From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Fri Sep 1 13:19:54 1995 by 1995 13:19:54 -0400 telecomlist-outbound; Fri, 1 Sep 1995 09:25:42 -0500 1995 09:25:39 -0500 To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu TELECOM Digest Fri, 1 Sep 95 09:25:00 CDT Volume 15 : Issue 369 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson HELP on LD Directory Assistance Billing (Lou Jahn) Email -> Pager Gateway? (Eric De Mund) Hey AT&T, Tell Me How Much Your Services Cost! (Howard G. Page) WATS Extender (Jeff Shaver) T1 Direct to Modem Bank (Gary Secor) Re: Area Code Crisis -- A Different Viewpoint (Martin D. Kealey) LEC Blocked From Providing Intralata DA (bkron@netcom.com) Looking For CHEAPER Domestic/International Long Distance (Kevin Lipsitz) AT&T Wireless AKA McCaw Screws up Again (jensoft@blarg.com) Re: Questions: History of AC 905; What's a TWX? (Rich Szabo) Re: AT&T Moving Into Local Exchange Market (Steven Lichter) Telephone Numbers Used in Entertainment Fiction (Mark J. Cuccia) 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 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: 500-677-1616 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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A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Can anyone shed some light as to the varies parts of LD Directory Assistance charges? I once asked the question related to the tarrif build-up, now with a credit I find I need to deal with two firms. If I call NPA-555-1212 my IXC carrier charges me $.75. When I was charged for two DA calls where they had no number to release to me, I called to complain. I was offered an immediate "partial" credit but was told I had to call Bell Atlantic for the credit of the remainder of the charge. I was told this was necessary as the IXC had already paid BA for that part of the call. Can anyone help me understand the mechanics of the charging and then billing for Directory Assistance calls. I have previously noted the $.75 charge seems like an over-charge to me. In Pennsyvania a 411 call costs $.25 to from a local phone. If I call 215-555-1212 from NJ I pay the $.75 charge -- now if I was allowed to place a LD call to 215-411, I'd save money. My LD rates is 15.5 cents during the day. Thus my call to 215-411 (if it were allowed) would only cost 40.5 cents. The two part credit I mentioned above drove me to consider why/how the charge got to $.75 and which firms get what part of the money chain. Anybody have any answers? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 555-1212 is treated like an 800 number in the sense that the recipient of the call pays the charges, which would always be some telco somewhere. They have to pay your telco somewhere for handling the call, and they want to make something for their own time and effort as well, thus the various components of the overall (usually) 75 cent charge. I'm amazed they gave you any refund at all. The charge is *not* for providing you with information, it is for *seeking out* the information, if any exists. If none exists, too bad; they still spent their time looking. On local directory assistance (411) that is certainly the case. If you spend their time talking to them, you pay, regardless of results. PAT] ------------------------------ Is there an email -> pager gateway? I'd like to be able to have clients send email to my MobilComm alpha pager at its 1 (800) number. Thank you, Eric De Mund gopher://netcom.com:79/0ead [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You need to speak with Doug Reuben about the service he and his associates offer. It has been discussed here in the Digest in the past, but not too much recently. Perhaps in response, Doug will send a general update about his service to us. I can't find him on the mailing list right now or I would include his email address here. PAT] ------------------------------ Several days after receiving my AT&T calling card statement, I started thinking about how much it really cost to to complete a call via my AT&T calling card. I called the "800" number listed on the back of the statement. I requested from the AT&T representative who answered a a list of the various rates for completing a call on the AT&T network with my AT&T calling card. He replied that there is no such list of rates to send me. I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor agreed, there is no list of the type requested, that is, he agreed that I am supposed to use my AT&T caling card to purchase a service from AT&T, but AT&T isn't able to tell how much I'll pay. Hey AT&T, are you listening? Tell me how your services cost! Thanks. Howard G. Page hpage@netcom.com 415-548-1902 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Generally the only difference in rates is for the first minute and the calling card surcharge. The second and subsequent minutes are billed at the same rate as if you had dialed the call yourself from your home phone. PAT] ------------------------------ Is there anyone who was able to find an inexpensive WATS extender? I have seen several posts here in the last few months, but heard nothing of the results. Hello Direct was of no help; the two people I spoke with laughed and had no idea what I was talking about. I'm looking for a simple way to make local calls (as in local to the wats extender), utilizing my 800 number, while traveling. I would prefer to have at least some primitive security measures, but extra features aren't high priority. Thanks for any leads or suggestions anyone can give me! Jeff Shaver jshaver@cscu.csc.