TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Jun 94 01:45:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 291 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Problem Reaching Emergency Services in UK (Jonathan Haruni) Motorola and Grupo Protexa (Alex Cena) Cell Service on Long Beach Island NJ (Gerry Moersdorf) Voice Mail Vendors Wanted (Paul S. Malone) Telephony Interfaces (Sean McLinden) Question About SMDS (Matthias Plass) Digital to Analog Converters (Gary Merinstein) International Long Distance Carrier Information Wanted (Umar M. Badeges) Mobile Phones and the Cancer Scare (Craig OShannessy) Re: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines (Paul Lee) Re: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines (John Navitsky) Where to Buy Telephone Line Simulators? (Mervyn Quah) Re: International Callback Services (Leroy Casterline) Re: International Callback Services (Ron Wright) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Robert L. McMillin) Re: Personal 800 Number Availability (Rick Brown) Re: Information Wanted on GSM in US (David S. Rose) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jharuni@london.micrognosis.com (Jonathan Haruni) Subject: Problem reaching emergency services in UK Date: 15 Jun 1994 13:31:44 GMT Organization: Micrognosis International, London A couple of weeks ago I came home to find my house had been robbed. I tried calling 999 (emergency), but got a continuous tone (number unobtainable or system error). I checked to make sure I had a normal dial tone, and tried again. Then I tried 150 (operator), but got the same result. Then I looked up the number of the police station in the phone book, and tried them -- no problem. Afterwards I also called 155 (repair service) to report the problem with 999 and 150, and I got through to the repair service -- no problem. They phoned me back a day later and told me that the problem had been rectified. But I was not satisfied. Apparently normal phone service was available, with all my normal calls completed and no trouble with incoming calls. Only two numbers didn't work, and one of them was the emergency number! How am I supposed to have any faith in my ability to reach 999 if necessary? If I hear smoke alarms or intruders in the middle of the night, I'm not going to go searching for the phone book! It turns out that 150 and 999 are one and the same service in the UK. The British Telecom operator answers emergency calls, takes the details, and puts them through to the appropriate emergency service, along with the calling number ID. So I was assured by BT that if I could reach 150, I could also reach 999. But I wanted to make sure. I wanted to test a call to the emergency number. They said I could arrange this by dialing 150 and warning them. So I did, but the operators said they could not arrange such a call. I should just trust them, that if I could reach 150, I could reach 999. But I persisted, and finally, after many consultations with managers and their managers, they told me that they could not arrange anything, but if I just called 999 and explained the situation, it would be ok. So I did, and it was. But I was still not satisfied. I want to know, with full certainty, that as long as I have phone service, I can reach the emergency number. I want to know that whatever problem existed in my exchange which prevented me calling 999/150, was not just "cleared" but that the cause of the problem was removed. I doubt that is the case, but I have had no joy in pursuing this issue with BT. I suspect that the exchange technicians merely reset something or other which had gone wrong, but that the same thing could go wrong again and I would never know. Any advice on how to pursue this problem would be greatly appreciated. Jonathan Haruni ------------------------------ From: Alex Cena Subject: Motorola and Grupo Protexa Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 00:09:34 EST A Rueters news article indicated that Motorola and Grupo Protexa have signed an agreement to create a $6 billion telecommunications firm that will offer a variety of services, including cellular, long distance, PCN, data transmission and rural telephony, subject to Mexican government approval. Does anyone know what role if any Motorola's WiLL or fixed wireless applications will play in this deployment? Thanks in advance, Alex M. Cena, Lehman Brothers, acena@lehman.com ------------------------------ From: gerry@aisun.aiinet.com (Gerry Moersdorf) Subject: Cell Service on Long Beach Island NJ? Date: 15 Jun 1994 10:45:07 -0400 Organization: Applied Innovation, Inc. Reply-To: gerry@aiinet.com Does anyone know if there is cellular telephone service on Long Beach Island, NJ? Gerry Moersdorf --- Applied Innovation Inc gerry@aiinet.com 614-798-2000 Dublin, Ohio 43017 The datacom pbx guys ------------------------------ From: Paul S Malone Reply-To: Paul S Malone Subject: Voice Mail Vendors Wanted Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 13:37:36 EDT I am trying to find a list of voice mail providers out in the industry. The types of vendors I am looking for are like Tigon. Tigon is a voice mail vendor