TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Jan 95 13:24:00 CST Volume 15 : Issue 35 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Legal Problem Due to Modified Radio (Alan Boritz) Re: Legal Problem Due to Modified Radio (Michael P. Deignan) Re: Data Over CB? (John Lundgren) Re: Data Over CB? (Bill Mayhew) Re: Would You Believe More Rain on the Way? (John Lundgren) Re: Would You Believe More Rain on the Way? (Bruce Roberts) Long Distance Blocking, was Re: Old Rotary Service Question (D. Burstein) Payphones Rejecting AT&T LD (Chris Labatt-Simon) Privately Owned Cables on Public Utility Poles (Mark Fletcher) CallerID and ANI (John W. Barrus) How Many SONET/SDH Network Terminations? (Roger Atkinson) Need Info on Two-Line, Digital Answering Devices (Richard Jay Solomon) Is the Pentium Bug Really That Bugging? (Anthony D'Auria) ATM Based PBX (Alex Zacharov) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Legal Problem Due to Modified Radio From: drharry!aboritz@uunet.uu.net (Alan Boritz) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 07:56:30 EST Organization: Harry's Place - Mahwah NJ - +1 201 934 0861 mudaw@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (David A. Webb) writes: > An officer found my 2 meter amateur transceiver, turned it on, and > discovered it could transmit on frequencies licensed to the local > county police. I was not in my room during the time of the search, > so I had no control over its operation. > The radio was confiscated, and I had to defend myself in front of > the school board. The school did not find me in violation of any > rules because I had a statement from a county officer who is also > a Ham. The officer wrote he knew my radio was legal for me to > possess. ... > The States attorney had three witnesses. > Witness #1 was the university officer who stated under oath that he > used the radio to transmit on county frequencies to verify the > modifications. He also stated in his professional capacity that my > radio is illegally modified, and therefor illegal to possess. He > further stated that he called the FCC and was told my radio is illegal > to possess. The State's first witness lied. It's not illegal to be in possession of a radio transmitter, however it may be illegal to use it, depending upon the frequency and location. > Witness #2 was the county sheriff. He indicated in his professional > capacity that my radio was illegal to own. He also voiced > understandable concern for my capability to interfere with his > frequencies. The State's second witness has no "professional capacity" in Federal radio regulation. It takes no "professional capacity" to press a push-to-talk switch. > Witness #3 was a person who services amateur equipment. He stated > that my radio is type accepted, and therefor it is illegal to modify. > Illegal modification therefor makes my radio illegal to possess. The State's third witness is an incompetent. Type acceptance is not required for amateur radio equipment. You can purchase any radio equipment you like (type accepted or not), and modify it to your heart's content, and operate it within the legal limits of amateur radio service. The only time such equipment becomes "illegal" is when you exceed the legal operating parameter limits for your selected frequency, or emit spurious emissions that affect other licensed services, while OPERATING it. And contrary to Pat Townson's claim, it is NOT illegal to operate (formerly) type accepted equipment, assuming you are properly licensed for it's ultimate use. This precise issue came up several times while I in charge of radio for the City of New York, Dept. of General Services. One time was when a fairly large NYC radio service organization (not Motorola) who was low-bidder on a contract to change operating frequencies of a few hundred portable radios for a City agency, opened up the sealed channel elements and replaced crystals, rather than supplying new sealed channel elements. The crystals were unreliable and the channel elements were destroyed. By modifying the channel elements, the service shop voided the type acceptance on the radios. Another time was when an incompetent servicer did extensive modifications to another Agency's base station, resulting in interference to several nearby police departments. The modifications voided the type acceptance, and the equipment had to be replaced. I discussed the issue with an FCC inspector, who was inspecting the base station. While he agreed that the modifications voided the type acceptance of the equipment, there was no regulation that forbade their use, as long as their operating parameters were within the rules, and that the equipment displayed their (former) type acceptance in the form of a label on the outside of the equipment. There was no regulation that provided for penalties against the person who modifies such equipment. However, there were specific penalties against the licensee who operated equipment without the required labels or with operating parameters outside of the licensed parameters or interference standards in the rules. > The University officer must have called the field office in Chicago, > because when I called there, I was also told my radio