TELECOM Digest Mon, 5 Dec 94 12:11:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 435 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? (James Madsen) Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? (Peter M. Weiss) Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? (Larry Schwarcz) Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? (John Higdon) Re: MCI's Announcement (Pat Binford-Walsh) Re: MCI's Announcement (Stanley Ulbrych) MCI and the Future of Internet (Newsbytes via rapme@netcom.com) Re: Direct Inward Dialing on Voice Mail Card; Other PC Card? (Barton Bruce) Re: T3 or T1 Demux'd to RS-232 or TCP/IP? (Barton F. Bruce) Re: Meaning of Line Build Out on CSU (Russ Bryant) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 23:27:50 -0800 From: jmadsen@qualcomm.com (James Madsen) Subject: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? California is the only state which forbides bundling cellular service with the handset purchase. The law is you pay them no more than $25 more for a handset without activating service, than you would if you had service activated at the same time. So at least in CA, one need not even choose a limited package to get a phone for 911 only usage and get the phone at a reasonable price. Jim Madsen [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is a legal way around the situation in California. Too bad none of the retailer's are using it. See my response to John Higdon later in this issue. PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 11:09:47 EST From: Peter M. Weiss Subject: Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? Another thing to consider: not all "911" numbers are accessed by 9+1+1 i.e., there are various star (*) codes. You sometimes see these on highway markers, or via promotional literature. How does this affect your plans for unactivated emergency access? /Pete, Penn State [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are probably thinking of services such as we have here in northern Illinois: 'star nine nine nine' is a coalition of the emergency services which accepts calls dialed to that number, takes the information and forwards it to the appropriate emergency service such as Chicago 911, or that of the various suburbs in the area. I know when we dial 911 from a cell phone here in this area we get an intercept 'cannot be completed as dialed, if this is an emergency, dial the operator or star nine nine nine ...' PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? Date: Fri, 02 Dec 94 11:50:12 -0800 From: Larry Schwarcz > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You probably could do it, but you must > bear in mind that to purchase an unactivated cell phone in most places > you will wind up paying $200-400 more for the phone than if you have it > turned on to some carrier. Correct you are, but, I live in California. Here, bundling is illegal. Cellular stores can only discount the phone by the amount of the activation fee. So, we see ads for phones at cost less the $25 activation fee. So, we still pay $200-$400 for phones here :-(. Thanks, Lawrence R. Schwarcz, Software Design Engr/IND Internet: lrs@cup.hp.com Hewlett Packard Company Direct: (408) 447-2543 19420 Homestead Road MS 43UK Main: (408) 447-2000 Cupertino, CA 95014 Fax: (408) 447-2264 Internal-only WWW: http://hpisrhw.cup.hp.com/~lrs/homepage.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 23:20:56 -0800 From: John Higdon Subject: Re: 911 From Unactivated Cell Phone? Larry Schwarcz writes: > I'm trying to see if it's possible to have a cellular phone that is > NOT activated with any carrier and still use it to call 911 in > emergencies. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You probably could do it, but you must > bear in mind that to purchase an unactivated cell phone in most places > you will wind up paying $200-400 more for the phone than if you have it > turned on to some carrier. Not in California. Service providers and phone vendors are specifically prohibited from in any way linking the sale of the phone to the activation of service. Although a number of dealers have tried some sleazy tricks to avoid selling phones without activation ("sorry, I just looked and we are out of stock -- someone must not have taken the last one out of the computer..."), I have inside information that even as we speak there are some undercover efforts to bring the big foot down on them. It is amusing to note that some of the big chains in southern California have implemented elaborate ruses to either discourage customers from buying a phone without activating it, or con the amount of the commission from the carrier out of the customer himself. One such trick is to have the salesperson produce the phone, saying, "let's make sure everything is here". He opens the box and surprise! the charger, extra battery, etc. happens to be missing. "And this is our last one, too. If you really want it, I could sell you the [charger, battery, etc.] from our accessory stock." One undercover person phoned a store pretending to be a salesman from another store in the chain. He asked what to do with a customer that wanted a phone without service. He got an earful of sleazy tricks to kill the sale or to get some extra money out of the customer. As I mentioned, this is being cleaned up. That means that if you are in California, you need not worry about weighing the cost of getting or not getting service