which sells messaging products, like voice mail and fax mail, to anyone who wants to buy them. They are switch independant meaning you don't need a PBX or a CO which supports them. If anyone knows of a vendor like this please forward there name to me, thanks. Paul Malone pmalone@gmu.edu ------------------------------ From: Sean McLinden Subject: Telephony Interfaces Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 10:47:49 -0400 Organization: Sponsored account, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA I am looking for interface card which supports multiline (8-16-32) voice interface to a PC or Mac-based system and which has an API for programming (basically a digital dictation system). There are commercial systems out there but they are ridiculously expensive and programmatically poor. Help is appreciated. Thanks, Sean McLinden ------------------------------ From: plass@morisot.uni-paderborn.de (Matthias Plass) Subject: Question About SMDS Date: 14 Jun 1994 13:55:33 GMT Organization: Uni-GH Paderborn, Germany Hello! I have a question about SMDS (over DQDB). With DS3 you have a busbitrate of 44.736 MBit/s on BOTH busses. As I understand it, SMDS uses only ONE time 44.736 MBit/s for selling to it's subscribers. The reason for this is that else it might be, that congestion would occur, if stations with a sum of credit > 45 MBit would send in one destination. Am I right? If here is anyone, who can help me, please e-mail me! (I am not reading this group regularly.) Thanks in advance! Matthias Plass (plass@uni-paderborn.de) ------------------------------ From: gmerin@panix.com (Gary Merinstein) Subject: Digital to Analog Converters Date: 14 Jun 1994 23:26:46 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC I used to install a device called a "dees box" to connect analog devices (modems, answering machines, etc.) to digital pbx systems (eg. Northern Telecom). I now need a new source. Does anyone know of vendors (or the manufacturer's phone number) for this device? gmerin@panix.com mci: 489-6979 ci$ 74035,1232 ------------------------------ From: ubadeges@mason1.gmu.edu (Umar M Badeges) Subject: International Long Distance Carrier Information Wanted Date: 15 Jun 1994 14:50:02 GMT Organization: George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA I am new to the Internet and I need information on long distance international carriers. The questions I have: 1 How big is the industry in terms of revenue, and connect time? 2 Who are the players? Domestic and international, what are their share of the revenue and connect time. Who are the management team of these players? Company profile such as history, growth, their strength and weaknesses, and how do they meet challenges and opportunities in this industry. 3 What are the marketing strategy these players, such as what product or service is offered, promotion and advertisement policy, pricing, etc. 4 What is the customer profile of this industry? 5 What is the key success factor, what factors needed to be extremely well. 6 I am trying to look at the industry from the management's point of view. 7 If anybody can suggest book or mail me article in this subject, I will appreciate it. Please response by e-mail to ubadeges@mason1.gmu.edu. Thank you in anticipation of your response. ------------------------------ From: craigo@kralizec.zeta.org.au (Craig OShannessy) Subject: Mobile Phones and the Cancer Scare Date: 16 Jun 1994 00:24:03 +1000 Organization: Kralizec Dialup Unix Sydney: +61-2-837-1183 V.42bis Whatever happened to the scare about mobile phones and the intense microwaves giving you cancer? This was in the Australian news some time back for a few days, then it just dissapeared. Does anyone know what the latest is on this? Craig O'Shannessy >>>==================> craigo@kralizec.zeta.org.au [] ------------------------------ From: Paul A. Lee Subject: Re: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 23:50:00 CDT Organization: Woolworth Corporation In {TELECOM Digest} Volume 14 Issue 284, Robert Casey wrote: > Today, in a meeting, he mentions about phone call procedure. "Use the '8' > lines for long distance, '9' for local". I had been doing it the other way > around, because other places I've worked used "9" for LD, "8" for local. In my own experience, I've seen the "9" for local and "8" for LD arrangement more often. Of course, that's experience from ten or fifteen years ago. Anymore, the common pattern seems to be "9" for outside, off-network, and "8" (or "8x") for (virtual) private network calls. > ... why did the PBX here let me complete LD calls on the wrong lines? Sloppy programming and/or an obsolescent switch. > "Didn't they tell you at new employee orientation?" "They told us tons > of stuff, like 401K's, and stock options, medical plans and a lot of > other crap". Phone use instructions -- when they differ from the most common "'9' for outside, extension number for inside, '0' for operator" -- should be *printed* on a phone system reference card, in a company directory, or in an office procedures manual. The writer described, but did not name, a Fortune 500 firm with 9000 employees. If all 9000 