is illegal to > possess. Hopefully, Dave Popkin (formerly with FCC/NYFOB) doesn't have any relatives working there. He must have spoken with a secretary or a clerk, since his statement just isn't true. > Witness #3 was wrong about the type acceptance. Amateur equipment > transmitters are not type accepted. Its internal receiver it accepted > to receive everything it was modified to receive. It could also have been built to work on those frequencies. I've got amateur radio equipment that includes the 11 meter band (now known as CB). It hasn't been illegal to possess this particular equipment for 35 years, though it may be illegal to operate it on frequencies within that band, depending upon operating parameters. I also own a synthesized radio that transmits and receives on Federal and amateur frequencies, as well as Private Radio bureau UHF frequencies. It's never been illegal to purchase or own this particular radio, since it's type accepted and never modified (however it may be illegal to operate it, depending upon the frequency). The only time possession of a "receiver" becomes illegal is in narrowly-defined circumstances having to do with moving vehicles (just about every state has them). > I tried to submit the county officer/ham's statement, and the states > attorney objected because the officer was not present for cross > examination. > Am I going to run into the same trouble when I try to submit the > statement from the Private Radio Division of the FCC? Absolutely you will. You're dealing with anal-retentive law enforcement officials who appear to be using whatever means they can find to slam your ass in jail, and for issues that are simply out of their jurisdiction. Keep in mind that none of these people have any reason to do ANYTHING for you. The State's got at least one "Wyatt Erp" who intends to nail you for SOMETHING, if not for the only purpose of trying to save face. > If so, how can I get around this obstacle? Retain competent counsel, familiar with communications law, who can't be "bought-off." And have you contacted the ARRL? > Although the university police violated FCC rules, it occurred over a > year ago, and therefor time limits on me reporting them has expired. There are no "time limits" on reporting such incidents, but, in general, anything that an FCC inspector can't verify by himself won't go very far. However, don't be so sure that they are not now violating the rules in some capacity. Does the University possess a valid FCC license for their two-way radio system? Are they licensed for all of the frequencies they use? Do they own and operate any radar vehicular speed measuring devices? Have they notified the FCC of how many such devices they currently operate? If their license wasn't renewed on time, or if they're operating unlicensed base stations, this would be the perfect time to file a complaint with the FCC Field Office serving your area. > Neither the States Attorney, nor any of his witnesses, presented the > judge with any law I *supposedly* violated. > The judge ruled to NOT allow me to have my radio back UNLESS I paid > to have it unmodified. > I filed a motion for the Judge to reconsider his ruling, which is > scheduled for February 9. > The reason I have opted to do this on my own is that the radio isn't > worth more than a few hundred bucks. I am pursuing this on the > principal. My radio is legal for me to own, and I am tired of the > harassment from university police. Don't expect the judge to change his mind. These arrogant morons seem to feel that you'll give up trying to beat them at their own game. You'll need to take this issue to Federal court to have the judge's, prose- cutor's, and Sheriff's collective hands slapped. All these issues deal with *Federal* law, not local or state law. But before you do anything, get competent counsel, and don't agree to, or sign, ANYTHING without advice. When "Wyatt Erp" sees you getting serious, expect harassment like you've never seen before. They might even try planting something on you, or in your room, to get you thrown out of school, or thrown in jail. You're going to embarass them, and "Wyatt Erp" doesn't like to be embarassed. ------------------------------ From: md@pstc3.pstc.brown.edu (Michael P. Deignan) Subject: Re: Legal Problem Due to Modified Radio Date: 17 Jan 1995 15:05:06 GMT Organization: Population Studies & Training Center In article , David A. Webb wrote: [Story of police confiscating ham gear and not returning it.] This problem should be very simple to solve. Call the American Radio Relay League in Newington, CT (1-203-666-1541). Ask for the name of the ARRL Legal liason in your area. Many of these attornies, also hams, act pro- bono (for free) in cases like these. Unfortunately, the story you describe is becoming more and more the norm today. Local police officers, ignorant of anything except how to hand out traffic tickets at the local speed trap, take it upon themselves to be "experts" in federal law. They see ham radios or any scanner as a "burglar" tool (why would any normal citizen want to listen to police frequencies, after all?) and confiscate it for the good of humanity. You Jeffrey Dahmer, you. Its not illegal to possess a radio capable of transmitting on any frequency. It is illegal to use it on that frequency. And, not even to mention the fact that, unless it was a federal judge, the judge who ordered you to pay to have it modified back to its original state has no jurisdiction over the matter, such a motion on the part of any court is asinine. What next? Ordering you to only put 1/4 tank of gas in your car because it "might" be used as a getaway car at a bank robbery? Tell you to have all your steak knives dulled because you might stab someone? ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Data Over CB? Date: 16 Jan 1995 23:21:19 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Sharpened Software (sharpen@chinook.halcyon.com) wrote: > Are there any FCC regs concerning the type of information broadcast > over the "Citizen's Band?" In short, can I send data over CB? TELECOM Digest Editor noted in reply: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: First off, you may not 'broadcast' over > CB. The Crazy Band is intended, by FCC regulations for *two-way* > personal communications. 'Broadcast' by definition is a one-way > transmission intended specifically in a non-personal way for a large > number of listeners. Is another site going to be responding to you in > kind, with data back to you? > Anyway, I think all this is very academic. Good luck if you want to try > it. I presume the place you are broadcasting -- ooops!, communicating > with is not more than 75-100 yards away. More than that and some Good > Buddy will walk all over you. Its bad enough when two persons in actual > voice communication have to ask each other to repeat themselves over > and over because some local yokels are running way over the legal power > limit. (So then you run extra power in order to get past the interference > and he cranks his up a little more, etc.) Here in the Chicago area there > are times and places the CB/eleven meter airwaves are solid heterodyne > as the guys try to shove each other off the air. In the Crazy Band, no > matter how loud your radio is; no matter how much power you put out or > how well you are modulated, there is always someone out there whose > radio is louder and has more power. They'll be glad to demonstrate it, > you don't have to take their word for it. Just ask; they'll turn on > their linear amplifiers and their reverberation units wired in series > with their power microphones and Break rake rake rake rake for a > Radio Check heck heck heck heck heck heck, and tell two old ladies with > little handheld units seventy five miles away to 'back it down out there > and give someone else a crack at it ..." :) I'd love to see the data > before you send it, and after the other end gets it ... if it gets there > at all. PAT] I love that. It has so much truth to it, and we on the coasts can often hear the people in the south and midwest trying to get thru when the skip is good. The nice thing about using CB for data is that the TNC or packet adapter never gets frustrated and gives up trying to get through. Not so for humans. It would be a good way to go, because the heavy-fisted and long winded breakers out there can't keep talking forever, however implausible that may seem. But it *is* illegal. John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 jlundgre@pop.rancho.cc.ca.us\jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Hey, don't you think we here in the Chicago area don't hear the California guys working skip in the early morning hours every day? At four or five o'clock in the morning on a summer day the guys here are trying to talk to people in the UK. Around seven or so they start screaming at California and the rest of the west coast. One CB'er gets even: This is a true story. A fellow using the handle- name 'Doctor Witch' at times and 'Witch Doctor' at other times in Chicago, in a neighborhood known for its large population of Appalachian Mountain folks (I could say 'hillbillies' but that would be rude) was known to be a very loud, very obnoxious guy on the radio. His antenna sat on top of a nine- story apartment building, on a twenty foot mast which was mounted on the roof. With a two-thousand watt linear amplifier ('only used when I need it to get out', he would always claim), this guy could be heard all over Chicago to say the least, and usually half of the United States as well. If you did not use a CB radio, then you could hear him on Channel 2 on the television; that's how bad his harmonics could get sometimes. He was prone to cussing a lot, but he was also very territorial, and since he claimed Channel 16 (27.155 megs) as his private domain, generally no one else was bothered too much by him; they just stayed off Channel 16 rather than put up with his abuse. One day someone on Channel 16 got him riled up over something. Witch Doctor had Nazi sympathies (if he was not actually a member of the bunch here known as the 'American Nazi Party') so it did not take a lot to get him started; hearing a black person on 'his' channel was a good reason for him to let loose. This day was no exception, and a black guy going on that frequency to get a radio check brought a stream of obscenities and racial slurs from the good Doctor Witch. But