TELECOM Digest Wed, 30 Nov 94 15:35:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 432 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Tracking Incoming Numbers (Jeff Murphy) Regulation About Microwave Usage in the US? (Juergen Ziegler) Havana's Direct Dial Code (Greg Monti) LDDS Announces Service to Cuba (Fred Bauer) Network Planners Wanted - Motorola Midwest Area (psiinc@mcs.com) New Telecom Events Calendar (David Cordeiro) Faxes, Data, Voice All in One Package. How? (David Stevenson) Open Letter to Telecom Industry re: Standards (Wallace A. Ritchie) Bell Atlantic Suspensions (Larry Ludwick) Free Speech or Not (was Re: What Information) (Dennis G. Rears) Philadelphia 911 Tragedy (Carl Moore) Re: 911, CNID, was Re: Problem With 911 Service in Philadelphia (M. Healy) Prodigy Now Has Newsgroups (Stan Schwartz) Help With Oki 892 ESN (Marc B. Grant) Automatic Callback (Alain Arnaud) MCI Conference Call (Brian Brown) DTMF to Serial Port Help Wanted (Egan F. Ford) Re: Tehran Changes Emergency Number (Thomas Diessel) Last Laugh! Ameritech the Beautiful (Robert A. Virzi) Still More Last Laugh! No Need For Type-Ahead (Alan E. Asper) 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. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ********************************************************************** *** * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ********************************************************************** *** Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jcmurphy@acsu.buffalo.edu (Jeff Murphy) Subject: Tracking Incoming Numbers Organization: UB Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 02:37:30 GMT We'd like to take a "poll" of what numbers are calling into our modems so that we can determine what percentage of calls are coming from on- campus. All we need is the exchange part of each number. Currently, the only way we see is to hook up a thirty button set to a spread of 30 lines (out of 180) and use that as a representative set. This info is going to help us decide whether or not it would be worthwhile to offer direct connectivity at the dorm room level to our campus network versus having dorming students dial into the string. Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing, or can anyone offer a better solution? Apparently NYNEX has told us that they don't track that sort of activity, so can't provide us with the statistics. Thanks in advance, jeff jcmurphy@acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab cit oss lead programmer analyst standard disclaimers apply http://lurch.cit.buffalo.edu/~jcmurphy/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why don't you get Caller-ID on those lines if it is available in your community, and have the data from all the lines feed into a PC where the incoming line, time of call and source can be recorded. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have this data around anyway, given all the phreaks who like to call in and cause hassles. For your purposes, it would provide very precise data on who is doing what where your modems are concerned, and if at some time in the future it is helpful to have available a record showing a call from telephone 'x' was received at a certain time and connected to modem 'z' and onward into your network, so much the better. Of course an opening message when your terminal servers answer announcing this would be a courteous gesture to users. Something like: 'For the protection of our users, and to assist in planning our network facilities in the future, all incoming calls are logged with the records available for examination by authorized persons. These records are confidential. If you block your telephone identification when calling in, we must decline to service you or connect you with the modem bank.' Have the computer check for 'private' on incoming calls and when seen send a signal back to the terminal server to disconnect the call. Doing this, you get twice as much for your money: not only the traffic analysis you are seeking but a handle on possible security problems as well. And time and again we have found that when your users know that *you know* who they are, the ones inclined to create problems simply stay away. When you are in a position to call someone on the phone and say, "yesterday at 7:00 PM we noticed this phone dialed into our modem bank and connected via telnet to site 'x'. Site 'x' has complained about it to us and we were wondering what was going on ..." ... Well, when you are in a position to do that and your users know you can do it, the phreaks tend to stay away. Phreaks don't like spotlights or diligent record- keeping; they prefer darkness, confusion and anomynity. And don't let the privacy freaks lay a guilt trip on you with their whines about how their freedom is being chilled or denied by someone having knowledge of when they call or how long they were connected, etc. You are not interested in any of that anyway. All you want is some idea how to configure things and some clues to use in detecting very outrageous abuse, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Regulation about Microwave Usage in the US? Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 22:09:15 +0100 From: juergen@jojo.sub.de (Juergen Ziegler) Reply-To: juergen@jojo.sub.de While travelling in the US, I recognized a large number of microwave links. Mostly to be operated by several telecommunications carriers like local or long-distance companies. But it seems to me, that "private" operators had their own links. Such as one factory plant to be linke to another. What is the regulation about such microwave links in the US? Who is entitled to apply for the neccessary frequencies? Juergen Ziegler * Obervogt-Haefelinstr. 