are served by the PBX being described, then I think they have a problem. They apparently do not publish a phone use guide. They also appear not to have any LCR (least-cost routing) or ARS (automatic route selection) in their switch. That could be because of an obsolescent switch, or because of poor programming due to ignorance of the features available, or because the "feature" was not "purchased" from a switch vendor that has the gall to charge an exorbitant extra cost for it. They evidently have a call accounting system, since the boss can learn how much billing accrued from a given phone. Call accounting is only one tool in telecommunications management, though. It sounds like more attention needs to be paid to other areas, like routing and carrier optimization, ARS/LCR configurations, and maybe management of the vendor/provider of the system. Of course, there's another possible explanation for the call accounting and costing capabilities coupled with the separate dialing access codes: Maybe your site has Centrex (Centranet/Centracom/Essex) service, instead of a PBX. If that's how your firm is handling a single geographic location with 9000 employees (my inference), then you really *do* have some telecommunications management problems! Paul A. Lee Voice 414 357-1409 Telecommunications Analyst FAX 414 357-1450 Woolworth Corporation CompuServe 70353,566 INTERNET ------------------------------ From: johnn@eskimo.com (John Navitsky) Subject: Re: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 16:47:16 GMT Sometimes a company will have more than one long distance carrier. Typically they prefer one but have the other to access services/ numbers not available, or just in case. John Navitsky johnn@eskimo.com ------------------------------ From: mervyn@hk.net (Mervyn Quah) Subject: Where to Buy Telephone Line Simulators? Date: 15 Jun 1994 13:39:57 GMT Organization: Hong Kong Internet & Gateway Services, Wanchai, Hong Kong Hi everyone, Does anybody know where I can get equipment that will simulate regular phone connections (ie, dial tones and ring/busy signals)? We need about a dozen lines to run a suite of configuration tests on our multi-line fax server, but don't want to install 'real' phone lines just for this. Advanced features like introducing line noise and echoes would be a plus (although not necessary). Thanks in advance! Merv mervyn@hk.net ------------------------------ From: casterli@csn.org (Leroy Casterline) Subject: Re: International Callback Services Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 18:02:00 -0600 Organization: Cahill Casterline Limited Reply-To: casterli@csn.org In article , is written: > I had a friend ask me recently about a service I think I've seen > discussed here before -- international callback services that take > Ed Ed, One of my clients, Logotronix Communications, offers a callback service called GeoTel. Call 800/442-4887 and ask for Bill Taylor for more information. As to the legality, see my response to Pat below ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The legality of the callback services > is a gray-area. Maybe, maybe not. In any event, what Telepassport Actually, I believe that the FCC has ruled in favor of callback (or so the folks at Logotronix tell me). If you're interested, I can provide the text of the ruling, two pages in length. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought Logotronix sold and serviced the callback devices. I did not know they also offered a callback service. I got some literature from them at one point showing the devices they had for sale. Regards the FCC ruling on callback signals, yes, I would be interested in seeing it and I suspect other readers would be as well. Please send it along for publication here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rwright@netcom.com (Ron Wright) Subject: Re: International Callback Services Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 13:43:00 PDT edswen@netcom.com (Ed Swenson) wrote: > ..... I'm mainly interested in finding out how to subscribe, > who offers such services, how they work, what they charge, etc. > They are legal, right? Although I'm sure some PTT's don't like them > too much ;-). ..... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The legality of the callback services > is a gray-area. Maybe, maybe not. ..... I am a sales affiliate of MTC, a provider of telecommunication services which include international callback. First, to the legal question. Pat's correct. Until very recently the legallity of such services was considered by some to be questionable. However the May/June issue of {Computer TELEPHONY} carries an article by Tom Crowe which cites a recent FCC ruling -- three rulings actually -- that specifically granted applications of companies to provide "code calling" callback services. With "code calling" the customer direct dials a US number, lets it ring, then hangs up before the call is answered. The system then initiates a callback in one of two ways. Some systems assign a specific DID to each customer. Any call received on that line generates a callback to a specified number. Other systems capture the