this time someone was waiting for him ... another CB'er had hooked up a tape recorder with a mobious (endless) loop cassette; the kind you use in telephone answering machines ... one of the long, 90 second tapes. When Doctor Witch started, this guy hit that record button and started making a nice, juicy 90 second recording of it all. Did he take it to the FCC? No ... a lot of good that would have done ... instead, once he had that minute and a half of tape, he *reversed* the process and started playing it back out over the air on the same channel, knowing the Doctor was still listening. Played back anonymously of course; just key up and play it. -- Turn on linear amp; plug tape player output into microphone jack; key up and start playing the recording back out over the air -- Third person: Hey Witch Doctor, you said all that already! Doctor Witch: Why, #$$%@#m some &$$#@* tape recorded me! The tape is allowed to just cycle over and over again, repeating for everyone what the Witch Doctor had said about blacks and jews; all the cursing and comments about your mother; you name it. Soon the frequency úÿ is in an uproar since the black guy who went there originally has now returned with his buddies on their CB's. The endless loop tape has repeated itself over the air for the umpteenth time while the original speaker is trying to explain yes, he said it once but he did not say it a dozen more times. Leaving the folks to have a good time on their own, the CB'er with the tape recording goes around to all the other channels and plays it at least once on each of them. After playing the tape, he remains silent and as to be expected, a typical response: "Witch Doctor, take it back to your own channel! Don't come over here and start that garbage while my wife and her friends are talking." But when Witch Doctor -- or more correctly, the pre-recorded tape -- failed to respond, a few simply assumed he went back to 'his channel' so they went there also to tell him off. Soon people from other channels are coming onto Channel 16 angrily telling him off; he tries to explain it was *not* him ... "What's the idea of coming over to channel 31 and talking that way to my wife?" "It wasn't me!" "Well who was it then?" "It was a recording of me ... " "In other words, it was you ..." "Well no, it was not me, it was a recording of me ..." "What do you mean, a recording of you? What is this, summertime and re-runs of the best of Doctor Witch?" ... and on it went, all afternoon and into the evening. Black guys in other parts of the city, on other channels, hear about the abuse a brother received on channel 16 from 'one of those white trash hillbillies in Uptown' and they tune in to give their responses. This would have been about 1979-80. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu (Bill Mayhew) Subject: Re: Data Over CB? Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 00:40:08 GMT If I recollect correctly, CB citizen's radio service is governed by part 15 chapter J. Three classes of serivce: A, B and C are defined. Class A is intended as a commercial service. UHF handie-talkies are an example. Class B is the familiar 40 channel good buddy trucker radio in the ~27 MHz range. Class C is for remote control with allocations in the 27 and 72 MHz ranges. Class C has to compete with interference in the 27 MHz band from poorly maintained and illegal class B radios. In the 72 MHz band, class C has to put up with old fashioned garage door systems. Newer garage doors are on 390 MHz. So, if your "data" is for remote controlling something, you might be able to get away with a class C license. You have to accept the interference you get from the other services. You can *not* transmit text data with a class C license, i.e. forget using a class C license to remotely read netnews on a terminal via a radio link. There is some room for interpretation in terms of remote control: you could concievably use PCM ASCII codes such as L and R to determine whether a robot goes left or right. Class C only permits RF continusous carrier transmissions (of arbitrary duration). Model planes are typically controlled by pulse position modulation where a series of short CW pulses are offset to various degrees in time windows followin a long reference pulse. AM and FM are *NOT* permitted. Class A and B permit only speech emissions. There is a shared allocation in the 902-928 MHz region where the gov't, RADAR, commercial serice, codless phones, hams, etc. coexist. Provided you maintain radiated power limits, you could legally construct an experimental data device for this band, but you have to tolerate interference from the priority users and have to generate no interference of your own. I don't have my regs here, so you'll have to look up the section of part 15 governing this. Bill Mayhew NEOUCOM Computer Services Department Rootstown, OH 44272-0095 USA phone: 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu amateur radio 146.58: N8WED ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Would You Believe More Rain on the Way? Date: 17 Jan 1995 13:08:13 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network TELECOM Digest Editor (telecom@eecs.nwu.edu) wrote: > Listening to WNIB