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Those devices used to be a very important part of life for business people who were out of the office all day since they allowed one to dial into the office phone system and the connect with the 'extender' and dial back out on the WATS line. But that was back in the days when WATS (Wide Area Telephone Service) calls were almost as expensive as DDD is now. Prices have gone down so much on long distance in the past decade that devices like WATS extenders and other sorts of customer- owned patch devices to put in the line have become almost obsolete. PAT] ------------------------------ I have some switched 800 lines now dumping on a centrex hunt group (16 lines). I want to look at a T1 that replaces these switched lines since it should result in lower cost per minute and some better disaster recovery redirection options. What can I connect the T1 to that will allow it to connect to 16 modems? I suspect there may be a card that goes in a pc that can look like 23 or 24 analog lines. What is it called and what might it cost? Who has such an animal? Any other suggestions appreciated. I can use existing modem rack or am willing to look at a new one if it fits the situation. All thoughts appreciated! ------------------------------ Richard Barry wrote: > *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. Tony Harminc wrote: > This is terrible idea, This is a *wonderful* idea. :-) > for the one simple reason that telephones don't > have Enter keys. So the switch has to decide when you've finished > dialing by some means, usually a timeout. Or if the switch is smart ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > enough it may be able to avoid timeouts on certain calls, but the > result is inconsistent behaviour. ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, telephones do have 'enter' keys > or 'carriage return' keys. It is the '#' key located underneath the '9'. Tony seems to think that we who live in countries where variable length local numbers are the norm (or at least were until recently) spend our time waiting for "timeouts". This is nonsense, and it amazes me that people in the telecom industry can have such a blinkered view of things (but then no wonder the NANP is such a mess)! We *NEVER* have timeouts during dialing, not even for operator, nor do we have to use the octothorpe key, so there is no "inconsistent behaviour" either. If you're in NANP then you already have "local" numbers in three standard lengths (seven, ten and three) and it doesn't take a timeout to distinguish them; consider this: * Is there any timeout when you dial "911" before the switch decides that you aren't going to dial any more digits? (There'd better not be!) * Is there a timeout after you dial a 7-digit number before the switch decides you're not going to dial a 10-digit number? (No?) Well, why should seven and eight digit versions of local numbers be any harder to deal? As long as no short number ever forms a prefix for any longer number, the switch can always tell how many more digits to expect after the first few digits. [I don't know, never having been there, but I would expect that even in Germany where DDI numbers can have a variable length inward dialing suffix, the PBX would know still when to initiate an immediate connection because this no-prefix policy also applies to extension numbers (eg no ordinary extension numbers start with a 0). Can anyone in +49 confirm or deny this?] NANP got this badly wrong when they assigned 0 for operator and also used it as a lead-in code for other functions, so now it needs a timeout (or octothorpe) to distinguish them. > The NANP has this for 900 and such, though there are some local > variations (976 and the like are not universal). There is no need to > know that you are calling a mobile number if the mobile user is paying, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That would be true if this were the case, but it is not; the reason that mobile services have separate area codes here is exactly so the *caller* can be billed for the call. This is fairly common (although not universal) outside NANP. [For this, we get automatic full national coverage with a flat-rate per minute; no "roaming" charges to the caller.] There is something to be said for having all national numbers of a uniform length to avoid other countries having to maintain digit-length tables, but this doesn't constrain length-variability of local numbers. Another mystery, why in NANP does a calling-card number *follow* the phone number -- surely it's just a specialized version of carrier selection? Imagine having to dial carrier-selection 10XXX after the number ... Pressing octothorpe in the middle of a number here will definitely get a disconnection; the only time I use it is when dialing internationally, as everything else goes through immediately. Martin D Kealey 36.88888S/174.72116E ## Science Fiction Modellers' Club of ## New Zealand voice +64-9-8150460 fax +64-9-8150529 ## all SF catered for; email for info ------------------------------ Here's an unexpected twist: With the new 360 area code now implemented in Washington state (carved out of the 206 area code), there are now, of course, two area codes serving the same area as was previously served by one. If you are in Seattle and want to call DA for someone's phone number in Olympia (same LATA), you can't call 1-206-555-1212 anymore. You have to dial 1-360-555-1212. However, according to US West, all traffic to 360 DA from the 206 area code must be routed on IEC lines, meaning no more DA allowance for the calls, and a much higher cost (.95 for AT&T, for example). Interestingly, though, any "regular" toll calls between Seattle and Olympia are automatically PIC'd to US