48 * 77815 Buehl (Baden) * Germany Juergen@Jojo.Sub.De ********************************* Fax: +49-7223- 900646 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 11:53:26 EST From: Greg Monti Subject: Havana's Direct Dial Code Now that direct dial service to Cuba is being offered by several long distance carriers, an article in {Communications Daily} notes that the country code for Cuba is 53 and the area code for Havana is 7. Greg Monti, Tech Mgr, FISPO, Distribution Division National Public Radio Phone: +1 202 414-3343 635 Massachusetts Av NW Fax: +1 202 414-3036 Washington, DC 20001-3753 Internet: gmonti@npr.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Nov 94 13:54 EST From: Fred Bauer Subject: LDDS Announces Service to Cuba Since there has been mention of ATT/MCI direct dial access to Cuba, I thought readers of the digest would be interested in the LDDS press release. (Note that in the greater than 50% claim, LDDS is including the capacity of IDB and WILTEL, since all the trunks are connected to the same (IDB) switch). --------------- 23-NOV-1994 16:11 LDDS Communications, the first long distance company to offer direct-dial calls to Cuba starting Nov. 25 at 5:00 p.m. MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 23, 1994--LDDS Communications, one of the four largest long distance companies in the United States, announced Wednesday that it will offer direct dialing to Cuba beginning Friday, Nov. 25 at 5:00 p.m. Direct calls to Cuba have been approved by the U.S. and the Cuban governments. "We are very proud to announce that LDDS will offer direct-dial calls to Cuba before any other long distance carrier," said Mark Welton, vice president of marketing for LDDS. In fact, "LDDS will have more than 50% of the circuits available to Cuba, and is thereby uniquely positioned to offer more access and fewer busy signals via direct-dial calls than any other long distance carrier." LDDS also announced that its per-minute rates will be extremely competitive, at a flat $1.42 per minute for peak-period and $1.13 per minute for off-peak calls to Cuba. In addition to very affordable rates, LDDS will provide a complete line of services including international direct dialing to more than 220 countries and will offer competitive rates to Latin America; bilingual operator assistance and customer service; the innovative OnLine(sm) calling card, Home Advantage(sm) and Homebound 800(sm) residential services; an attractive collection of prepaid calling cards; and other long distance services to facilitate calling to Cuba. Those without the LDDS long distance services can still call Cuba and Latin America with all LDDS calling cards and LDDS debit cards available at select area retailers. "Current LDDS customers will be the first to be able to use direct-dial calling services to Cuba on November 25, when the service begins," said Welton. "We encourage those who wish to be among the first to call Cuba to contact us immediately at 1-800-HABLAME, our Spanish-language center, to sign up for service with LDDS." -------------------------------- Fred Bauer fbauer@access.digex.net Principal Engineer voice: +1.301.212.7067 IDB Worldcom fax: +1.301.212.7055 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually Fred, I think all the carriers began their Cuba service at 5:00 PM EST last Friday. It is very nice that LDDS is offering the service also, but their customers were merely *among the first*, not the first. I wonder who the first subscriber (of some carrier) was to actually make a call? Does anyone yet have any reports on the amount of traffic during this first week of operation? Is the service widely known yet? PAT] ------------------------------ From: psiinc@mcs.com Subject: Network Planners Wanted, Motorola Midwest Area Date: 30 Nov 1994 17:11:54 GMT Organization: MCSNet Services Our continuing global expansion allows us to offer unparalleled growth opportunities to talented engineers. We currently require Network Planners to assist clients with the development of land mobile telephony and digital networks. Strict requirements include a minimum of a BSEE, 5+ yrs of public telecommunications network experience (US), 2+ yrs experience in an interexchange carrier environment, Network design, transmission engineering and traffic engineering experience is also required. As a world leader, we offer a competitive compensation package. For immediate consideration, please send your resume and cover letter to e-mail address: psiinc@mcs.com. (Name subject header: NET1929.) In your cover letter, you must include years of public telecommunications network experience and salary history. Thank you for your interest. EOE. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 94 15:25:50 CST From: david_cordeiro@wiltel.com Subject: New Telecom Events Calendar The Telecom Library and WilTel are proud to announce: **** The Telecommunications Event Calendar **** http://www.wiltel.com/library/events.html We have placed a new section in the Telecom Library to keep track of the many conferences, trade shows and other events that are of interest to the Telecommunications Industry. If you are involved with such an event, please send your information to Webmaster@WilTel.com. We will keep this list of events current and available to everyone on the Internet. The Telecom Library (http://www.wiltel.com/library/library.html) is the home of: Telecom Glossary -- 800+ Telecom Terms and growing RITIM -- Collection of Working Papers and RITIM-L archive Insight Research -- Report summaries and Telecom Marketing Research Telecomreg -- Archive of the Telecomreg mailing list Telecom Digest -- Hypertext articles from the Digest Archives Long Distance Digest -- Newsletter for Telecom Resellers For more information contact: David Cordeiro WilTel Network Services Data, Voice and Video 918-588-5214 http://www.wiltel.com ------------------------------ From: af818@freenet.carleton.ca (David Stevenson) Subject: Faxes, Data, Voice All in One Package. How? Reply-To: af818@freenet.carleton.ca (David Stevenson) Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 04:47:32 GMT Hello friends, I am posting a message for a pal who does not have net connections like me (snicker, snork). What I think he wants is a way of receiving faxes, data, voice on one phone line. Here is the description that he sent me: Here is what I am looking for: A software product or a modem and software combination which would enable me to receive a data file unattended, or receive a fax file or a voice mail message and record them to a hard disk. I have an external Hayes Optima 14.4 (data+fax) but the software I have can't receive voice and can only receive data if the data program is loaded and can only receive faxes if the fax program is loaded. Obviously, it would be good to have some sort of security so that no files could be downloaded or deleted or viewed, etc.; a limit ot file sizes or mail boxes etc, like voice mail. I am not very interested in running a bulletin board, just being able to receive a data file from one caller and then a fax from the next caller and perhaps a voice message from the next caller, without having to manually switch programs. Prometheus seems to have a system called "Ultima Home Office" available for both Mac and PC, but I can't find out if you can receive a data file unattended like you can a voice or fax message. Compaq has the voice and fax concurrent capability in their new systems but they won't receive data without a separate program which can't share the modem with voice/fax. I realize you can run a phone line on two calls concurrently. I just want software to switch capabilities on successive calls. I travel far and wide within the nebula and often can't remember where I have been. Would you please cc any replies back to me. Thank you, Dave Stevenson | WordWise Ottawa, Ont. | Desktop Publishing/Editing ph 233-7385 | ph 237-9802 fax 237-0650 ------------------------------ From: writchie@gate.net (Wallace A. Ritchie) Subject: Open Letter to Telecom Industry re: Standards Date: 30 Nov 1994 05:15:36 GMT This open letter is addressed to the attention of ANSI, ISO, Bellcore, the LEC's, ESA, T1, TIA, EIA, IEEE, UL and any other organization in the world that promulgates standards related to the Telecom Industry. This letter is occasioned by my recent discovery that the ITU has resumed internet availability of its standards (gopher://info.itu.ch). Having made the bold move a year or two ago, the ITU unexpectedly withdrew access. Whatever individuals or forces have caused this restoral are to be applauded. It is true that I won't spend my usual few thousand dollars with them this úÿ year for standards information that I absolutely must have. (Maybe I will splurge with the savings and buy a Bellcore document or two that I can't immediately and directly justify economically). While the ITU will loose my check and many other like it, the loss will be more than offset by the tremendous furthering of its objectives. Tens of thousands of engineers and engineering students, those that don't work for AT&T, NT, IBM, or other companies that can afford a $million (literally) standards library, will draw on this public resource. The level of misinformation about Public Telephone Networks, due in large part to information starvation, will decline. Increased knowledge will eventually lead to more products in the market, lower prices, and a larger industry. Thank you ITU. Now to all the other organizations, please see the light. Value based pricing of standards (called extortion by some) is wholly inappropriate. Just throw the stuff out on ftp. Forget the argument that the fair price ($1 per page or more) covers the high cost of producing the standards. The world has changed. This argument is now X$&**!!. The internet allows a much more efficient standards process without the high travel budgets. The travel savings should cover the cost of producing the file (which is electronic in any case). As to access, don't worry about the cost. If you can't justify the access, the internet community will surely mirror the documents around the world. Standards documents should not be a profit center. To Ameritech, who alone (to my knowledge) among the Bells provides free standards, please take the next step and put them online. You are to be applauded for your policy. You can save money now with the internet. To all engineers associated with the standards bodies or companies, please lobby your management to make these documents freely available on the net. To everyone else, please refrain from flaming any of the organizations. Let's see if the grass roots that read this open letter WITHIN the organizations can have the desired impact. Thanks, W. A. Ritchie Ft. Lauderdale, Florida ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 15:38:51 -0500 From: C.L.Ludwick:tmpa:gtfl Subject: Bell Atlantic Suspensions Pat, Your assumption appears to be that no matter what happened Bell Atlantic is the bad player. As for freedom of speech -- does it include the right to publicly insult and denigrate your employer on company time? Larry [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No it does not include that 'right'. See the next article in this issue for further elaboration on this by Dennis Rears. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dennis G. Rears Subject: Free Speech or Not (was Re: What Information) Reply-To: drears@pica.army.mil Organization: U.S Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 19:28:15 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For starters, how about some forthright > information on the thousand plus employees who were punitively suspended > last week from their duties as a result of their exercise of their > freedom of speech? Why don't you start by posting some factual details > about that incident on the Internet. This group would be a good place > to put Bell Atlantic's version of what happened. For those who missed > the preliminary report Sunday evening here, on Wednesday, the day before > Thanksgiving, over a thousand Bell Atlantic employees were suspended > for speaking out about the telco's alleged plans to leave them at the > side of the road as the information superhighway is being built. Some > comment from the company on why a mass suspension like this was needed, > on the day before Thanksgiving, would be of interest. PAT] I must disagree with Pat on this topic. In this particular instance workers wore t-shirt describing themselves as road kill on the information super highway at work. They were told repeatly that the t-shirt was defaming the company and not to wear it at work. They were told the final time to either change the shirt or wear it inside out. They refused and were sent home suspended without pay for two days. My source is the Phildelphia Inquirer. The issue was the wearing of the T-shirts for not for speech. There is no freedom of speech in the workplace on work time. Freedom of speech is between the government(s) and the individual not employer and employee. The basic problem is that because of technology Bell Atlantic does not need all the employees they have and wants to lay at least a thousand. The issue basically comes down to does Bell Atlantic owe it current workers a job even though there is no need for them. dennis [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For those who are not familiar with him, Dennis was the founder of the Telecom Privacy journal, a very popular e-journal which was started as an offshoot of TELECOM Digest several years ago. Thanks very much Dennis for providing the additional background on this, and yes, I quite agree with you on the constitutional provisions relating to speech: the constitution discusses what the *government* can and cannot do to individuals, not what individuals may choose to do with each other or with reference to their employment, etc. Still it seems to me like things must be sort of out of control at B-A where employee dis- content is concerned if the company felt it necessary to strike back in such a draconian way against so many employees all on the same day. As Larry points out in the article just before yours, employees do not have the right to insult their employer on company time, nor in my estimation is it a prudent thing to do on their private time either ... but still, there must be a lot of unhappieness among the workers there; a lot of grievances the company would do well to resolve before they get worse. For every worker who spoke openly and defiantly last Wednesday and got suspended, my hunch is there are two or three others who are in the closet but feeling much the same way. I can see both sides of this issue. Downsizing is always very painful and if it must be done, then do it with compassion and as much assistance as possible. In 1975, when Amoco announced that the credit card billing office was going to relocate in Des Moines, Iowa, there were about 2000 workers in the Chicago office who were not going to be relocating. Amoco announced their plans two full years ahead of time and made what I think was a most honorable gesture to the workers left behind without a job: if they agreed to stay on the job until the day and the hour on which they were told their (individual) services were no longer required, that upon their departure the company would automatically -- in addition to severance pay, all accrued benefits, etc -- hand them each an additional check for one thousand dollars. But, said Amoco, if you screw up, if you bad mouth us and sabatoge us, steal from us or whatever and get caught, then out you go -- on your ass! -- with just what the law says we have to give you and no more. No need to have a union get involved; the union knows the law and so do we ... A few workers tested them on that, and even up to the week before the mass layoffs involved in closing the credit card billing office the persons involved were discharged from the company in disgrace. On the final two days of the Chicago operation, as employees went through the Personnel Office enmasse collecting their final paychecks and signing off on insurance papers, etc they were met individually by a vice- president of Amoco who shook their hand and said "Mary Sue (or Pete, or Tom) I want to personally thank you so much for the way you have helped the company and supported us during the transition ..." and as promised each was handed a