on the radio this Saturday morning as I work on > this issue ... the eight o'clock news says 'up to six more inches > of rain due in California throughout the weekend ... more evacuations > probably will be required ...' > Well, good luck and my best regards, folks. It seems like the people > in California spend all summer burning the place down, then spend > all winter enduring mud slides and flooding. > Have the floods in California affected telephone service to any extent? Glub glub. Actually, other than getting a little wet, I haven't seen much in the way of damage. I had to drive home in knee-deep water last week because it came down too fast to run off. It took me about an hour and a half to go seven miles; usually it takes 25 to 30 minutes, even in rush hour. Stupid drivers don't know about hydroplaning, yet. The only damage I've seen in our part of town is where the freeways are being widened, and there is construction going on. There's just a lot of muddy runoff. The nice thing is that there isn't much smog in the air. But that doesn't last long. The funny thing is that of the 1500 plus lines from the CO that I end up troubleshooting, I haven't had a single line called in because of the rain. We have had a complaint from one user on campus that might be because of water in our interbuilding cabling, but I'm not sure. This week the faculty comes back from semester break, so I expect to hear complaints from some about their phones. John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 jlundgre@pop.rancho.cc.ca.us\jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com ------------------------------ From: bruce.roberts@greatesc.com (Bruce Roberts) Subject: Re: Would You Believe More Rain on the Way? Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 07:31:00 GMT Organization: The Great Escape - Gardena, CA - (310) 676-3534 > Well, good luck and my best regards, folks. It seems like the people > in California spend all summer burning the place down, then spend > all winter enduring mud slides and flooding. We are getting a lot > of rain here today also, but the only effect has been to melt all > the snow which had accumulated and leave some *huge* puddles of water > to navigate at curbs where the street sewers are plugged, etc. Ya know, now that you mention it, that IS what we do here in "sunny" California. > Have the floods in California affected telephone service to any extent? Oh yes. I haven't heard of any flooded central offices but I'll bet it happened up North. Had a chat at breakfast with some GTE field crews and they said there was more overtime than they knew what to do with. Just locally they had a 900 pair cable (not mine, thank goodness) get real wet and had to pull and splice a section. We ordered a couple of new lines at work and Pac Bell called to say there will be a delay. All the installers are now on field crew duty and they don't know when they'll be able to get out circuits turned up. Some of this happens whenever we get rain but this time is a LOT worse. Stay dry! TTFN Bruce Roberts, bruce.roberts@greatesc.com ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Long Distance Blocking, was Re: Old Rotary Service Question Date: 17 Jan 1995 09:50:26 -0500 In Bill Parrish writes: > In the early 70s, I went to UCSB, and we were serviced by GTE in the > dorms. Occasionaly folks would decide to "share" a phone connection > by making their own patches into terminal cabinets .... > But there was a second funny thing about these "extensions" that was > rather odd ... you sometimes could not make long distance calls on > them ... If I recall right, there was some sort of a movable pin on the > back of the dial that could be put into one of several (three?) > positions, and if you moved the pin, it would enable the long- distance > capability. Could someone >explain how that worked? There are lots of tricks used (or which were used) by Telcos to restrict long distance call access. The simplest involved putting a diode in line with the phone line. In many central offices, there would be a current reversal as a toll call would go through the connection process. Sometimes this was only for a fraction of a second, othertimes for the remaining duration of the call. Putting a diode in the line would break the current as this occurred, thus putting the phone back "on hook" and killing the connection. I personally did this to my phone line when I was in dormitory type situation and other people had occassional (legit) access to my phone (i.e. Danny, could I use your phone, here's a dime ...). You still see this current reversal on many poorly designed coin phones. Far too often, when you call a number, you'll find the touch tone pad has gone dead on you. (Has to do with very ancient history when touch tone pads required the phones to be wired in one direction). BTW, some additional "features" abotu using the diode trick: a) Volume of the phone ringer would be cut by about a third. Remember that it is AC and you're blocking one direction of current. b) There was often also a current reversal when calling the operator or some other telco numbers. But local calls would go through ok. c) of course I would never have done this, but