TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 Sep 94 15:18:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 379 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T Lying, TV a Fake and Other Slander (Ken Kopin) Re: Now AT&T is Lying About True-Voice (Nick Sayer) Re: Now AT&T is Lying About True-Voice (Ken Kopin) Re: AT&T Lying, TV a Fake & Other Slander (Nick Sayer) Re: Now AT&T is Lying About True-Voice (Tony Kennedy) Re: Now AT&T is Lying About True-Voice (Michael G. Katzmann) Re: Coming Soon: Son of 800 (Clarence Dold) Re: Coming Soon: Son of 800 (Clive D.W. Feather) Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? (Glen Ecklund) Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? (Antoin O. Lachtnain) Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? (Jonathan Liu) Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? (Ole Hellevik) Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? (David Newman) Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? (Peter Knoppers) Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? (Wes Leatherock) 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 America On Line. 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: aa377@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ken Kopin) Subject: Re: AT&T Lying, TV a Fake and Other Slander Date: 27 Sep 1994 19:45:54 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA) In a previous article, jbutz@hogpa.ho.att.com (John J Butz) says: > I don't disagree that the TrueVoice television ads have a lot of that > Madison Avenue glitz (ie. back-up singers belting in when True Voice > activates, 3D spectrographs, sharply dressed and intelligent AT&T > employees ... like myself :-|, etc.), but it's really not fair to > state that what is heard on a TV set, is what will be heard on a phone > handset. To that end, I noticed that ads are labeled "Simulated > TrueVoice Effect." Are you proposing that telephone receivers are somehow BETTER for hearing sound than, say, your average television set? Now, I'm sure the high end stuff is real nice, but most of us peons have the 19.95 CheapFone (TM) or better yet, the one that came free with our paid subscriprion to TIME Magazine. (YOU remember, the one that used a Piezo (SP) speaker. :-) > For a real comparison, the TrueVoice demo line can be reached by > dialing 1-800-932-2000. Calls to this number are processed by the > same piece of equipment that provides TrueVoice in the network, so > what a caller hears IS the real TrueVoice. (The voice on the demo is > that of James Naughton.) Huh? Since when? I coulda swore that was Tom Selleck I was hearing. Ken Kopin Internet: aa377@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu ------------------------------ From: nsayer@quack.kfu.com (Nick Sayer) Subject: Re: Now AT&T is Lying About True-Voice Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'. Date: 27 Sep 1994 15:46:06 UTC ssatchell@BIX.com (ssatchell on BIX) writes: >> Nick Sayer said: >>> If they're trying to imply that that is what a long distance phone >>> call sounds like (which despite truevoice is still constrained to >>> roughly 300-3000 Hz), then it's nothing short of outright fraud. > Sorry, I have to take exception to the claim that the bandwidth for > all telco customers is still 300-3000 Hz. If that were true, then > there is no way for V.34 modem owners to achieve 28.8 kilobit/s > carriers with the modems -- they'd be constrained to 21.6 kilobits/s. 1. I said 'roughly' .3-3 kHz. 2. You're missing the point by _miles_. The bandwidth of the singer and her orchestra after the "true fraud" is turned on in the ad is nothing short of roughly .05-15 kHz, which can't even begin to be approached over a 64 kbps communications channel regardless of what its audio bandwidth is. [irrelevant verbiage snipped] Nick Sayer N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NOAM +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest' URL: http://www.kfu.com/~nsayer/ ------------------------------ From: aa377@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ken Kopin) Subject: Re: Now AT&T is Lying About True-Voice Date: 27 Sep 1994 19:31:10 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA) Reply-To: aa377@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ken Kopin) If you listen closely to the commercial, than what AT&T is really saying is that when True Voice is implemented, you will get background singers! (Or talkers... Hm...) and the volume will increase (at least according to that little bouncy arrow thing at the side of their nifty 3D voice map.) Also, please don't kill me if this has been hashed to death, cause I looked first and couldn't find it. Will this True Voice do anything bad to data communications? Ken Kopin Internet: aa377@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu ------------------------------ From: nsayer@quack.kfu.com (Nick Sayer) Subject: Re: AT&T Lying, TV a Fake & Other Slander Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'. Date: 27 Sep 1994 15:56:51 UTC jbutz@hogpa.ho.att.com (John J Butz) writes: > Folks must be a little tone deaf. No, we just have an aversion to fraudulent advertising. > I can tell right away when TrueVoice is on my call or not. [snip] That's not the issue. True Voice may very well be a nice thing. Personally, I don't care one way or another, since I listen more to what the person on the other end is saying than how he sounds, but again, that is a digression from the real issue here. > I don't disagree that the TrueVoice television ads have a lot of that > Madison