incoming ANI and return the call accordingly. "Code calling" systems were more vigorously opposed by AT&T than the other type of service, "completed-call" callback. The latter service actually answers the customer's call, prompts her to enter an account number and the number to be called back. This type service was not as offensive because someone was paying for the initial call. Usually the service provides for access through a toll-free number. How does one subscribe? There are frequent postings in the various forums related to telecom. And also an occasional posting to "biz.misc". Here are some questions you will want to ask: Rates, obviously. Ask for the specific rates for the countries you call. The rate for country A can be cheaper than the rate for country B for one service and less for another. Are the rates good 24 hours a day; if not what are the pricing periods, and are they governed by US or foreign time? Account Set Up Fees. Some services impose a fee. Others do not. And still others leave it up to the sales agent. As an example, I never charge a customer set up fees; some MTC sales reps do. Minimum Service Period. What are the limits on cancelling the service if you are displeased or if your need for that type service no longer exists? Billing Increments. Don't accept full minute billing increments. The norm these days is "six second increment" billing. This means that your charges will much more closely reflect the length of your call. You won't be billed for three minutes for a call of two minutes fifteen seconds. Detailed Statements. Most service providers bill your credit card periodically for the calls made in the billing period. They should also provide you with a detailed statement showing the particulars of each call made, date, time, number called, call duration, charges, etc. Activation Leadtime. I have seen references to some services requiring a customer to wait as long as a month to activate service. Activation should take place in days, not weeks. If a service provider does not have sufficient excess capacity to add new customers quickly, then I question whether it has sufficient capacity to handle the load of its existing customer base for peak loads. Ron Wright Technology Export Voice: +1 408 438 6076 An Authorized MTC Sales Affiliate Fax: +1 408 438 5827 113 San Augustine Way E-mail: rwright@netcom.com Scotts Valley, CA 95066 USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One problem that Telepassport (a division of US Fibercom and a big player in the international callback industry) had to deal with was the *huge* number of 'wrong number' and telemarketing 'blind calls' made to its DID numbers. People in the USA would call those numbers by accident and trigger a callback to an unsuspecting subscriber in Europe, sometimes in the middle of the night in Europe. Then there were the telemarketers, out to sell whatever they could to whoever they could using sequential dialing devices to ring one number after another. Maybe they were selling subscriptions to the San Jose newspaper for all I know. (John Higdon is probably grinning at that!) ... again, calls were being made to Telepassport subscribers at all sorts of odd times, and of course many subscribers blamed Telepassport for it all. Finally Telepassport tried to refine the way things were done. Since their switch generates the ringing tone heard by people calling their DID numbers, they told their subscribers to be certain to hang up during the first ring under the assumption that telemarketers and/or wrong number callers would at least let the line ring three or four times or more before giving up. That way, if it rang one time and no more, it was treated as a callback request; if it rang more than that the switch simply ignored it and forgot about it once the intruder disconnected. They also delayed the ringing tone long enough to give their subscribers a chance to disconnect as soon as they heard a couple of 'clicks' on the line, figuring most wrong number callers would be still hanging around when the ringing started. By golly, *even that was not enough* ... the number of idiots out there who dial, realize in a second or two that they dialed incorrectly and hang up -- but still generating that slight bit of one ring -- is immense. Then Telepassport tried using real obscure numbers from a very poor inner city neighborhood in a town in New Jersey (brought in to Manhattan by FX via Nynex). The assumption was probably there would be fewer wrong number calls to a 201 number, and most likely the telemarketers would have the neighborhood redlined against calls anyway. The last I heard, that approach had cut back on the spurious callbacks somewhat. Lower and central Manhattan must be a real bummer where wrong numbers are concerned. Are the other international callback providers having the same kinds of problems? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Organization: Surf City Software/TBFW Project Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 01:17:51 GMT On 07 Jun 1994 05:47:37 PST, d92-sam@misfits.nada.kth.se (Sam Spens Clason) said: > In Bob Maccione > writes: >> With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as >> to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for >> international calls. It should be easy enough and if the user really >> needs to have access to international numbers they can add a level of >> country restrictions. So since all I call is the US I wouldn't have >> to worry about someone abusing my card (at least from the international >> level of abuse). A genuinely lame idea. Gee, you mean that I have to arrange -- in advance -- with my phone company to call Mexico? How about Canada? The UK? Minnesota? (Just kidding, Gopher State residents, just kidding ...) > How big a part of all calling card frauds could be avoided if the PIN > wasn't actually printed on the card?! A lot. But then, why bother with the card if you can't use it to make calls? I could understand not printing the number if we all had magnetic stripe readers built in to most phones, but that's not the case. > The calling card business is rather new here in Sweden (two years), > but still, we haven't had any frauds worth mentioning. I think it's > because of better security. It's probably because you have few immigrantes from El Salvador, Russia, and God-knows-where (a small island off Tierra Del Fuego :-) Seriously, this is why the telephone companies block international calling card calls: the 'call-sellers' who use stolen calling cards until they phone company gets wise and shuts down the card number and/or payphone the 'sellers' operate from. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com Surf City Software | Purveying superior SCSI backup/utilities for the Mac Contact chris@surfcty.com for sales info. ------------------------------ From: rick@onramp.net (Rick Brown) Subject: Re: Personal 800 Number Availability Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 22:23:25 GMT Organization: Project Nemesis In article oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) writes: (Original conversation on how AT&T demands a physical address for 800 service snipped.) > I think what one must not overlook is that what AT&T (and Sprint, in > my experience) is very particular about is (1) asking the question, > (2) getting some sort of answer and (3) entering the answer into their > computer system. > I don't think that there is anything about how the 800 service works > that actually requires the customer to give a correct answer. Er, unless you consider billing you in a correct, legal manner as part of making the service work. The IXC wants to get a service address so they can calculate the state/local/etc. taxes on your bill correctly, or at least as best they can. To do the taxing correctly, you cannot assume that the billing address is the same as the service address, hence the questions. Now, if a customer wants to claim a particular place is the service address, it is not AT&T or Sprint's job to check whether you are lying. They will simply calculate the taxes based on the address you give and remit the money to the appropriate authorities. (If you say the service address is in New York, New York gets the tax money.) You could use one of the terminating physical telephone numbers the 800 number maps to do some kind of sanity checking, but even at that you are simply guessing. NPAs can cross states in border situations, and exchanges can be in multiple local jurisdictions. Not to mention "foreign exchange" lines which could conceivably be dropped anywhere. Even with your physical address, the IXC may still have to ask which county you live in since some zip codes cross county lines. I think it is fair to say that this business of determining a service address for taxing purposes is a messy one for an IXC, but it has to at least try to do it. (Otherwise auditors start asking uncomfortable questions.) Rick Brown rick@onramp.net ------------------------------ From: dsr@delphi.com Subject: Re: Inormation Wanted on GSM in US Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 23:06:09 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) writes: > Does anybody know if there is any activities in GSM for US? Is > anyone working on implementing GSM or any Deviations of GSM in US? The US equivalent of GSM is MIRS/ESMR, the Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio service just beginning to be rolled out by some of the major SMR carriers. The networks are based on the MIRS system by Motorola, and are to some extent interoperable with GSM. The network features include the interconnect (aka 'cellular') point to point voice, Short Message Service alphanumeric text messaging and binary packet data of GSM, plus a push-to-talk private voice service (similar to traditional SMR) for the US market. There has been an _enormous_ amount of activity in this area, with the three largest carriers covering something like 98% of the entire US. The largest of them, Nextel, just got a $1.3 billion infusion from MCI, on top of many hundreds of millions from Motorola, Northern Telcom and others. David S. Rose Ex Machina, Inc. (Developers of wireless communications software) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #291 ******************************