TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Jun 94 07:53:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 295 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Forwarding 5-ESS to 1A-ESS to 5-ESS to Hunt Group - Broken (S Aristotelis) NYNEX/NY Billing Errors Continue (Doug Reuben) MCI Solicits Carphones! (Doug Reuben) MCI v AT&T Supreme Court Decision (Monty Solomon) International Tariff Filing Required (John R. Ruckstuhl) 19" Equipment Rack - Heavy Duty - Standard EIA Rails (Chuck Hodgson) Book Review: "The Virtual Community" by Rheingold (Rob Slade) Windows Zip Navigator (Richard Patterson) 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: birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag Aristotelis) Subject: Forwarding 5-ESS to 1A-ESS to 5-ESS to Hunt Group - Broken Date: 21 Jun 94 01:31:24 GMT Organization: Screaming in Digital, the Queensryche Digest As has been chronicled here in the past, I use Bell Atlantic's "IQ" call-forwarding service to cut down on my bill for calling the local (well, not quite local ;) university dialup. In addition, the line my PC uses has call-forwarding on it, so that educators at the county college and local high-schools can "double-forward" through to the university. So it has been for nearly three years, with nary a problem. [University] <-- [Forward] <-- [Me & Forward] <-- [Others] Last week, this happy state of affairs apparently got a bit unhappy. One of the educators reported it to me Sunday, shortly before a BA-NJ tech showed up, test set in hand, to check the wiring here at the house. At that time, all we had to go on was that the number here was returning a busy-signal instead of forwarding through. Since there are 48 lines on the modem rack, and hardly that many people in this part of the state to use them, we were sure that the lines weren't all in use. In addition, calling out from that line to the other forward (the one between me and the university) worked just fine. The tech determined that the wiring was fine, and that it had to be a problem with the C.O. He called it in to the office, and a switching tech called me repeatedly throughout Sunday afternoon. The number was consistently busy. That evening, it cleared up, so she declared it "better" (though we still didn't know what had caused the problem, and nothing had actually been done to fix it). This morning, I received another report from the educator saying that sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. This seemed illogical, so I called the number from itself, so that I'd be going through it. I got the connection, but when I tried calling it from the voice phone in the next room, it returned a busy signal. I hung up the modem, and it rang clear. At this point, it became apparent that due to some strange mutation in the switching last week, only one call was being allowed to forward through the number at a time - despite the fact that the number being forwarded _to_ (the other forwarding point) would ring through, and at the final destination (the university) there were more than three dozen open lines. My own use of the line (to dial out to the other forward) doesn't cause any problems at all, so it's not a simple thing of the line being off-hook. I called the local repair CSC (the tech had given me the number). They said to call the IQ Service support folks, since forwarding is an IQ service. I called them, and they forwarded me back to repair. Left them a problem report. I decided to try to get through to the switching tech, since she seemed clueful, but I hadn't gotten her name or number. 4-1-1 didn't like the idea of giving me any sort of number for the switching center *grin* so I called the main office, went through product support, and ended up talking to a guy in Tier 2 support. According to the main office, Tier 2 are experts who don't usually deal with problems involving less than 100 lines. The expert I talked to strangely had no experience with forwarding, but he was very knowledgeable about switches. He told me that multiple-forwards (such as mine) wouldn't work between two identical switches. I didn't catch the reason for this, but I accept it, since it's the only useful thing I've heard all day. My CO has a 5-ESS. The middle forward has a 1A-ESS, soon to be replaced with a Siemens digital switch. The university has a 5-ESS. Ergo, it _should_ all be working fine. (Thank goodness BA-NJ has the good sense not to put identical switches in adjacent CO's.) I called repair again, explained the situation briefly, and asked them to have a switch tech call me. They said they'd have one call in an hour. I called back two hours later, asked why no one had called, and the revised it to "they'll call you when it's cleared." Throughout the last five or six steps, I have told every person I've talked to that it's almost definitely a software bug on the local 5-ESS. They don't seem to like it when customers talk about software bugs, or ask to speak to someone who deals with software. Oh well. If it's still broken in the morning, I'll