as far as the voicemail system, even if no actual message is left. You can also get the time and date for any access made to voicemail via your number. I don't think 'My Line' offers this, at least as of yet. In addition to message notification, where a call is made out to a pager to to notify you of voicemail received, the Arch Telecom system offers zero transfer and voicemail transfer, meaning you can receive a call and while conversing transfer the call elsewhere, or to the voicemail if you prefer. Like 'My Line', calls to your 800 number can be forwarded instantly to wherever you choose; you control the destination by calling your own number and punching in new instructions which take effect at the same time as you enter them. For additional fraud protection, and to prevent nuisance callers from reaching you, Arch Telecom's system allows ANI blocking and passing. You can allow or deny access to your 800 number on a phone number by phone number basis. You can block specific numbers or entire area codes as desired. Arch Telecom says they can route your incoming 800 calls based on the caller's location. That is, callers from Chicago might get sent through to the Chicago office while calls in Missouri might get sent to the office in St. Louis, etc. They offer online, up to the second call detail if you have a PC and a modem ... and who among the TELECOM Digest readers woudn't have one! You can call in and view your phone activity and billings on a 'real time' basis for analysis. You need 'PC Anywhere' for windows software. MONTHLY RATES AND PER MINUTE CHARGES: Arch refers to their service as 'Vision 800'. The monthly recurring line charge is $20.00 for an Arch Telecom 800 number, but according to what I received, that charge is presently being waived, at least for new customers. For comparison, 'My Line' charges $8.50 plus $9.50 if you want voicemail. Per minute charges are rated by band, with the USA divided into six bands. Charges are further calculated by time of day and day of week. For example, the closest points (band one) are charged 23.9 cents per minute weekday business hours. Far away points (band six) are charged 28.8 cents per minute. Evening rates range from 19.7 cents per minute to 23.7 cents per minute. Night and weekend rates range from 16.8 cents per minute to 19.9 cents per minute. For comparison, 'My Line' charges 25 cents per minute, all times. So if your usage is primarily evenings and weekends, then Arch Telecom is less expensive. Bear in mind the monthly recurring charge difference between Arch and 'My Line' is only one dollar ($20 vrs. $19 per month) however if you don't want the voicemail part, 'My Line' does let you opt out and get by for $8.50 per month instead. As far as I can tell by reading what I got from Arch, voicemail is part of the package and not optional. If your usage is primarily during weekday business hours, then Arch rates are about equal to 'My Line' for many calls, and slightly higher on others. From the table they sent me and based on my own calls as an example, I think Arch would be about a penny per minute higher during the day on average. Evenings and nights are always cheaper on Arch, sometimes by as much as five cents per minute. But, Arch also gives discounts on total dollar usage per month. If you use more than $50 per month, they give a five percent discount off the total. If you use more than $350.00 per month, the discount is ten percent. This in effect would bring the cost of daytime calls down to equal 'My Line', or maybe even a little less. Overall, it looks to me like Arch Telecom is aiming for business customers with a higher volume of traffic. Whether your calling pattern is mostly days, mostly nights/weekends, etc is an applications problem you have to solve. That's not to say that 'My Line' would not like some large business customers as well, but the pricing (per month recurring without voicemail and per minute charges) probably would be a little more appealing than what Arch is asking. Again, you have to analyze your own application and if you can make Arch pay off in the long run based on your own configuration and calling patterns, then go for it. Arch has a second plan which may be more to your liking: They average out the calls at rates of: 24.5 cents per minute during the day; 20.5 cents per minute during the evening, night and weekend hours. On this plan there is no monthly charge or installation charge, but there is a $5 per month minimum usage requirement. For a very low volume user, this might be much more in line with what you want to pay; this plan certainly is better than 'My Line' but it is unclear to me if it includes all the fancy features described above which apply to 'Vision 800'. If Arch is giving automtic forwarding of calls and voicemail essentially free under this second plan (I do not know that to be the case or not), then obviously it is a better deal than 'My Line' with its $8.50 per month and optional $9.50 per month deal and per minute charges of 25 cents flat rate. One other point not touched on clearly in the fax I got from Arch was the pricing on outbound calls. 