vs the price of the phone. It should not make any difference. John Higdon | P.O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two comments here. At least Radio Shack (the stores in the Chicago region) does open the boxes for customers on lots of products 'to see if everything is here', and if something is missing that is intended to come with the purchase, RS replaces it for free with other stock in the store. For example, you are to get a battery charger as part of the purchase and it is not in the box, then the clerk gets a battery charger from the collection of same (for sale) in the store, changes the price on the register to 'zero' for the battery charger and 'sells' it to you for 'zero' in order that you can walk out of the store with a complete unit of whatever it was you bought. He has to account for it on the register so that the store's quarterly inventory balances correctly, and the unit he 'sold' to you for 'zero' is then charged back to the distribution center so the store gets its money (each company owned RS -- there are also franchise, privately owned RS stores -- is considered a profit center in its own right; corporate RS expects each store to account for its stock, etc). For next: I hear a rumor that in order to bring California more in line with other states where cell phones are concerned, instead of the stores giving reduced prices with activation -- illegal there -- the carriers will begin offering a 'gift to new subscribers' equal to the discounted amount. And really, that is what is happening now in other parts of the country. RS and the other dealers are not *really* giving you a phone for free or for $25 or whatever ... yes, that's what they ring at the register, but the fact is the carrier they go through is paying them the difference after the fact. So the stores in CA cannot say to you, 'this phone is $25 with activation and $300 without activation.' What they can say is 'all phones are $300 ... and upon your decision to sign up with the carrier, the carrier will give you a gift of $275 in exchange for your one/two year contract with their service.' That is all that is happening anyway elsewhere in the country. The carriers reimburse the *dealers* for the phones they are giving away at very low costs as part of activation ... the carriers will simply start giving the money to the *customers* instead once the customer signs with them direct rather than go through the dealers with the rebate. The customer will have to come up with more money upfront, but will be able to get most of the money back the same day, just hours later, when the carrier turns on the phone and authorizes the dealer to write the customer a check for the 'free gift to new subscribers'. Now it becomes legal: all phones cost the same, activated or unactivated. This nice bag phone costs $200, period. Buy it and leave the store if you wish ... should you decide to have Ameritech activate it 'at some later time' they will give you the $200 you paid for the phone. If you decide as a matter of convenience to have the phone activated right now, the carrier has authorized me (as the dealer) to write you a check for the $200 once you have made certain commitments. The check would look sort of like one of those you get from long distance carriers for switching service, with lots of fine print on the back. Should you wish to get it activated at some future time, at least this one carrier (the one the dealer works with) has agreed to send you the $200 direct once you sign up. I'd like you to know that when the Chicago City Council, in its wisdom many years ago decided that it was illegal for landlords to make tenants pay a 'late fee' for rent not paid on time, the landlords' response was to simply raise *everyone's* rent by the amount of the late fee effective with the next lease being signed; and they built a new provision in the lease offering a 'discount' (of the late fee amount, whatever it was) for 'prompt or early payment' of rent. Then they proceeded to advertise their apartments for rent at the 'discounted' (usual) amount of money. When the tenants came to sign the lease, they of course saw the higher amount of money stated on the lease and if they questioned this they were told about the 'discount' if they paid on time ... 'we assumed you were the sort of person who pays his bills on time ... that's why we mentioned the lower rate in our advertising ...' That also was legal. How is a city council or any government going to punish someone for selling at *less* than the contracted price or giving 'discounts' to customers? So if California really begins to crackdown on cell phone dealers, watch them change the wording and terms: the cost of all phones will go up and the generosity of the carriers -- once an iron-clad contract has been signed -- will be noted in 'free cash gifts' to customers, but from the carrier itself, not from the dealer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Patbw@ix.netcom.com (pat binford-walsh) Subject: Re: MCI's Announcement Date: 3 Dec 1994 18:26:28 GMT Organization: Netcom Does anyone know of any of MCI's dedicated (56kbs, 128 kbps, 256 kbps, and T-1) and frame relay (56 kbps, 128 kbps, 256 kbps, T-1) access charges for internetMCI. I don't believe that the following info is correct for 9.6 kbps and 4.5 mbps, which is probably 45 mbps (T-3). The service has been sold commercially since October. Does anyone have any rates that have been quoted to them or seen a price list? Their 800 number for questions are not staffed with very knowledgeable people. Also, when will the local sites be available and where? MCI is providing 7 hours of local access for $20/mo. and $3/hr. afterwards, but only 3 hours of 800 access for $20/mo. and $7/hr. afterwards. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: MCI's Announcement From: stanley.ulbrych@enest.com (STANLEY ULBRYCH) Date: Mon, 05 Dec 94 07:56:00 -0500 Organization: Eagle's Nest Communications, Inc. PVD, RI US 401-732- 5290 Reply-To: stanley.ulbrych@enest.com (STANLEY ULBRYCH) I admit I goofed. Can someone please repost either the 1-800 number or better yet the EMAIL address for internetMCI. I saw it, wrote it down, and promptly lost the paper. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: rapme@netcom.com (RAPME) Subject: MCI and the Future of Internet Organization: RAPME Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 09:39:06 GMT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This was sent in by rapme@netcom.com without indicating *where* the comments by Kennedy Maize appeared. It appears to be Newsbytes, but I wish the sender had stated that explicitly in some sort of introductory comment. Please do this in the future. PAT] WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1994 DEC 2 (NB) -- By Kennedy Maize. I have seen the future of the Internet and its name is MCI. The Washington-based long-distance carrier recently gave reporters a tour of its new Net offering, including the online shopping mall it plans to begin rolling out in January. As one MCI executive told Newsbytes, "We are going into cyberspace commercial real estate." For most of its brief, 25-year history, the Internet has been a government project. Access has been free, which is to say, subsidized by the taxpayers through Defense Department and National Science Foundation appropriations. Populated mostly by academics and students, the Net has been a free-form, chaotic, sophomoric, but incredibly powerful new way of communicating. But the future of the Internet is in commerce, which the federal government recognized some time ago. And, based on what I saw in MCI's plush conference room this week, MCI has a major head start in the race to commercialize it. "MCI is making the Internet as easy to use, as accessible and as critical to businesses as today's global phone network," says Timothy Price, recently elevated to executive vice president of MCI. MCI brings some major assets to the table as it tries to turn the Internet into a routine business tool and a new way of shopping for the average consumer. As an aside, 80 percent of catalog shoppers are women, which means MCI will have to make its Internet shopping attractive to women. The biggest head start MCI has on the new Internet is its existing presence on the net. NSFnet is essentially MCI. MCI's high-speed, digital data network currently handles 40 percent of all US domestic Internet traffic. With its long-distance capability available to virtually any American with a phone, and its Internet backbone, MCI can easily offer access to the net from dialup to ISDN to, eventually, ATM. More important, MCI seems to have the human resources necessary to transform the Net into a well-behaved service. It starts with Vint Cerf, rightly called "father of the Internet." Cerf, at Stanford, and Robert Kahn at DOD, developed the TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol) that is at the heart of the network of networks. Cerf provides the "vision thing" for MCI's Internet ventures. Cerf has also assembled an impressive team and forged important significant alliances, especially with Netscape Communications, the new software firm Jim Clark put together after leaving Silicon Graphics. Clark basically hired the entire programming team that developed Mosaic, the World Wide Web browser, and turned them loose on making it a commercial product. "I was blown away by Mosaic," Clark told reporters, "by its potential to enable commerce and enable anybody to be on the net." Realizing that security was a key to commerce on the Net, Clark turned to RSA to integrate its encryption technology into Netscape for MCI Internet users. Shoppers at MCI's virtual shopping mall will be able to make purchases with the knowledge that their credit card data is inviolable. MCI also turned to FTP Software to provide the TCP/IP software that will be the foundation for the Netscape application. That means users won't have to fret over TCP/IP issues, but can simply surf the net painlessly. (MCI's demonstration of its virtual mall included a stop at Vint's Surf Shop, complete with a picture of the bearded Cerf on the beach in a Hawaiian shirt, to pick up some boards and routers.) The shopping mall is also a brilliant idea. MCI will essentially rent cyber floor space to businesses that will offer goods and services online. This allows a business to get on the Net and into a Web site without the need to create a full-fledged WWW interface. MCI takes úÿ care of that. The evolution of the Internet has been fascinating, especially the emergence of the WWW, invented at CERN, the European high energy physics lab. In 1992, according to Cerf, Web traffic was in 127th place in terms of traffic on the NSFnet backbone. By last year, he added, Web traffic had risen to 11th place and today, Web traffic consumes 10 percent of the capacity of the backbone. Mosaic's graphical interface is responsible for that phenomenal growth. Now, MCI and Netscape are taming the interface and the Internet. When MCI's $49.95 package goes up for sale in January, I'll be one of the first in line to buy it. ------------------------------ From: Barton.Bruce@camb.com Subject: Re: Direct Inward Dialing on Voice Mail Card; Other PC Card? Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society Date: 5 Dec 94 03:02:17 -0500 Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , koos@kzdoos.xs4all.nl (Koos van den Hout) writes: > I was approached by someone who is interesting in providing a system > where people use direct inward dialing to select information items. > Something like: > Allocating block 555-xxxx. When someone dials 555-1234, the number 1234 is > used as selection of information. > Somehow the selection 1234 would have to be passed to the voicemail > system. > All of this on the Dutch phone system. > Can this be done? I don't see why not. the 1234 is just an extension number. The voice mail system gets a call that effectively is just a call to 1234 that is busy and so got forwarded. But skip the PBX. The voice mail systems can have cards that take the DID directly. There is no need for the PBX. If you only have a few dozen lines, the PC card stuff is fine. If you have hundreds or thousands of lines all on T1 or E1, get something like Excel's products (they are XL.COM, try a WHOIS). Excel also makes PC cards, too, but their big boxes are what you need if you are making an airlines reservation switching system or a telco CO grade voice mail product. Excel sells the hardware to their OEMs that write the s/w for special applications. ------------------------------ From: Barton.Bruce@camb.com Subject: Re: T3 or T1 Demux'd to RS-232 or TCP/IP? Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society Date: 5 Dec 94 03:14:33 -0500 Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , marks@pacifier.com (Mark Silbernagel) writes: > I am interested in your opinion on how to best manage a point-of- sale > card swipe application. The plan calls for ~4000 sites, each having > ~10 devices. At any given moment in the day, they expect about 700 > calls to be 'in progress'. Each device is one of those small boxes you > see at the store which calls and authorizes card transactions. Each store should have ONE controller handling all POS terminals and it can use x.25 over the D channel on an ISDN BRI line to handle all terminals at that site, whether 10 or 500. The x.25 carrier wil deliver ALL your traffic on a single x.25 line if you want at 56kb or perhaps faster. If there is other traffic, then this is not the way to do it, and maybe look at LEC frame relay where available and a mix of other things for other sites. Pure dialup is still viable but when you look at the stupidity of 10 phone lines per site, spending those dollars other ways is easy. Even using an elcheapo tiny PBX (Panasonic 6x16 size) to pack a smaller number of phone lines is possible but also a hassle. ------------------------------ From: russb@xmission.com (russb) Subject: Re: Meaning of Line Build Out on CSU Date: 5 Dec 1994 13:57:22 -0700 Organization: XMission Public Access Internet (801-539-0900) Dennis E. Miyoshi (bioengr@taz.scs.ag.gov) wrote: > Hello. I hate to ask such a simple question but, I am to the point of > total confusion. I am in the process of connecting two TyLink ONS150 > CSUs. After several attempts at getting the CSUs to sync I was > successful. However, my routers seem to be confused. The last > setting that I have is the LBO. The manuals state that this must be > specified by the carrier. > My two questions are: > 1. What is the meaning of the LBO? > 2. What would the results be if the LBO is set to the wrong dB level? Dennis: LBO is defined as "Line Build Out". It is very simply how much gain you want to have transmitted to the T1 network. Most T1 CSU/DSU have ALBOs for receiving a DS1 signal from the T1 network; ALBO (Automatic Line Build Out). Normally, you have three settings, 0, -7.5, and -15. The 0 setting sends out a DS-1 (digital signal at 1.544 Mbps or T1) 4 to 5 kfeet over normal 100 ohm impedance, 22 guage PIC twisted pair cable, (PIC: plastic insulated cable). The -7.5 pads down the gain of the transmitted signal to approx. 2000 feet and -15.0 pads down the gain to a very small distance ... 655 feet or less. What all this mumbo jumbo really means is if the telco has a NID device (network interface device) real close to your ONS150s you could be overdriving the T1 signal and causing some major errors. The NID device is also a digital regenerator and looks for an incoming T1 signal at a certain peak to peak signal level. My advice is to go to a -7.5 LBO setting and see if it improves your transmission. That setting usually works with a variety of situations. If it doesn't, look for a small rectangular box in your telecomm closet that has the words WESTELL or WESCOM on it; this is the NID device. If it is really close to your ONS150; (within a couple feet), set your ONS150 for -15.0 LBO. If this still doesn't help ... consider returning your ONS150s for Txport 310 T1 CSUI/DSUs and our technical support people will have you up and running in no time! (Just kidding ... sort of!) Russ Bryant russb@xmission.com Txport Inc. T1 Transmission Products ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #435 ******************************