be calling them again, I suppose. Mind you, I'm not _personally_ inconvenienced by this, but I'd like the equipment to work, since I'm paying for the functionality it delivers -- when it works correctly. I'm still a big fan of Bell Atlantic, and won't move out of their service area any time soon if I can help it -- but I think I might move to a different exchange. :) Shag (did Godot work for a telco? ;) ------------------------------ From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: NYNEX/NY Billing Errors Continue Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 15:15:17 PDT After mentioning to NYNEX/NY that they were incorrectly billing $3 daily roaming charges for MobilReach calls in Baltimore (or in any MobilReach market), they said that the problem would be immediately corrected. This was three months ago! I had mentioned it to them in Jan, Feb, and March, and assumed after filing a "trouble ticket" about this it would be corrected. One would think that after three complaints and about one hour on the phone with them explaining to customer service that these calls should not incur a $3 charge that they would want to save some time and correct the problem rather than go through this once a month. Customer service will *insist* that these calls do incur a $3 charge, even on days when there is a full page ad in the paper for MobilReach which says just the opposite! So if you are a NYNEX/NY customer, and roam into the Bell Atlantic service areas of Baltimore and DC, check your bills -- there may be $3 daily roaming charges which should NOT apply. As for me, this is the last time I'll have to deal with NYNEX/NY's utterly brainless customer service morons -- apparently, they could not get along too well with Bell Atlantic in the NY "NYNEX/BAMS partnership system", so this July BAMS will be assuming all of NYNEX/NY's customers with Jersey numbers, and I will be dealing with BAMS instead of NYNEX. (I have a NJ # so that I don't have to pay the outrageous amount of tax which the state of New York, perpetually nearing bankruptcy, deems appropriate to levy against cellular customers with NY numbers - get a Jersey number, save over 10% on your next bill! ;( ) BTW, I believe NYNEX will drop their cheapest plans in July (if they haven't done so already.) If they do, then Cell One is definitely the way to go, as NYNEX/NY offers *nothing* over CO/NY other than better rates. (well, OK, they do have call delivery to Orange County and Dutches County while CO/NY doesn't, and NYNEX does not bill for incomplete calls over 40 seconds as does CO/NY.) I wonder if BAMS will continue the $24 plan and I think they had a $19 plan with high airtime rates as well ... we'll see ... Doug CID Technologies (203) 499 - 5221 ------------------------------ From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: MCI Solicits Carphones! Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 15:39:19 PDT I got a call two days ago on my carphone from MCI. The guy did the usual "Hello, Douglas ... I want to tell you how I can save you a lot of money over AT&T!" I thought this was odd, since I switched to MCI *from* AT&T a few months ago. AT&T wouldn't give me frequent flier miles for my carphone usage, and refused to allow me to pay my bills by VISA, which MCI had no problem with. More importantly, AT&T has this annoying habit of not opening the voice channel from the calling party TO my carphone until after I pick up the phone (ie, until I "supervise"). Since I roam a lot, when someone calls me the call goes to my home system and is (was) then sent over AT&T to where I am roaming, I would answer the phone, say "Hello" a few times, hear nothing, and only after five seconds or so when supervision got back to the calling party would the line be opened and I would have to apologize for not hearing the calling party right away. Not very professional! AT&T more or less said "tough luck", so after I got fed up with their "We don't care ... we're the Phone Company" attitude on this issue, I just gave up on AT&T and went with MCI. So the MCI dweeb goes on about how I would save money if I *switched* to MCI. I told him that I already USED MCI, and he said "Oh, no, you are with AT&T, and they charge more ... much more." (As if I were some four year old and he was telling me about the Big Bad Wolf!). Finally, rather than spend another minute on airtime, I told him "Do you know this is costing me airtime -- you're calling a carphone..." And he cheerfully replied "A carphone -- I love it!" and went on with his routine. Needless to say, I got his name, sales office, manager's number, etc, and will talk to MCI Corporate about this. Does Sprint take VISA, give miles, and not have the AT&T supervision problem? Maybe I should try them! Unlike AT&T/MCI, I have NEVER received an unwanted solicitation from them in five years. That's pretty important to me, especially when AT&T called for WEEKS after we switched just *2* lines to WilTel! I had to call their executive complaint # (908-221-4191) to get them to stop, and the