From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Sat Aug 26 00:08:23 1995 by 1995 00:08:23 -0400 telecomlist-outbound; Fri, 25 Aug 1995 21:15:01 -0500 1995 21:14:59 -0500 To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu TELECOM Digest Fri, 25 Aug 95 21:13:00 CDT Volume 15 : Issue 359 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson A Few More Notes About TWX (Mark Cuccia) India's VSNL Offers Corporate Domains, Internet Access (Rishab A. Ghosh) Re: Smartcard Phone Spotted in Oshawa Ontario! (Sam Spens Clason) Re: AT&T Moving Into Local Exchange Market (Robert Levandowski) Re: Area Code Crisis -- A Different Viewpoint (Richard Barry) 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'. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article is about the operation of a TWX from a user's view, during the DDD period, 1962-1982, when TWX was an *integral* part of the DDD Telephone network- whether AT&T owned it outright, or during the 1970's, when it was a marketing function of WUTC but still routed/switched/numbered/dialed over the Bell System's DDD Telephone network. This is when The Bell System DDD (AT&T Long Lines with its Bell Op.Companies, and interconnecting 'independent' GTE's, etc) was a predominantly Crossbar switched network, and Common Channel Signalling was only a theory at Bell Labs, when inbound MF address and SF supervisory signals were the thing. When Bell automated the TWX network and retrofitted Model 28 teletypes with a dial/handset-earpiece/modem/keyset control, and the 'teen' series (Model 10, 14, 15) teletypes had a '6-line-keyset-500-deskset' telephone (with mouthpiece insert removed/disconnected) in 1962/63, all TWX teletype machines were only 3-row keyboards, 60-66 Baud, 5-level Baudot punch-tape code. They had numbers assigned with their geographic telephone NPA, plus seven digits, using a centrally located NNX code for that city or region, ususally that of a #5XB. A year or so later, Bell began the N10 special areacode series of TWX, 4-row keyboards, Model 33 & 35 TTY machines, 8-level ASCII punch-tape code, and 100-150 Baud rate, with a built in speaker, dial or touchtone pad, modem, and built in 6-keyset control. For dialing purposes- you pressed 'originate' on the control keyset (or associated modified 500 deskset telephone), listened for regular dialtone thru the 'half-a-handset', earpiece, or microphone-disabled 500 set handset. You dialed *the full ten digit number* of the TWX customer you wished. There was NO prefix of 1+ no matter WHAT type of TWX machine you were calling from, even if your area DID USE a mandatory 1+ for toll telephone DDD. For the most part, TWX machines got dialtone from a #5XB office, regardless of where they were located. Even if a TWX was out in the 'sticks', it usually was FX-ed to get dialtone from a nearby specially modified #5XB office, however, INCOMMING calls could be routed thru its own local telephone Step by Step, Panel, #1XB, or non-modified #5XB office. This special arrangement was known as 'divided-line' access. I think that many TWX's on the 510 special areacode were the original divided line access customers, altho' they could have been upgraded later on, but still kept the 510 special areacode. Within a matter of seconds, you either got ringing, busy, reorder, recording, whatever. If it rang and was answered manually or automatically, you then heard the 'modem' high pitched tone for a few seconds, handshaking occurred, then the loud high tone was disabled from your speaker or earpiece, and data/text transmission occurred (answerbacks first). As I stated in my earlier article, for the most part, regular telephones could NOT dial N10 areacodes, but 3-row keyboard TWX machines (with regular geographic telephone areacodes) could; they'd HAVE to, since they were TWX to TWX calls! N10 (4-row keyboard) TWX machines could dial to ANY N10 or geographic telephone NPA-NXX code, EVEN IF THE TELEPHONE NUMBER WAS A TELEPHONE! Since there was no way to speak, the person on the telephone receiving the call would just keep saying 'Hello, Hello, Hello' and then hang up, thinking they were getting a 'bad' call, just like fax users or data users today dialing (by mistake) telephone users. You would hear ALL voice/speech thru your earpiece or half-a-handset or built-in-speaker. You COULD enter the full ten digit number for any local Time/Weather/Temp service and 'broadcast' it on the speaker on Model 33 & 35's! If you were on a N10 4-row keyboard machine, you'd probably chalk-up a charge for that call, since it was ID'd by the #5XB as a N10 origination. However, a 3-row keyboard geographic telephone NPA machine *might* not chalk-up any charges, since it was 'local-telephone' call (this was WELL BEFORE any 976-PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call-numbers, too!). I remember visiting the local offices of WUTC, WUIntl, ITT, RCA Americom/Globcom, TRT, etc. back when I was in high school in the late 1970's, requesting TWX/Telex directories and user's manuals, and seeing how the USER managed a TWX machine, including calling up the local