check for one thousand dollars over and above what they otherwise had coming to them. Now were they so noble of their own volition, or because they were scared there might be a repeat of the scene in 1968 when Diners Club moved their processing offices to Denver? In 1968, Diner's (then in Manhattan) secretly set up a new processing office in Denver and hired several hundred new workers without telling anyone. Then on the day before Thanksgiving in 1968 as they were handing out turkeys to the workers in Manhattan, they announced ever so casually, "Have a happy Thanksgiving (it was a two day holiday covering Thursday and Friday) and by the way, don't bother to come back to work on Monday because we won't be here ..." Shocked employees (at the time, Diner's had about 3000 employees; they were only partially converted to computer from manual record keeping) went on a rampage. They rioted, literally smashing the offices to pieces. They broke into the computer room and destroyed some billing tapes which had not yet been backed up. The billing tapes were tossed out the window on the fifth floor shredded like confetti down to Columbus Circle and the ground below. As a result of the employee vandalism, Diners had to write off close to two million dollars in credit card receivables they were unable to reconstruct from other sources. Now in 1975 when Amoco relocated to Des Moines, they like Diners were accused of moving primarily to get rid of all the 'lazy black workers' who had been hired in recent years. Denver, like Des Moines had lots of white people, the sons and daughters and wives of farmers; people still imbued with the Protestant Work Ethic; people who would work for a lot less per hour than the 'lazy black workers' in the inner city demanded, and would do a better job at that. Skeptics said Amoco did not want to have 'another Diners Club mess' on their hands so they allowed the workers to 'blackmail' them in the final year of the Chicago operation. I think not. I think they knew if you treat people honestly and with decency, you'll get the same thing in return. So as downsizing continues in the telecommunications industry over the next several years -- and it must, it is bound to happen, especially in the bloated and swollen local telco operations -- it is absolutely essential that the telcos adopt a 'more than fair' attitude. One wag said to me, "the telcos are going to have to bend over backwards on this; not ask the workers to bend over foreward ..." . PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 94 13:54:36 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Philadelphia 911 Tragedy The beating victim (who died) was 16, not 14, and his name was Eddie Polec. The mayor of Philadelphia has recommended disciplinary action against seven operators in the 911 system; the union is fighting it. The crime site, if I heard correctly, is near the boundary of two police districts, and there were several police available (according to KYW news-radio), but they were not notified and/or dispatched until it was too late. Five teens have been charged in connection with the incident. ------------------------------ From: healy@seviche.med.yale.edu (Matthew D. Healy) Subject: Re: 911, CNID, was Re: Problem With 911 Service in Philadelphia Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 18:14:29 -0500 Organization: Yale U.--Genetics & Medical Informatics In article , dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) wrote: > Pat and all others: Amzaingly enough, most cities do -NOT- have CNID > or other identifiers hooked up to their 911 system. Problem is simply > cost and the required rewiring of a -lot- of old equipment. Well, 911 service at my apartment in Hamden, CT, certainly _does_ have caller-ID, and very efficient operators as well. Several serious car crashes have happened at the corner near my apartment building. In every case the sequence has been roughly as follows: *CRASH* sound from outside. My wife and I look out the window to see what appears to be a nasty accident. We call 911. Operator says, "Oh,yes, I see you are calling from Whitney and Putnam. We've already gotten several calls about that accident; they're on the way." About 90 seconds after the initial crash we hear the first sirens. Within about five minutes there are two patrol cars, a fire engine, a paramedic van, and a couple of ambulances at the scene. I hear they can be a little slower in New Haven, because they are much busier down there. I see in today's newspaper that some people have been fired over the Philadelphia incident, in which a person was beaten to death while many people called 911 over an extended period of time. Matthew D. Healy matthew.healy@yale.edu Postdoc,Yale School of Medicine, Genetics & Medical Informatics, SHM I-148, 333 Cedar St, New Haven, CT 06510 ------------------------------ From: NYAD92A@prodigy.com (STAN SCHWARTZ) Subject: Prodigy Now Has Newsgroups Date: 30 Nov 1994 05:12:53 GMT Organization: Prodigy Services Company 1-800-PRODIGY Not that I'm a shill for Prodigy, but they've added Usenet newsgroups to their "Plus" service level. I recommend it if it's the only dial-up IP that one has access to, but in many places there are cheaper alternatives. Prodigy users on the Internet are the old-men-in-hats on the Information Highway. STAN SCHWARTZ NYAD92A@prodigy.com email accepted at --> stans@panix.