next "save" call from AT&T will result in my yanking all of our lines from them and handing them to WilTel. Anyhow, I used to think I was safe on my carphone from these annoying calls from AT&T, MCI, et. al. Guess not anymore ...:( Doug CID Technologies (203) 499 - 5221 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 01:58:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: MCI v AT&T Supreme Court Decision Excerpt from liibulletin -- 18 June 1994 Begin forwarded message: AN E-BULLETIN LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE -- CORNELL LAW SCHOOL lii@fatty.law.cornell.edu The following Supreme Court decisions just arrived on the ftp site ftp.cwru.edu. These are not the decisions themselves nor excerpts from them, but summaries (syllabi) prepared by the Court's Reporter of Decisions. Instructions for accessing or ordering the full text of any of these decisions are provided at the end of this bulletin. ================================================================ MCI TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP. v. AMERICAN TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO. Docket 93-356 -- Decided June 17, 1994 ================================================================ Title 47 U.S.C. 203(a) requires communications common carriers to file tariffs with the Federal Communications Commission, and 203(b)(2) authorizes the Commission to "modify any requirement made by or under . . . this section . . . ." Relying on the latter provision, the Commission issued an order determining that its earlier decision to make tariff filing optional for all nondominant long distance carriers was within its authority to "modify." American Telephone and Telegraph Co., the only dominant long distance carrier, filed a motion with the Court of Appeals seeking summary reversal of the Commission's order. The motion was granted on the basis of that court's prior decision determining that the Commission's authorization of permissive detariffing violated 203(a). Held: The Commission's permissive detariffing policy is not a valid exercise of its 203(b)(2) authority to "modify any requirement." Because virtually every dictionary in use now and at the time the statute was enacted defines "to modify" as meaning to change moderately or in minor fashion, the word "modify" must be seen to have a connotation of increment or limitation. That 203(b)(2) does not contemplate basic or fundamental changes is also demonstrated by the fact that the only exception to it deals with a very minor matter: The Commission may not require the period for giving notice of tariff changes to exceed 120 days. The Commission's permissive detariffing policy cannot be justified as a nonfundamental "modification." The tariff-filing requirement is the heart of the common carrier subchapter of the Communications Act of 1934, and the policy eliminates that requirement entirely for all except one firm in the long-distance sector, and for 40% of all consumers in that sector. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that a condition shared by so many affected parties qualifies as "special" under 203(b)(2)'s requirement that when the Commission proceeds "by general order" to make a modification, the order can only apply "to special circumstances or conditions." The Commission's interpretation of the statute is therefore not entitled to deference, since it goes beyond the meaning that the statute can bear. That Congress seemed to manifest agreement with the parties' respective interpretations in later legislation is irrelevant; there has been no consistent history of legislation to which one or the other interpretation is essential. Finally, petitioners' argument that their interpretation better serves the Act's broad purpose of promoting efficient telephone service should be addressed to Congress. Pp. 5-16. Affirmed. Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun and Souter, JJ., joined. O'Connor, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the cases. HOW TO ACCESS OR ORDER EMAIL DELIVERY OF ITEMS REPORTED IN THIS BULLETIN The full text of these decisions is archived at the ftp site ftp.cwru.edu in several formats (ascii, WordPerfect, xywrite...) You can also access the decisions using the LII's gopher server at gopher.law.cornell.edu, or through our World Wide Web server at http://www.law.cornell.edu/. If you don't have access to a gopher or WWW client, you can access one via telnet. Telnet to www.law.cornell.edu and log in as www. Finally, if you have only email access to the internet, you can retrieve these documents by sending a mail message to liideliver@ fatty.law.cornell.edu. Put your document requests in the body of the message like: request 91-611 You can request several decisions at once by putting them on separate lines. Request court decisions using the docket number as it appears with the syllabus. ------------------------------ From: ruck@netcom.com (John R. Ruckstuhl) Subject: International Tariff Filing Required? Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 10:06:40 GMT For a long time, I've not known which LD carrier would be least expensive for me. After all, I listen to the marketspeak with some suspicion ("save 20%"... off what?). Last week I decided to take a few minutes (hah) to investigate the market. I asked AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and a couple of other LD carriers I'd never heard of who were listed in my yellow pages, ExpressTel and LCI. I asked for STANDARD, NON-DISCOUNTED rates from my residence to a handful of places I call, because I need a basis to evaluate the N% off claims. For the calls I make from California (415) 324- to various US East Coast locations, and to Montserrat (a non-US island in the Caribbean, area code (809), 491-) I found the per-minute STANDARD NON-DISCOUNTED rates for AT&T, MCI, and Sprint are within a penny of each other in all my cases (your mileage may vary): East Coast examples (Day/Eve/Night) were 27/17/14 cents/min for AT&T and Sprint, MCI was 26/16/13). Montserrat was 90/120/76 cents/min. ExpressTel is mailing me a copy of their rate structure. But LCI has quoted rates that aren't believable. They sound too good to be true. I've got three different rate quotes from LCI for my calls to Montserrat: (1) 17/14/12 cents/min, (2) 25 cents/min regardless of time-of-day, (3) 98/74/59 cents/min. After I asked each time for them to double check, they each returned with quote (1). Yes, 88% off AT&T's standard rate for Evening calls. Then a little more truth filtered into the conversation. This rate (17/14/12) was available only to those who picked them as their primary carrier and were enrolled in one of their free discount plans. So I asked what the rate would be if I just used their five-digit access code and had them carry my call to Montserrat. The rep couldn't quote me rates ("they depend on a lot of things"). So I asked for a quote of the rate in effect right that minute, but he couldn't provide even that. Firstly -- any comments on LCI? Secondly -- must they file tariff rates for int'l calls with any authority, e.g. FCC? If so, who do I contact to request filed info? Thirdly -- their discount rates to Montserrat sound too good to be true; sanity check? Fourthly -- is there any legal requirement that they be able to quote me a specific rate in effect? Why couldn't I get that info? Fifthly -- should whether I've chosen a carrier as my primary carrier for a line matter w.r.t. which discount programs I'm eligible to join? I seem to remember that, e.g., MCI Friends and Family could be joined even if MCI wasn't the selected LD carrier, but that many MCI Customer Servicefolk didn't understand that concept, so the knowledgable customer had to twist arms. Could this have been a regulation imposed on the LD industry or just a MCI fine-print policy? If the rate is real, then all by itself, it would quickly pay for an extra telephone line with LCI selected as primary carrier. Thanks for your comments! John R. Ruckstuhl ruck@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Chuck.Hodgson@es.atl.sita.int (Chuck Hodgson) Subject: 19" Equipment Rack - Heavy Duty - Standard EIA Rails Reply-To: chuck.hodgson@es.atl.sita.int Organization: SITA Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 02:12:24 GMT 19 " Communcations/Computer Rack $550 Or Best Offer Trimm Industries 19" Rack, 36" deep, 70" Tall - On Casters - Strudy, welded Contruction - Grey frame with beige rear and side doors - EIA Threaded rails, front and back, adjustable - two full length power strips - 30Amp -120volt circuit breaker protected power panel in rear. (NOTE: 30A is NOT required, as the power strips are standed 120V/20Amp ) - 3 cantilever shelves - 4 Flat shelves, 3 mounted on slides. - extra slides, mounting screws and cable troughs included. chuck@atl.sita.int (404) 850-5382 Days ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Virtual Community" by Rheingold Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 05:00:00 GMT BKVRTCOM.RVW 940411 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Heather Rignanesi, Marketing, x340, 73171.657@Compuserve.com P.O. Box 520 26 Prince Andrew Place Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2T8 416-447-5101 fax: 416-443-0948 or Tiffany Moore, Publicity tiffanym@aw.com Bob Donegon bobd@aw.com John Wait, Editor, Corporate and Professional Publishing johnw@aw.com Tom Stone, Editor, Higher Education Division tomsto@aw.com Philip Sutherland, Schulman Series 74640.2405@compuserve.com 1 Jacob Way Reading, MA 01867-9984 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 5851 Guion Road Indianapolis, IN 46254 800-447-2226 "The Virtual Community", Rheingold, 1993, 0-201-60870-7, U$22.95/C$29.95 hlr@well.sf.ca.us In the dust jacket blurbs, Mitch Kapor is quoted as calling this, "A Magic Mystery Tour of the human side of cyberspace." Although the points of some passages are mysterious, this book definitely concentrates on the human face of computer mediated communications. Tom Peters calls it "riveting". Now the personal aspects of net communication