Avenue glitz (ie. back-up singers belting in when True Voice > activates, 3D spectrographs, sharply dressed and intelligent AT&T > employees ... like myself :-|, etc.), but it's really not fair to > state that what is heard on a TV set, is what will be heard on a phone > handset. To that end, I noticed that ads are labeled "Simulated > TrueVoice Effect." That merely carries the point home. How can you simulate a slight bass boost by changing from telephone quality audio to full broadcast quality stereo? No, that ad was not a simulation of True Voice. Hence their labeling it as such merely piles on more True Fraud. Nick Sayer N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NOAM +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest' URL: http://www.kfu.com/~nsayer/ ------------------------------ From: adk@scri.fsu.edu (Tony Kennedy) Subject: Re: Now AT&T is Lying About True-Voice Date: 26 Sep 94 18:44:45 Organization: SCRI, Florida State University Steve Cogorno writes: > This is no more of a lie than MCI saying in their Friends and Family > II commercials that the average cost of a long distance call costs > half as much as it did ten years ago (before the Bell breakup). Then > the Rep says "Who do you think was responsible for that?" Hundreds of > people shout out "MCI!" > BUT they fail to mention that it was the breakup of the Bell System > which lowered these call costs. (Which also increased the cost of > local calls by a large percentage.) I thought that the breakup of the Bell System was (at least partially) a consequence of a lawsuit brought by MCI. I am sure Pat would love to enlighten us at length on the details of the lawsuit (was it an antitrust case?), and the relative importance of AT&T's desire to enter other marketplaces versus MCI's desire to compete equally in the long-distance market. Surely, however, it is not unreasonable to claim that MCI was in part responsible to the Bell breakup, which in turn was in part responsible for the reduction in average long distance prices. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It was handled as an antitrust case with the United States Justice Department doing battle with AT&T. There were a lot of angles to the case, and there had been litigation with MCI at one time or another in the past also. There were several active players and a number of theories as to who benefitted the most. PAT] ------------------------------ From: opel!vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net (Michael G. Katzmann) Subject: Re: Now AT&T is Lying About True-Voice Date: 27 Sep 94 14:19:18 GMT Reply-To: opel!vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net (Michael G. Katzmann) Organization: Broadcast Sports Technology, Crofton. Maryland. In article nsayer@quack.kfu.com (Nick Sayer) writes: > AT&T's latest "True Fraud^H^H^H^H^HVoice" ad has reached a new low in > deceptive practices. > They then engage in a before and after. At the point of change, the > following all happen: > The volume jumps up by probably 20-30 dB. > A choir jumps in and starts accompanying the singer. > The singer hits a high point in the song. > The attenuated bass is put back. > The result is a beautiful, broadcast-quality stereo sound. I don't know about the choir (maybe that's due to the mystical experience), but "True Voice" does up the average level and equalizes the LF. (See many previous articles in comp.dcom.telecom) So comparing the two passages, one does get the idea of what T.V. does. As far as the control room stuff goes, that's Madison Avenue for you. It reminds me of a story that Robert Lucky told in IEEE Spectrum many years ago. The ad agency wanted Cliff Robertson to do an advertisment with engineers hard at work in the background, however when the engineers assembled for the assigned task, the producer didn't think they looked like engineers and replaced them all with actors! We engineers "don't get no respect"!!! Michael Katzmann ( NV3Z / VK2BEA / G4NYV ) Broadcast Sports Technology Inc. Crofton, Maryland. U.S.A. michael%vk2bea@secondsource.COM ------------------------------ From: Clarence Dold Subject: Re: Coming Soon: Son of 800 Organization: a2i network Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 12:02:53 GMT Greg Monti (GMONTI@npr.org) wrote: > A brief article in {Business Week} magazine, September 26, 1994, issue > under the name "I-Way Patrol" and entitled "Coming Soon, Son of 800," > says that the 800 code is running out of telephone numbers. > 800 numbers went from zero in 1967 to to 3.1 million in 1993. The > one-year step from 93 to 94, brought it to 4.1 million numbers. The > capacity of the code is supposedly 7.6 million numbers, which will be > reached by 1996. The SMS, keepers of the 800-database, sent out a notice recently, using these same numbers, requesting that "unused" 800 numbers be returned to the pool, while they figure out what to do. Seems that one of the newly available 8xx NPA would be the most sensible. 888 sounds like a good one to me. Clarence A Dold - dold@rahul.net - Pope Valley & Napa CA. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Coming Soon: Son of 800 Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 14:20:55 BST From: Clive D.W. Feather Quoth Greg Monti: > 800 numbers went from zero in 1967 to to 3.1 million in 1993. The > one-year step from 93 to 94, brought it to 4.1 million numbers. The > capacity of the code is supposedly 7.6 million numbers, which will be > reached by 1996. Why isn't the capacity ten million? Since no-one has local calls from 800 numbers, why can't every possible number be used? After all, in the UK we have numbers like 0800 000 000 and 0345 123 456. Clive D.W. Feather | Santa Cruz Operation clive@sco.com | Croxley Centre Phone: +44 1923 813541 | Hatters Lane, Watford Fax: +44 1923 813811 | WD1 8YN, United Kingdom [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: While what you say is true, I think someone felt consistency with the other 'area codes' (in how prefixes and suffixes were used) was more important, at least back when the 800 code was first established. This need for consistency in numbering therefore does not allow 800 to have any more combinations than any of the others. PAT] ------------------------------ From: glen@cs.wisc.edu (Glen Ecklund) Subject: Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? Date: 27 Sep 1994 11:59:27 GMT Organization: University of WI, Madison -- Computer Sciences Dept. lcz@dptspd.sat.datapoint.com (Lee Ziegenhals) writes: > I'm wondering whether there is any work being done on a real-time > display of the cost of a call. I'm thinking of something like a display > on your telephone that shows the cost of a call in progress. It would > be updated continuously (except for fixed-cost calls) until you hang up. > I'd like to see this for all types of metered calls, whether local > metered, long distance, 900 numbers, etc. One problem is that neither the local telco nor the LD carrier would probably find this in their interest. They don't want to encourage you to hang up sooner. Glen Ecklund glen@cs.wisc.edu (608) 262-1318 Office, 262-1204 Dept. Sec'y Department of Computer Sciences 1210 W. Dayton St., Room 3355 University of Wisconsin, Madison Madison, Wis. 53706 U.S.A. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Its the same kind of thinking where online commercial services are concerned: you never see a clock -- digital or otherwise -- displayed right on your screen in front of you all the time with the elapsed time and charges. You can ask for the detail of course through some menu item, but it will never be on display on the top or bottom line of your screen. They don't want you to become discouraged or eager to disconnect. Perhaps you have noticed also that very few taverns have a clock on the wall readily visible to patrons. They want you to take your time and stay awhile longer. PAT] ------------------------------ > The "NYNEX Makes You Dial '1' For Same Area-Code Calls" thread got me > to thinking about how to tell whether a call is costing you LD charges > or not. With my telephone company, a LD toll call is always preceded > by a '1'. I've gotten rather used to it, and I'd miss it if I moved > somewhere where it wasn't done that way. > I'm wondering whether there is any work being done on a real-time > display of the cost of a call. I'm thinking of something like a display > on your telephone that shows the cost of a call in progress. It would > be updated continuously (except for fixed-cost calls) until you hang up. > I'd like to see this for all types of metered calls, whether local > metered, long distance, 900 numbers, etc. > Implementation at the local loop shouldn't be too difficult. ISDN > would be relatively easy since the rate information could be passed > over the D channel. For POTS lines, the rate information would have > to be transmitted somehow at the beginning of the call, perhaps using > a technology similar to what's used for CID. > Is such a thing feasible? I know absolutely nothing about how billing > systems are implemented within the telephone network. Is this > information even available in real time to the local telephone > company? For that matter, am I the only one who would find this > useful? :-) In Europe, (at least in Ireland and the UK) you can get a service hooked up so that a pulse is sent from the exchange to the phone, over the regular POTS line, to tell the phone that a new billing unit has been accrued to the bill. This is mostly used in payphones -- whenever the payphone gets the pulse, it demands more money from the user. But I have also heard of it being used to keep track of the bill. I must say that I don't think it'd work very well if there were a choice of service providers, 'cos they'd all be likely to have different unit values. Transmitting the information from the service provider's exchange to the local exchange might also present a problem. Antoin O Lachtnain, Trinity College, Dublin. mail: aolchtnn@unix1.tcd.ie ------------------------------ From: jdl@wam.umd.edu (Jonathan) Subject: Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? Date: 27 Sep 1994 00:32:12 GMT Organization: University of Maryland, College Park One possible solution to the toll-alerting controversy is to allow each individual customer to decide whether or not he or she wants toll-alerting. When somebody orders new service, then the phone company can ask, "Do you want us to require you to dial 1 plus the area code before all non-local calls?" On pay phones 1+ alerting is probably not necessary because if calls are toll then a voice asking for money comes on the line. Also, the phone book can explain that whether or not you dial 1 plus the area code before an intra-NPA long-distance call depends on your request. If this complicates things too much, then let me be on the record as being in favor of requiring 1+ before toll calls, including 976 and similar premium services. Telephone companies probably won't bother with a cost-of-call display because this may reduce their revenues. With the advent of competition such an idea is not so far-fetched, however. There is one way to get indication of