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Stan, that's a terrible thing to say! There is a place on the information highway for everyone, including old men in hats. Look at me: I sit here everyday doing my thing, although where its getting me, I don't know. PAT] ------------------------------ From: marcbg@metronet.com (Marc B. Grant) Subject: Help With Oki 892 ESN Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 22:19:25 GMT Organization: Texas Metronet, Internet for the Individual I have an OKI 892 that I need to change the ESN on. Anyone know where I can get this info? OKI service refused to give it out, and the local service center is numb. This is for legal use, but I can't find someone who pass this info to me. Anyone have any ideas?? Marc B. Grant | Fax: 214-231-3998 marcbg@metronet.com | Pager: 214-246-1150 Amateur Radio N5MEI | ------------------------------ From: ecla@world.std.com (alain arnaud) Subject: Automatic Callback Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 18:00:16 GMT I need to set up an automatic callback system. In more details, someone calls the system, let it ring once or twice and hangs up. The system calls him back and provides a dial tone. Who would make boards that would provide that function, preferably for ISA bus. Thanks, Alain ------------------------------ From: bfbrown@teal.csn.org (Brian Brown) Subject: MCI Conference Call Date: 30 Nov 1994 18:07:16 GMT Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc. I was just wondering what (if anything) people who called the MCI 1-800 number and entered the 7777 passcode thought of that conference playback service. Was it easy to use, did it sound okay, were instructions clear, etc...??? If you had no problems with it and did not need to give the DTMF interface any thought, I'd like to hear that, too. Thanks, BB ------------------------------ From: egan@cbs.cis.com (Egan F. Ford) Subject: DTMF to Serial Port Help Wanted Date: 30 Nov 1994 18:51:43 GMT Organization: Call Business Systems Reply-To: egan@cbs.cis.com I need a box that will allow me to dial in to it with a touch tone phone and after the box answers I press some tones and the box converts them to numbers and pumps them out the serial port to a program I have waiting to receive them. I know there is such a box, but where can I find it. E-mail please. Thanks, Egan F. Ford egan@cbs.cis.com egan@xmission.com ------------------------------ From: diessel@informatik.unibw-muenchen.de (Thomas Diessel) Subject: Re: Tehran Changes Emergency Number Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1994 08:58:57 +0100 Organization: University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich In article , telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote: > According to the manager of emergency telecom services in Tehran, > three or four out of every five calls received were nuissance calls > made by children. The nuisance calls have considerably reduced in > quantity since the emergency phone number was changed to 115 beginning > this past month. Do you know why they selected 115? Why didn't they stick to the European standard emergency number 112? Thomas Diessel University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich Computer Science Department - D-85577 Neubiberg, Germany [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have no idea how/why they do things the way they do them there. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 14:09:09 -0500 From: rvirzi@gte.com (Robert A. Virzi) Subject: Last Laugh! Ameritech the Beautiful I really enjoyed this. Hope you do to. BV úÿ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, okay, here we go, with apologies to Katherine Lee Bates. PAT] Posted to rec.humor or some related group: In article <3at2qh$h5a@gagme.wwa.com>, boba@wwa.com (Bob Allison) wrote: Ameritech the Beautiful by Laura Robbins November 11, 1993 (Sung to the tune of America the Beautiful) Ah! beautiful for telephones At work, in home and car, They beep and blink, they buzz and ring, No matter where you are. Chorus: Ameritech, Ameritech, From sea to shining sea, With microchips and optic strands, Invades our privacy. Oh! marvelous technology, Results in awesome things, Recordings answer every call, No need for human beings. Chorus: Ameritech, Ameritech, Press 1 through 10 and then, There's no one there (to help or care) So press them all again. Oh! satellites magnificent, Above the fruited plain, You feed us TV's old reruns, A monumental gain! Chorus: Ameritech, Ameritech, God mend thine every flaw, Until VoiceMail and cordless phones, Are all against the law. ------------------------- rvirzi@gte.com Think Globally. === +1(617)466-2881 === Act Locally! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And that's not all! One final dig at Ameritech to close this issue follows immediatly. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Alan E. Asper Date: 30 Nov 94 13:42:22 CST Subject: Re: Ameritech the Beautiful Keeping in the whole pop-culture vein, I prefer envisioning sneering, grey-suited and bandolier-clad Ameritech executives/banditos: "Type-ahead? Our residential voice mail don' need no steenkeen type-ahead!" A (new and bewildered) customer, Alan Asper Andersen Consulting [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If I expect to get this issue of the Digest distributed in the normal way on Ameritech news groups, I think I better quit while I am ahead. Gee Dennis, talk about making insulting and denigrating remarks toward telcos ... Its a good thing I don't work for them; I'd be on the unemployment line starting tomorrow! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #432 ******************************