weather report's telephone number! Using a TELEX machine involved pressing an originate key, but NOT hearing any dialtone. On WUTC Telex, a lamp lit up under the rotary dial, you spun the dial just like a telephone, and when there was a data connection, the motor in the machine turned on, answerbacks were exchanged, and you could send/type your message. On ITT, RCA, WUI, TRT, FTC, etc. domestic telex 'private' networks arranged for primarily international calls, you either pressed originate, or you turned a knob switch from 'off' to line, your motor turned on right away, a line and data connection was established with that IRC's switch, you got the switch's ID code, and you TYPED your destination's telex number, similar to the way it was in many foreign countries, according to THEIR telex directories instructions pages! Busy circuits and other 'call progress' info was TYPED by the switch onto your machine's paper roll-except for WU Telex machines, where the lamp underneath the plastic dial would blink or flash at specified rates. BTW, the dial or touchtone pad on TWX terminals did NOT have the letters- only numbers! Except for the oldest (teen series model 10, 14, 15) terminals which had an associated BLACK 500-deskset, rotary dial, with 6-key controls- THAT had the regular dialface with letters, numbers, 'Operator' over the zero! BUT since telephone numbers were assigned to TWX in 1962/63 (when automated by integrating it with the DDD Telephone network), 'ALL-NUMBER-CALLING' was being phased in, and even if the NPA-NNX code for TWX had an exchange name at one time, NO TWX numbers were ever identified as '504-VAlley-2-5XXX'; only as 504-822-5XXX, which was the series of numbers used in the New Orleans metro area for 3-row keyboard TWX machines in the 1960's and 70's. forget Fax machines, too!). MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1- 2497 WORK: mcuccia@law.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241- 2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865- 5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ -==This Indian Techonomist bulletin (C) Copyright 1995 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh India's VSNL offers corporate domains, Internet access for $800 August 25, 1995: India's overseas communications monopoly, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), will allow corporate users of its new Internet service to have their own domain names. Although individuals can pay $160 for 250 hours of use, institutions have to pay $300 to $800 for the same use, if they choose to connect through dial-up lines. Amitabh Kumar, VSNL's Chief General Manager for Planning told The Indian Techonomist that corporate users will be able to register their own domain names - such as techonomist.com.in - through VSNL's name server, and will have multi-user accounts. The only previously announced distinction between institutional and individual dial-up accounts was that the former would only get shell access. Although VSNL's service is a result of loopholes defining its monopoly - it is strictly speaking a "gateway" to the Internet outside India, and cannot provide connectivity within the country - it seems happy to encourage competition. This is not very surprising, as VSNL makes money anyway - the overseas communications link must be acquired from it, even by competing Internet providers. Competing providers don't exist, thanks to government restrictions on datacom (see http://dxm.org/techonomist/dcom.html) - but Mr Kumar said VSNL is "discussing [this] with the DoT," and would "prefer to work with Internet service providers while providing wholesale services to them." Mr Kumar adds that VSNL is prepared "to meet the requirements" of datacom after deregulation of restricted "value added services." Meanwhile, the first week after the launch of VSNL services has gone reasonably well, with individual accounts growing the most rapidly. Service is available through the Department of Telecom's national X.25 network, I-NET, and through local calls from Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. VSNL claims it will connect Bangalore and Pune, two centres of much hi-tech activity, later this year. The excuse for this delay of some months is lame - apparently a lack of space to locate their servers. A more likely reason is the nature of the loophole that lets them offer the service at all - their limited rights to provide last-leg connectivity for overseas traffic. GPSS, an old VSNL X.25 gateway, is also available only in India's four major cities. For the pricing structure and more on VSNL, see http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/vsnl.html -==(C) Copyright 1995 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. -==Licensed for ELECTRONIC distribution, including commercial, provided -==this notice is attached. This bulletin is from The Indian Techonomist, -==the newsletter on India's information industry. -==http://dxm.org/techonomist/ - e-mail rishab@arbornet.org -==Phone +91 11 6853410; H-34-C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA. The Indian