'My Line' gets 55 cents for the first minute and 25 cents each additional minute on calls outbound via your 800 number. I *assume* -- might be wrong -- that Arch charges the same rates for outgoing calls that they charge on incoming stuff per the figures shown above. If so, then the question is are you going to be making more outgoing calls via that number (eliminating the use of a conventional calling card) than you are going to receive incoming calls ... if so, Arch again is best in pricing. If not, then maybe 'My Line' is your best deal. This message has already gotten quite long, and there are parts of the Arch Telecom service I have not even touched on such as the interactive voice response service, the fax on demand, and other neat things. One thing though is certain -- this I do know: the days of the old style 800 number, good for incoming calls only are over with. Remember how here in the Digest we used to discuss the fact that (back then) only Cable and Wireless was offering 'forwardable 800' ... and remember how AT&T charged so much for their 'Ready Line', to say nothing of their more conventional, dedicated line 800 service? And what about those poor fools using the MCI shared-line, insert a PIN number after getting answered numbers? Wny would *anyone* bother with MCI, Sprint or AT&T 800 service these days when new and exciting services like Arch Telecom, 'My Line', Cable and Wireless and others are around? For more information on Arch Telecom's 800 services, you can contact them as follows: Steven Friedlander stevenf624@aol.com Arch Telecom 3330 W. Dundee Road #C-8 Northbrook, IL 60062 Phone: 800-ARCHTEL 708-509-ARCH Fax: 708-509-1182 Mention that you read about their service in TELECOM Digest. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 06:57:32 MST From: Dinesh Rehani +44 400 81999 Subject: Long Range Radio Modems I have been trying for over a year to get BT to install a 64kbps grade line (the BTspeak is KiloStream) to my office without any success so far, and without much hope for the next half year or so. I am therefore looking at alternative means of obtaining 64kbps capability. I recall having seen (not "read") a spate of articles recently regarding radio-modems. Would someone enlighten me on these please? I intend to have Cisco routers on each end, and the two nodes I need connected are about 60 miles as the crow flies ... Thanks and regards, dinesh rehani rehani@utcdsv.sinet.slb.com ------------------------------ Subject: France and Germany to buy Sprint Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 08:21:48 +0100 (BST) From: Clive D.W. Feather According to the BBC today, the France and German PTTs are to take a 20% stake in Sprint (similar to British Telecom's share in MCI). Clive D.W. Feather Santa Cruz Operation clive@sco.com Croxley Centre Phone: +44 923 816 344 Hatters Lane, Watford Fax: +44 923 210 352 WD1 8YN, United Kingdom ------------------------------ From: genghis@ilces.ag.uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman) Subject: Call Progress Tones Date: 15 Jun 94 13:57:05 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana The following chart summarizes common call progress tones as well as the DTMF frequency combinations. I asked about these earlier, but all I got were "tell me what you found" responses, so this post is for those guys. ;-) Also, if anyone spots any errors, please feel free to correct them. Pat, I'm sure this will make a good addition to the Telecom Archives. I know I wish it had been there when I looked a few weeks back. ;-) BTW, the source is the October '93 issue of Circuit Cellar INK magazine in an article on a telephone interface for a home automation system. Call Progress Tones Function Frequency On Time Off Time (Hz) (seconds) (seconds) Dial 350 + 440 continuous Busy 480 + 620 0.5 0.5 Ringback 440 + 480 2 4 No Such Number 200 to 400 continuous FM @ 1 Hz Left Off Hook 1400 + 2060 + 0.1 0.1 2450 + 2600 Congestion 480 + 620 0.2 0.3 Reorder 80 + 620 0.3 0.2 Ring Back PBX 440 + 480 1 3 DTMF Tone Combinations 697 Hz 770 Hz 852 Hz 941 Hz 1209 Hz 1 4 7 0 1336 Hz 2 5 8 * 1477 Hz 3 6 9 # 1633 Hz A B C D Scott Coleman tmkk@uiuc.edu President ASRE (American Society of Reverse Engineers) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 01:25:54 -0400 From: jwm@student.umass.edu (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Subject: IXC's and InterLATA CID Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst Having read the text of the FCC's Caller ID decision, I am curious to know if any carriers have announced their schedule for transmitting CNID between LATAs. The FCC has mandated April 12, 1995 as the effective date by which all carriers must comply, but it seems possible, especially given reports of sporadic CID delivery, that capable carriers may go nationwide before that deadline. The decision also asked for comments regarding other CID-based services, including Return Call, and Repeat Call. From the looks of the report, it would seem that the arguments that led to nationwide CID with per-call (*67/1167) blocking would tend to argue for the use of these services on a nationwide basis as well. The only difficulty that comes to mind would be the use of Return Call to numbers that had blocked CID delivery. The most sensible compromise (IMO) would be to preserve both parties' privacy by allowing Return Call on blocked numbers without revealing the actual number to the party invoking the Return feature, as NYNEX does in MA. Is this current practice in most states? (I believe that it is not true for MN.) BTW, while paging through the archives (via Gopher), I came across a post by someone who intended to switch to the first carrier that offered interLATA CID. Am I correct in believing that the IXC of the caller, and not the recipient, would be the one delivering the information? If so, such a switch would only guarantee that the individial's outgoing LD calls would deliver his CID to the recipient, and not vice versa. Jeffrey W. McKeough jwm@student.umass.edu ------------------------------ From: nuance@access.digex.net (T. Stephen Eggleston) Subject: More Sneaky MCI Marketing Date: 15 Jun 1994 03:00:06 -0400 Organization: Nuance Data Systems, Alexandria, VA 22304 Well, this one took the cake. MCI sent a "check" for 25.00, which when cashed switched my service. Nothing unusual here, but they sent it to my teenage daughter. She has NEVER had a phone in her name. She came to me and told me she was going to the bank. Someone sent me a check, and all I have to do is sign it. Again, she is a kid, living at home, and has NEVER EVER had a phone in her name. I was tempted to let her do it, and see what legal goodies I could pull, but decided I had too much of a life to play games with "The Phone Company." I did, however, call my carrier (Sprint) and told them about the "dirty trick." They said that if I would send them the entire package with a brief note explaining this, they would credit my account the 25.00. Not of great importance, but what are these folks going to stoop to next? "Hey little girl, want a piece of candy, just initial this box!" Talk about sleaze ball marketing! And people complain about Amway and Jehovah's Witnesses ... MCI, the C&S of the Phone Business! $include flameshield. But Then Again, I Could Be Wrong Steve Eggleston Internet:nuance@access.digex.net Nuance Data Systems (703)823-8963 CIS:72040,713 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note" I doubt that MCI *knew* she is only a child. I am sure there was a data entry error somewhere from some other list where they obtained her name. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rboudrie@chpc.org (Rob Boudrie) Subject: Oncor Slam Date: 14 Jun 1994 22:58:11 -0400 Organization: Center for High Performance Computing of WPI A visitor to a club I'm in recently used the coin unit to call long distqance from MA to NJ. The phone labeled AT&T, and the readback from 1-700-555-4141 confirms an AT&T connection. But, this person made two card calls and received a bill from Oncor (at $7 for the one minute call and $12 for the five minute call). Anyone know any way this could happen? Is there such a thing as slamming an individual call on a phone defaulted to AT&T? rob boudrie rboudrie@chpc.org PS: please copy reply to email as I am an intermittent reader of this group. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Read the tag on the phone carefully. All *coin calls* (which is what 1+ would be from a payphone; the caller would have to deposit coins in the box) everywhere in the USA are handled by AT&T. They are the only company set up with equipment in the telco central offices to handle coin collections. Now zero plus calls from a coin phone are a different matter. They can go to whatever carrier happens to have that pay phone assigned to them. The tag on the phone should have said something like 'operator services to this phone are provided by Oncor'. In some cases, the tag is identical to all others except after the phrase 'provided by' a tiny slice of paper with the word 