call-cost when you make the call: dial 0 plus the area code and the number and ask the Operator for "Rates and Charges." Remain on the line after the call is over. The operator will quote the cost of the call. There is a substantial extra charge for this. A better way is to ask the phone company for the rate before calling, and then to use a stopwatch and a calculator. ------------------------------ From: oleh@eskimo.com (Ole Hellevik) Subject: Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 15:28:44 GMT Lee Ziegenhals (lcz@dptspd.sat.datapoint.com) wrote: > I'm wondering whether there is any work being done on a real-time > display of the cost of a call. It has been available (for a quarterly fee) in Norway for as long as I can remember, a little box next to the phone with two counters, on resettable, one not, indicating number of 'periods' (One period always has the same price whether the call is local or LD, but the length in time would be different.) This box would receive a pulse from the local switch when you enter a period, and would in effect be parallell with a similar counter in the local exchange. This box is most common in places where people other than the subscriber would use the phone, such as the lunch room in a small company. Before making a call, an employee would reset the counter, and after the call place one krone (approx price per period) for each period displayed, in a piggy bank next to the phone. Ole C. ------------------------------ From: dnewman@cse.unl.edu (David Newman) Subject: Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? Date: 27 Sep 1994 15:52:38 GMT Organization: Dept of CS&E -- University of Nebraska-Lincoln As one who has done some work on the billing/measurement part of a local telco's end of long-distance call-handling, I can tell you that at present this in not technically feasible. When the entire world is connected via SS7/AIN and everybody in the world agrees to share their databases with each other and when speeds increase to the point where the so-called "database dip" wouldn't slow connection time to a crawl, then it may happen -- but don't hold your breath. This is not meant as a flame. The question is reasonable enough, but the implementation of the solution is definitely not, considering that quite a few local telcos are still using mechanical switching on the local loop (my employer included). Even in a more up-to-date environment, the billing rates are generally applied to the time and duration of the call, using the records generated by the particular switch -- long after the call is history. David M. Newman dnewman@cse.unl.edu Programmer/Analyst Perpetual Student Consolidated Telephone Co. University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln, Nebraska ------------------------------ From: knop@duteca8.et.tudelft.nl (Peter Knoppers) Subject: Re: "Cost of Call" Indication? Date: 27 Sep 1994 16:32:37 GMT Organization: Delft University of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering You've more or less described the telephone cost counter as it has been available here in the Netherlands for at least 25 years. For a fee of DFL 1 per month, the phone company sends a you signal when the next cost unit (DFL 0.15) starts. The signal that can be detected and counted by a simple counter. This counter can be bought or rented from the phone company, or bought elsewhere. Some PBXs can detect and count the signal. Pay-phones also operate using this signal. For the technically inclined: The cost pulse is a short AC common mode signal, about 60 Volts, about 50 Hz. Duration of the pulse is about 0.5 seconds. Normal phones are immune to common mode signals, therefore you should not be able to hear it. Greetings from Delft, the Netherlands Peter Knoppers - knop@duteca.et.tudelft.nl ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu Date: Tue, 27 Sep 94 07:13:49 GMT Subject: Re: "Cost of Call" Indication Depending on the circumstances, much of this information is not available to the local telephone company at all. Unless the IXC is billing you on your LEC bill, the local telephone company will never get any information on what the charge is. In fact, if competition in intraLATA toll is allowed in your area, the other company may wish to prevent the LEC -- a competitor -- from even knowing what rate they are charging you. Even your local telephone company ordinarily does not have information about its own calls in real time. Its information is in the form of called and calling number, connect time, disconnect time. After the information reaches the Accounting Department -- or whatever it's called now -- these entries will be matched with each other, the rate period determined, and the charge calculated. Usually the local telephone company is not allowed to charge different rates to different customers, but other carriers are, and it may be in the future the LEC will also have freedom to cut deals, in which case they would tend to regard those rates, too, as proprietary information, and certainly would hesitate to disclose them in real time without a non-disclosure agreement. As far as 900 services go, they are usually billed by the service provider at whatever rate they choose to set through an IXC, so the local telephone company here is at least two companies away from where the charge originates. Local measured service in most places is provided on the basis there is no detail billing. Where detail billing is available, it is usually an extra cost option. Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #379 ****************************