Techonomist - newsletter on India's information industry http://dxm.org/techonomist/ rishab@dxm.org Editor and publisher: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab@arbornet.org Vox +91 11 6853410; 3760335; H 34 C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA ------------------------------ In srdawson@interlog.com (Scott Robert Dawson) writes: > Last week I was in Oshawa visiting friends and we stopped at a food > store. The pay phones in the lobby were the standard Nortel 'Millennium' > model, but the top housing above the screen was bright blue with the > new Bell logo, and the card reader housing was bright yellow. Both of > these were changed from the previous grey-blue. The graphic by the > card slot showed two cards, one with a stripe and one with a small > square. > Intrigued, I remembered them and turned to the Web when I got home. > Earlier, I had seen an ad in French for a new Bell phone card with a > chip, in a promotional magazine for the Montreal Jazz Festival. Bell > Canada serves most of Ontario and part of Quebec. > A check of Bell's Web site, http://www.bell.ca, turned up a media > release dated 7 April, which described the new card and its rollout > across Quebec and (in September) Ontario. The card was supposed to be > easily buyable in convenience stores, depanneurs, etc. > My question is: are these cards reusable? Can you put more money in > them when they run out? Will they be refillable in an ATM? Is there > some sort of standard for these cards so that they could be used, say, > in other countries? Will other countries' cards work in a Bell phone? > All this hints at a vast behind-the-scenes transaction network > rivaling the banks'. We have this kind (?) of telephone cards in Sweden. They're not reusable and only carries a number of units. Of course this will be expanded to real smart cards sometime in a not to distant future. I think the French have real smart cards in their pay-phones, I'm almost sure they've got cards that don't run out of units. Whether they're smarter than that I don't know. Using smart cards for identification is very secure and can be used by e.g. banks. There are a great number of tests being carried out at the moment, I don't know all to much about France and France Telecom. But they've been pushing for smart cards for a looong time now. There has been French tests with pay-phone-and-ATM card all in one. There was however great administrative problems since neither France Telecom nor the banks wanted to give up to much control to the other part. Ergo failure. We have smart card styled SIM cards carrying the equivalent of the ESN etc in GSM phones and there are no technical problems with expanding this for home use, i.e. having a home terminal plugged in the wall and thus implementing UPT. The main driving force for smart card home terminals isn't very likely going to be UPT but rather new banks not wanting to invest in offices having a lot of staff etc. Of course the telecom business has be active so that they can use the terminals and the cards for telephone services too. I.e. not only secure transportation and identification over the telephone network but also personal telecom services. "New banks" could be insurance companies, larger corporations etc. This will revolutionize the banking business -- and if the telcos play their cards right -- and the telecom business. The major obstacle is again who's to have control over the system and especially the identification part while still maintaining all services -- financial and communicational -- integrated. Sam www.nada.kth.se/~d92-sam, sam@nada.kth.se, +46 7 01234567 ------------------------------ In NEERAJ VORA writes: > There are reports that AT&T is all set to enter the local call arena > and provide some fierce competition. According to Newsbytes reports > they are ready to take a beating at first to gain ground in the > market. Then Pat writes: > What's interesting about this alleged plan by AT&T to 'take over' local > service next year is that they already have several new switches in place > largely sitting idle waiting for the day to arrive when they go in > service and (according to the WSJ story) AT&T plans to do something quite > ridiculous and offer their existing long distance customers 'local area > service' for some very small amount of money; far less than what the BOCs > are getting. Full custom calling features, the works. Interesting times. AT&T is one of the companies providing competitive local phone service here in Rochester, NY. As you may know, Rochester Telephone (a division of Frontier Communications) is an independent phone company, not a RBOC. RochTel came up with an Open Market Plan where "Rochester Telephone" would have regulated rates, but other companies could buy time on the RochTel networks and switches to resell as dialtone to consumers. AT&T is one such reseller here. Time Warner Communications, the local cable co., is also offering phone service via their fiber-optic CATV distribution network, which means they don't have to give RochTel money for the network. Anyhow, a few