are important, and too often get lost in the technology. Rheingold's "stream of anecdote" style is also pretty much guaranteed to keep your attention. But Rheingold's view of the nets is limited, lopsided and even somewhat distorted. A "Nonsequitor" cartoon shows a long line of people in business dress waiting their turn at a table. Standing before the table, with their backs to a wall, they pick up a dart and throw it over their shoulder at the wall. At the top of the wall, large bold letters state, "Today I am an Expert In ... " The remainder of the wall is covered with small pieces of paper with topics written on them. The title reads, "How Journalists Start Their Day." It is possibly important to bear in mind that this is more or less what Rheingold boasts of doing in his work (page 59). Rheingold appears to be paddling at the shores of the cyberspace sea, calling our attention to oddities in the tidal pools of Prestel, Minitel, CIX, TWICS, Compuserve, and his home puddle at the WELL. While not completely unaware of the Internet ocean before him, he seems to prefer to ignore it (most often referring to it by the historical name of ARPANET). In a sense, this does not really matter: since there is no attempt at any sort of analysis, what does it hurt if the stories are limited? Instructive is the fact that whole chapters are devoted to MUD (Multi-User Domains) and IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Virtual communities on the net are rapidly evolving ones, with fast growth (the Interpedia discussion reached 30,000 members within a month of its creation), high turnover in membership, and sometimes an equally rapid demise. IRC, however, is the ultimate in ephemericity. MUDs, on the other hand, are almost antithetical to the idea of community. Not only are they virtual, but completely unreal, with the permitted; nay, encouraged; use of false personae. For those who know the nets, this can be an amusing and entertaining diversion. For those who do not, please do not base your judgments on this. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKVRTCOM.RVW 940411. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 BCVAXLUG ConVAXtion, Vancouver, BC, Oct. 13 & 14, 1994 contact vernc@decus.ca ------------------------------ From: richard.patterson@yob.com (Richard Patterson) Subject: Windows Zip Navigator Date: Tue, 17 Jun 94 16:43:00 -0600 Organization: Ye Olde Bailey BBS - Houston, TX - 713-520-1569 Reply-To: richard.patterson@yob.com (Richard Patterson) June 10, 1994 [Houston, TX]. FlashPoint Windows Zip Navigator [ZipNAV] has been released, and is available for download from CompuServe (WINSHARE and other Windows related forums), America Online (Windows and other forums), Genie (Windows, IBM and other forums), Ye Olde Bailey -- Houston BBS at (713) 520-1569. The shareware/evaluation Windows product is contained in the self-extracting archive file ZIPNAV.EXE (ZIPNAV.ZIP or ZIPNAV20.ZIP). A brief description follows: File: ZIPNAV.EXE (668316 bytes) DL time (9600 baud): < 18 minutes AUTHOR: Richard Patterson (FlashPoint Development) NEEDS: Windows or Windows for Workgroup 3.1 or greater Type: Shareware This is a self-extracting file requiring 1,820,610 bytes when uncompressed. ZipNAV combines the original 100% Windows FlashPoint ZIP/ZIPX & Zip Tools with all new user interfaces, File Manager extensions, custom menus and Microsoft Windows for Workgroup support/toolbar buttons, "true" drag and drop (now drag ZIP archive member files directly TO as well as from File Manager dirs/zip), optional PKZIP shell, online doc/help, support for programmer/user applications (apps that can execute a program via WinExec() or macros can function as a compression/decompression shell), temporary checkout (run, edit/update, view, print files), standalone text file viewer & much more. Zip 1.1/2.0 compatible decompression and management; compression limited to Zip 1.1 file format -- so acceptable for America Online uploads. These are standalone Windows applications; PKZip for DOS is NOT required. See DISCOUNT.TXT which describes early registration and competitive upgrade discounts available on individual and multiple use licenses. Note: To install, run the self-extracting archive ZIPNAV.EXE in (or unzip ZIPNAV.ZIP to) a temporary directory. Then run FPSETUP.EXE to install ZipNAV. Documentation: !, FP_NEWS.WRI plus Online Help For further information, contact the author at one of the following addresses: E-Mail: Internet -- richard.patterson@yob.com flashpoint@genie.geis.com flashptdev@aol.com America Online: FlashPtDev GEnie: FlashPoint CompuServe: 70771,1336 Please do not send Internet mail to CompuServe -- it will be rejected, as CIS is the only major online service charging its subscribers an additional fee for incoming mail from Internet (MCI, AT&T and other non-CIS services). Ye Olde Bailey BBS Zyxel 713-520-1569(V.32bis) Hayes 713-520-9566 (V.FC) Houston,Texas yob.com Home of alt.cosuard ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #295 ******************************