'Oncor' was pasted on top of whatever had been there before. This is done when the phone starts out one way and zero plus gets defaulted elsewhere at some point in time. This sounds to me like the default was changed but the tag on the front was not. Usually this is the job of the coin collector when s/he comes around to get the money from time to time. If the phone in your club is *semi-public*, which is quite likely, then the club pays a monthly fee for it to be there even though telco gets all the coins and no commission is paid. If that is the case, then whoever in your club is responsible for the phone got to pick the carrier. I would suspect that person was approached by a sales rep for Oncor and told that they would receive a better commmission on long distance calls than what AT&T/local telco was willing to provide, so they made the switch. On the other hand, if the coin phone in your club is 'public', or commissionable, then telco is technically the 'subscriber' to the phone, and telco is required to distribute its long distance zero plus traffic from coin phones on an even-handed basis, assigning some phones to AT&T, some to Sprint, etc ... in the case of coins deposited in the box, (what would be one plus traffic) as stated above, AT&T gets that by default since they are they only company equipped to handle it. This probably explains the confusion. The tag was not correctly updated to match the realities of where the phone was assigned for zero plus calls, and a call to *1* plus 700-555-4141 will correctly yield AT&T as the carrier for those (coin paid) calls. ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Sprint, eh? Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 23:17:00 EDT The current {America's Network} (formerly TE&M, a rag read by most telco engineering managers) reports that Sprint's Canadian affiliate is now cranking up an advertising campaign for Canadian customers. By a huge stroke of luck, spokesbeing Candice Bergen, who is married to French filmmaker Louis Malle, speaks fluent French and is doing both the English and French commercials. Competing carriers in Quebec sniff that there's more to capturing the Quebec market than a few commercials in French. Speaking of French, I hear that Sprint today in the wake of their failed talks with EDS announced a multi-billion dollar investment by the monopoly carriers France Telecom and Deutche Telekom. Sprint will sell 20% of the company over several years for $4.2 billion in cash. A joint Global Partnership will market combined services worldwide, and they may invite an Asian carrier or two to join. AT&T promptly complained, not without reason, that it's unfair that the European monopoly carriers can invest in U.S. carriers, but AT&T can't buy into Europe. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: elitman@proxima.com (Eric A. Litman) Subject: Smooth Operator (Compass Voice Mail) Date: 14 Jun 1994 10:54:12 -0500 Organization: Proxima, Inc. Has anyone on this group used Compass Technology's Smooth Operator PC-based voice mail system? I am in the market for a system, and am going through the merits of a PC-based system as opposed to picking up an aftermarket Octel system. Apparently, Compass was purchased by Octel a few years ago, and now sells one of their products as the Call Performer. Notes on this would be welcome, as well. Eric Litman Proxima, Inc. vox: (703) 506.1661 Director, Network Services McLean, VA elitman+@proxima.com ------------------------------ From: aoj@access3.digex.net (aaronjones) Subject: Nine Track IBM Standard Labels Date: 14 Jun 1994 17:47:55 GMT Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Hi there, I'm trying to deal with Bell Canada's SYGMA (Bell's Computer Systems Group) to exchange information on 9-track magnetic tapes. They require that the tapes that we ship to them have (drum roll please) ... "Standard IBM Labels" Bell SYGMA has said that we should contact IBM for the format of these labels. I've tried to do so and failed most miserably (sigh). I did get to talk to a rather large number of nice people at IBM, but unfortunately none of them were able to help me. BTW, these are labels written to the tape media rather than little adhesive stickers on the side of the reel. ;-) Any and all help with this would be greatly appreciated. Adv-thanks-ance, Aaron Jones Ph: (416) 213-2040 InterAccess Consulting Fax:(416) 213-5760 Toronto, Ontario Email: aoj@digex.net ------------------------------ From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Subject: Assured Service Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 12:39:19 PDT Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California According to an article in {Teleconnect Magazine} a couple of months ago Assured service is costly and often identical to Basic service. Are there ever any situations under which Assured service is necessary? Bob Schwartz bob@bci.nbn.com Bill Correctors, Inc. +1 415 488 9000 Marin County, California [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wouldn't that (if they were identical or not) depend on who was giving the 'assurances', and whether or not a technically sophisticated person (like most Digest readers I assume) felt they could accept such guarantees and 'assurances'? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joe Bowker Subject: International 900 Numbers Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:14:31 EDT I thought I was safe from my teenage sons from using 900/976 numbers, but I was wrong. I have had my 900/976 numbers blocked for my home phone for some time now. I recently got hit for about $135 worth of international calls to adult enterainment services in the Dominican Republic and Sao Tome. Although the guilty party has been caught (eleven year old son) and is being punished and I don't think he'll do it again (if he wants to see the ripe age of twelve). I would like to spread the word that these slime balls are coming up with new and inventive ways to get around the call blocking. My questions for the net are: 1. Has anyone ever succesfully had this type of charges reversed? (LD carrier is Sprint) If so how did you manage it? Sprint is stonewalling me and refuses to write them off. 2. How successfully can one get the local CO to block this sort of call, without making it impossible to use the phone for all international calls? 3. Have there been any recent court/legal cases that may be relevant? If I challenge the charges, do I have any chances of winning? Or will it be just a delaying action that annoys the LD carrier and eventually I will end up paying? Joe Bowker EMail: bowker@mse1.enet.dec.com Digital Equipment Corp 508-858-3021 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let's repeat together the long-standing rule, expresssed time and again: each person is responsible for the use(s) made of his instruments. Period. You are legally going to have to pay. Sprint may or may not decide as a matter of goodwill to write off the charges; and a write off it will be since they have no recourse against the telco which accepted the inbound traffic. For those not in the know about this, here is what is happening: the business of international calls is a lucrative one. Although they do not cost much more than domestic long distance calls, they are priced much higher. As a result, anyone who can generate a lot of international calls (by 'a lot' I mean many, many thousands of dollars worth of them per month) can solicit and will receive -- with pleasure! -- a commission from the international carrier handling the traffic. Now, how do you stir up lots of international calls? Simple ... you advertise in the media in one nation telling the citizens there to call for something they want in another country and you tell them why it is better to do it that way. You appeal to the interests of those people. Care for a couple examples? Newspaper adver- tisements in Spain and Italy encourage those people to call a number in New Jersey, USA for consultation with an astrologer. On the flip side of the coin, newspapers in the USA, such as the {Advocate} and {Windy City Times}, to name two examples, run advertisements encouraging gay guys to meet other gay people for hot chat by dialing a number in Guyana or in Bonaire, Netherland Antilles. Now you ask, why would a person place an international call to do that? The advertisements explain why: "No premium or 900 charges! No charges on your credit card! All you pay is the regular toll!" If you have ever used a 900 service and paid three dollars per minute, or had charges like that billed on your credit card, then obviously the savings are quite apparent. The toll charge is only 50-75 cents per minute. Now your next question quite logically follows: If all the caller has to pay is the toll charge, and the telco gets that, then how does the 'information provider' -- the dude with his conference bridge setup handling all that hot chat -- get paid? How do the astrologers in New Jersey get paid? He gets paid a commission, or kickback by the international carrier. They get five or ten cents per minute of traffic sent their way. The telecom administration in the foreign country gets a piece of the action also which helps a lot in getting their outstanding balance cleaned up with AT&T. 'Everyone' benefits: the IP gets rich, the telcos make out like bandits, and the gay guys or dirty old men or whoever in the USA call those numbers get much lower phone bills. 