months ago AT&T was complaining that they were having trouble competing in Rochester, because it was taking so long for RochTel to configure their equipment as necessary to process new customers. Apparently AT&T has to ask RochTel to set up each new customer in the switches or something ... and it means long delays in getting hooked up to AT&T or if you need repair as an AT&T customer. Sounds like another case of what goes around, comes around. Frontier, RochTel's parent company, is partners with Nynex and several other cellular providers in New York and New England. In the next few months, the current company -- RochesterTel Mobile Communications / NYNEX Cellular / Advantage Cellular / Mountain Cellular -- will become Frontier Cellular throughout New York State and other markets in the Northeast. Frontier Communications International, the long distance company, has been buying up other LD carriers left and right. Right now, they are ·_ the fifth largest LD carrier, behind AT&T, Sprint, MCI, and LDDS. (In my opinion, they also offer far better customer service than most other LD carriers I've tried, including AT&T.) Frontier owns local telephone companies in several states throughout the Northeast and midwestern states, including Frontier Communications of Minnesota. While I'm not unhappy with RochTel/Frontier service, I must say that recently they've been reminding me a bit of a younger, leaner, meaner AT&T -- a juggernaut. Since they were never part of Bell, they have much more of a free hand than the RBOCs and AT&T ... and I wonder if they don't aim to be the next pre-breakup AT&T. Rob Levandowski Computer Interest Floor associate / University of Rochester macwhiz@cif.rochester.edu [Opinions expressed are mine, not UR's.] ------------------------------ fritz@mirage.hc.ti.com (Fritz Whittington) wrote: > There is an extremely interesting document available at: > http://www.open.gov.uk/oftel/oftelwww/oftcons.htm > which explains how the UK intends to handle the area-code and number > shortage problems, in a very flexible and user-friendly way. Makes me > wonder why we couldn't do it the same way (I know, North America is a > lot bigger and has more people, but the scheme is scaleable). It also > (horrors!) asks for *feedback* and *comments* on the various > proposals. I wouldn't suggest that anyone looking for an ideal numbering strategy look at the UK model (except on a what not to do basis!) The reason the authorities there are entering a pretent public consultation process is because they have done so much damage and screwed up so badly up to now. There is no long term numbering strategy in the UK - it changes virtually every year, which is great for the printing industry! Since "PhONEday", the UK has enough numbering space for about 8 billion phone lines, which means that phone numbers are much longer than they need be, under any population / user terminal growth scenario. You can't tell which part of the country an area code is located from the first digit or two, as one can in virtually every other European country -- (eg area code 01232 is Belfast, Northern Ireland while 01233 is in Kent in the South East of England). The UK has several codes for toll-free and similar numbers including 0800, 0500, 0345 and 0645. In surveys, about 20% of the population don't know that 0800 is toll free and nearly half the population don't know that 0500 is toll-free. Mobile phone numbers, paging, and premium rate numbers are found all over the numbering space. Instead of giving London 8 digit local numbers (like Paris and Tokyo), it now has two area codes, which can mean having to dial 11 digits to reach someone in a neighboring suburb. Anyone looking for logical or radical numbering plan ideas should consider other numbering plans such as found in Switzerland or Ireland or Denmark or Norway (where they have done away area codes altogether). Most European numbering plans have the following characteristics: *Hierarchical area code structure* (like the US Zip code. While one mightn't know where Zip 90234 is precisely, even a non-American can guess that it is on the West coast and probably in California. Someone who knows California can probably guess it is in the LA area, etc.) This structure follows on to some extent from the country code layout (eg all country codes beginning with 3 are in Europe). *Variable number length* so that cities that outgrow 7 digits can have 8 digit local numbers. No multiple area code confusion. Small towns can have even shorter local numbers, if desirable. *Distinctive non-geographic codes* so that anyone can tell a mobile number or a pager or a premium rate number from a regular phone number easily. *A single code for a single function* - all toll-free numbers should begin with the same code to assist public recognition. So if you run out of numbering space in the 800 range, add an extra digit to the bit that follows 800 - (ie 800 nnnn nnnn). This goes back to variable number length flexibility. Richard Barry rbarry@iol.ie ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #359 ******************************