West since it is intralata (unless you override with 10-XXX). ------------------------------ Services If you are a USA long distance re-seller, we would consider your services if you can save us money. Here is what we *don't* want: -to pay a monthly fee of any sort -to be in the long distance business in order to get reduced rates -T-1 -to sign a contract - you will keep us as long as you are cheapest -a salesman who wants to analyze our bill. I have done this myself and know exactly what I am looking for. Here is what we want: -six second minimum on domestic calls -six second billing on domestic calls -no more than 30 second mimimum on international calls. -T-1 rate range without the hassle of the equipment and fees. -low international rates with a flat rate or two rate period plan. But we already get 1/2 off of MCI's best rates for six months, so you will have to be really cheap on international to get our attention. We spend around $10,000.00 per month on all aspects of our telecommunications needs. It is unlikely that you will get all of it, but you may get a lot of it, depending on what you can do for us. If you can meet the conditions we are looking for, we welcome your pitch. Make your pitch via email and if you have a good plan, I will invite you to pitch me personally via phone. Thanks, Sincerely, Kevin Jay Lipsitz, President :-) KRAZY KEVIN MAGAZINE CLUB, THE INTERNET DIVISION OF COLLEGETOWN MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES: "Managing Magazines for Cost-Conscious Busy Professionals, Students, Educators and Regular Consumers Internationally Since 1973." krazykev@kjl.com ------------------------------ ·_ I got my AT&T Wireless bill today. After AT&T bought McCaw, they were required to implement equal access for long distance usage for their customers. A nice ballot went around with three or four random picks for your LDC: AT&T, Access (in my case), and some other nobody (Sprint, I think). Not wanting to choose AT&T or Sprint, and being unable to select Working Assets, I chose Access. I make no long distance calls, so it's not an issue. I mailed in my ballot. I got a call a few weeks later from AT&T asking for my long distance carrier. I asked for a list; I chose Access, again. She duly made typing noises and thanked me for my call. I got a letter a few weeks later saying that if I didn't choose a long distance company, my LD would be turned off. No loss, so I let it pass. Besides, the nice lady had told me that there was a letter in the mail and to ignore it. Cool. Then I tried to make an LD call. Blocked. I call the 800 directory to get Access's number; I call them. Never heard of me. "AT&T never tells us anything; I don't think they send us our ballots". He does tell me that I can use a code, however, to get around the tomfoolery and make an LD call. It's a secret, though, don't tell anyone (by now, I was drooling). "Just type 102 881 and the phone number you want, sir." WHOA! He gave me *AT&T*'s PIC. That was funny. I asked if they had one, (a PIC); he said he didn't know. He did say to call the same number next week during 8-5 hours and talk to Access. I did. The lady I talked to was very helpful, but she said I would need to perform the switch by calling AT&T and having it done. I did. Today I got my bill. A nice insert telling me CNID delivery will start soon for TDMA customers (Hooray!) and on page 5, under "Airtime and long distance charges", "Your selected long distance company is ACCESS LD." THEY GOT IT RIGHT! But wait. On page 11, it says (for my old phone number) "You have not chosen a long distance company. Please make your selection today." AHHHH the light goes on! I changed my MIN some time ago. My account number stayed stable, but they apparently tacked my LD info onto the new account. Apparently, the switch (or some item in the loop) checks the first account on the MIN for LD access choice. Which, for me, on that number, would be nobody. Uh, can we say, bogus? I tried (just now) to make an LD call. I got an intercept from Access saying I needed to activate my account. Great! ------------------------------ [much good stuff snipped, then Telecom editor's note:] > They had to call it a different name of course, so they chose TWX, which > is pronounced 'Twix'. ... This brings to mind an story which happened in 1987, when I was trying to figure out a cheap way of dialing into my IBM mainframe from home using a 300-bps async modem and a VT100 emulator. IBM communication front-end processors at the time knew only a few protocols -- the proprietary Bisync and SDLC being the most popular -- and the IBM 3270 terminal was king. When I asked my old-school IBM Systems Engineer if the mainframe could communicate with an async terminal such as the DEC VT100, he responded as if I were referring to some virulent disease. "Oh, you mean yer Twix terminals -- like start/stop." At that time, async terminals could not operate with the mainframe in full-screen video mode -- only in line mode. Async was supported only enough to make somebody's teletypes work in some obscure application. As far as IBM was concerned, "TWX" and "start/stop" were the complete definition of async. Rich Szabo ------------------------------ > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whenever we reach the point that a company > is actually able to supply its own dial tone over its own wires and have > no need to rely on the traditional local telco, that will be the day that > local competition begins. The reports coming to me are that AT&T plans > to come crashing onto the scene in a big way beginning in January. No more > negotiating with the local telcos; none of that stuff. They are