'Everyone' that is, except the parents of eleven year old boys who are curious about life ...:) Its not just Sprint, or those hooligans at Telesphere (or whatever name they are going by now) involved. Would the Mother Company -- AT&T, the Grand Dame of telcos -- engage in such dealings? You betcha! Madam Bell runs electronic houses of ill-repute also ... what's that number in Colorado which can only be reached by using the AT&T network? Then there is that advertisement which ran in the underground newspapers for awhile showing these dudes with boots and leather, whips and chains and a caption saying, "Make new friends using AT&T ... reach out and touch the one you've been seeking ... call <10288-011-international number in Netherland Antilles> ... no premium charges! Just regular toll charges apply on your call." Hot chat over the long-distance telephone is a lucrative business, especially when an established carrier is willing to handle the mechanics for you. Your options in the future? Get one of those Radio Shack toll-restrictors and block out the individual numbers you don't want called. Either that, or take that eleven year old and slap him silly. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: weisen@alw.nih.gov (Neil Weisenfeld) Subject: Problem With Telecom Archives pager.bin.uqx Organization: NIH Div of Comp Rsrch and Technology Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 14:41:43 GMT Has anyone successfully decoded this software from the Telecom-Archives (I think in /telecom-archives/technical)? I transferred it as text, uudecoded it, de-bin-hex-ed it, but the resulting stack just won't run under Hypercard 2.1. I've done the process a million times, making sure that the uuencoded stuff gets correctly transferred as text (and doesn't have something stupid happen like paragraph filling). It still gets "Filesystem Error -50". Has anyone had more luck (er, skill)? Regards, Neil Weisenfeld, Computer Engineer Internet: weisen@nih.gov Nat'l Insts. of Health, 12A/2033 Voice: +1 301 402 4030 Bethesda, MD 20892 Fax: +1 301 402 2867 ------------------------------ From: dlw@eng.mc.xerox.com (Don Wegeng) Subject: List of NACN Cities? Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:14:31 EDT Does anyone know of an Internet accessible updated list of cellular phone systems that are members of McCaw's North American Cellular Network? In a couple weeks I plan to travel across several states via car, and I need to provide instructions on how to contact me. NACN will auto-deliver calls, but of course that only works if I'm in an NACN area. When I'm in other cities I need to provide roaming port numbers, etc. This would seem like something that the Cellular One WWW server could easily provide, but it's not there (http://www.elpress.com/cellone/cellone. html). I know that there are roaming handbooks that contain this info, or I could inquire with my local provider before I travel, but an electronic list would be easier and/or cheaper to access, and probably more up to date, too. Thanks, Don dlw.xkeys@xerox.com ------------------------------ From: rkashdan@netcom.com (Richard Kashdan) Subject: Pac Bell to Offer Remote Access to Call Forwarding Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 21:17:17 GMT Pacific Bell submitted Advice Letter 17006 to the California PUC on June 6 requesting authorization to offer the Remote Access to Call Forwarding service. They request that the tariff go into effect on July 16, 1994. This type of Advice Letter usually goes into effect automatically on the requested date without needing any formal approval process by the PUC. The only thing that might stop or delay it would be legitimate protests that the PUC staff might decide to take seriously. Remote Access to Call Forwarding already exists in some other states. The customer is given an access phone number (one per ESS switch) and a PIN. They can call that phone number from anywhere and when it answers, touch tone in their own phone number, their PIN, and a command to re-program their call-forwarding feature to either start forwarding calls to wherever they now find themselves (or any other number), or deactivate call forwarding. The price will be $1.50 per month for business service, $1.00 per month for residence. This is in addition to the normal charges for the call forwarding feature. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Illinois Bell/Ameritech offers this service for free. If you subscribe to Call Forwarding, you can request a PIN to use via a certain telephone number which allows you to remotely turn on or off call forwarding and change the destination, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #287 ******************************