just going > to move right in and start doing business. It is really exciting! PAT] Cross Country Wireless Cable has 18" dishes on subscribers roofs, they have done a real bang up job of draining the cable companies in this area. The cities don't like it much either since they can't collect franchise fees. There will be no need for wires in this area, at least it sure does not appear like it will. In Palm Springs a company has built a whole new CO and several companies have asked for co-location in our CO's. This really is going to be interesting. If all are equal players then you may wind up getting your phone and cable servce from the phone companies, since many plan on buying the others. slichte@cello.gina.calstate.edu ------------------------------ Carl Moore's recent article in TD about the telephone numbers in I Love Lucy brought to mind some of what my subject line states. AT&T/Bell-System/Western-Electric print/magazine ads back in the later 1940's and most of the 1950's in {Time, Life, National Geographic, etc} frequently showed a picture of a WE #202 or #302 (or later #500) style telephone. The number card *always* stated the number MAin-0-2368. The use of a '0' (zero) was RARELY used in practice as the third digit in locations with '2L-5N' local numbering. [New Orleans had WHitehall-0 only VERY BRIEFLY in 1959/60, assigned not within the other 'WHitehall' region, but adjacent to it in then undeveloped but growing New Orleans East. WHitehall-0 was a small step office in a house trailer, while CHestnut-2's building to house New Orleans' very first #5XB exchange was being constructed. The reason that '0' zero was not recommended in exchange name days was that in the US/Canada, the Letter O is associated with the digit 6-MNO, and there could be customer dialing confusion.] Back in the 1930's and earlier 40's, the Bell ad's telephones had the number CHElsea-2368. Sometime in the very late 1950's or very early 1960's, the telephone number on the 500 series and Princess phones (and keysets, business phones, 'card-dialers', etc) in AT&T print ads was changed to KL5-2368 or "Area Code 311, KL5-2368". Only letters were shown for the Exchange Name. Later on, the number was (311) 555- 2368. 311 has never been an Areacode in North America, but reserved for *local* service code uses. Many locations used N11 codes for ringback, testing, ANAC, etc, as well as 211 for Long Distance Opr, 411 for Information, 611 Repair, 811 Business Office, and later 911 for Emergencies. Letters for 55X are hard to compose a name, other than possibly KLondike (which was used in San Francisco in the old days). There are no vowels on the '5'. Most Bell telcos used 55 or 55X for test numbers, and I remember seeing something in "Notes on Nationwide Dialing" (AT&T, 1955) that 55X, 57X, 95X and 97X were going to be reserved for dialing mobile radiotelephones in the future. Many older Radio, TV and Movie fiction/drama/etc. used actual exchange names of the town/city the play took place in. (I Love Lucy used MUrray-Hill, CIrcle, etc; the CBS Suspense radiodrama 'Sorry Wrong Number' used PLaza, TRafalgar, MUrray-Hill, and for the time-of-day recording, MEridien-x-1212!) If the location itself was fictitious, well then the exchange names were 'generic'. Sometimes, fictitious/generic exchange names were used for real locations. Many times, the Hollywood producers co-operated with telco, but at times they didn't. If they co-operated, the last four digit line numbers quoted in fiction were usually from the 9XXX series, sometimes even 99XX series. The 9-thousands were frequently used for payphones, test numbers, and non-assigned numbers specifically reserved for fictitious purposes. I would guess that today, Hollywood doesn't *always* use the 555. The early 1960's NBC-TV series "HAZEL" had a very amusing telephone episode in its first season (61/62), [the first season was in Black-and- White, while the remainder of its run was in Color]. The Baxters were getting sick and tired of receiving telephone sales calls at all hours of the day or night. [The word telemarketing wasn't used at that time, tho']. They decided to change their listed number to a non- published number. Telco mailed them the number card with the new non-pub number along with a letter stating when their new number would take effect. However, someone accidently lost or discarded the numbercard before anyone had a chance to note it down! The old and new telephone numbers were referred to as "KLondike-5" xxxx. The camera close up on the number card showed KL5-xxxx. The numericals of KL5 are, of course, 555! The episode, "Night Call" from TWILIGHT ZONE in its fifth season, 1963/64 was about an old woman receiving strange calls in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm. She had a WE #202 phone, and the numbercard showed KL5-xxxx. Most TV shows began to use the fictitious KL5 or 555 sometime in the early 1960's, but when areacodes were quoted, they usually used a real one. Sometimes, if a location was a fictitious one, they would use 311 for the areacode, just like Bell's magazine/print ads in the 1960's-on. I was told that San Francisco never had a KLondike-5 (or any name for 555) back in the exchange name days, altho' they did have other KLondike-x exchanges. I also remember seeing late 1950's Bell journals/magazines describing a 'future' way to customers to direct dial to Information (Directory Assistance) outside of your home area. The 555-1212 was referred to as "KLondike-5-1212" in some of those Bell journals! 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 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #369 ******************************