if you put the diode on a "friend's" phone line it would have been perhaps weeks before they noticed anything was wrong (remember local calls went through ok). And a cursory telco check of their phone linewould find nothing wrong (at least the way they'd do these things "back then"), and they would go crazy complaining back and forth and not getting anywhere. dannyb@panix.com (or dburstein@mcimail.com) ------------------------------ From: labatt@vbh.com (Chris Labatt-Simon) Subject: Payphones Rejecting AT&T LD Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 03:08:16 EST Organization: D&D Consulting Howdy all - I was driving down 22 in New York the other day towards Millerton, NY and stopped to make a phone call at a payphone. When I tried to dial using my AT&T calling card the phone service wouldn't take it. Then I tried 10ATT0 and it still wouldn't go through. Finally, I tried 1-800-CALL-ATT and the call didn't go through. Drove down another five miles to another payphone. Same company, same problem. I tried calling the 800 number for the company who owns the phone, and had to pay $0.25 for the 800 call. Their offices were closed. I thought this was illegal? If it is, does anyone have a number I can call to stop this, as I often drive through this area ... Thank, Chris Labatt-Simon Internet: labatt@disaster.com Design & Disaster Recovery Consulting pribik@rpi.edu Albany, New York CIS: 73542,2601 PHONE: (518) 495-5474 FAX: (518) 786-6539 Subscribe to the Lotus Notes Mailing List - e-mail me for info.... For info on D&D Consulting, send e-mail to info@disaster.com.... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you need is a supply of our COCOT 'out of compliance' stickers. Review this file in the Telecom Archives at lcs.mit.edu. The idea is, when you find a phone which is not working correctly (we assume the owner intended for it to operate in a legal way but somehow the programming got messed up ) then it is courteous to place an 'out of order' sticker across the coin slot so no one else will accidentally lose money in it ... .... and if someone removes the out of order sticker without actually repairing the phone, then put a new sticker on it, and just keep doing so. See the 'cocot' sub-directory in the archives. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 07:18:37 -0800 From: mfletch@ix.netcom.com (Mark Fletcher) Subject: Privately Owned Cables on Public Utility Poles I am the Communications Manager at a large Northeastern resort where my department maintains a Northern Telcom Meridian Option 71 with two Meridian Option 11's in remote sites. Here is my dilemma: Currently we lease about 100 pairs from the local RBOC at a cost of $15.50 each per month. These lines service locations about two miles apart down a State Highway, all in one municipality, and are used to connect the remote sitches. I have been told that we can apply to the local municipality for a utility franchise, and then place our own cables on existing poles. At our current cost of $18,000.00 annually for special circuits, this possibility is very attractive to us. If anyone has information about the process, or could point me to any pertinant legal documents on the subject, I would be very greatful. Please reply via direct e-mail to mfletch@ix.netcom.com. I will post my findings and a summary for all interested. Thanks folks! By the way if any one is interested in discussing our database used to maintain our on property cable pairs, just leave me a note at the above e-mail address. ------------------------------ From: barrus@merl.com (John W. Barrus) Subject: CallerID and ANI Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 09:01:08 -0500 Organization: Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs Reply-To: barrus@merl.com My wife sometimes returns calls to mental health patients when they phone an emergency number. When CallerID was started in our area, we called and specifically asked to have line blocking put on our line (we have to press something like *67 to turn on CallerID on outgoing calls.) We don't want anyone calling my wife back after she helps them ou. She has been harrassed before, but only indirectly through the paging number, not to our home phone. Two evenings ago, I called PC Connection from our phone and casually asked if our number had come through when the customer assistant answered our phone. He then proceeded to recite our phone number to me. I did not (and never have) dialed the code to turn on CallerID. Does this mean that our phone number is being transmitted, even when the phone company says that it isn't? Or do commercial enterprises have a different system that always gets our phone number? I assumed that ANI and CallerID were both blocked with line blocking. Is there an easy way to test whether or not line blocking is working (I don't have any friends with CallerID boxes). Any ideas? John Barrus Research Scientist barrus@merl.com Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. voice 1.617.621.7535 201 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139 fax 1.617.621.7550 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you dial an 800 number then the called party gets your ID whether you like it or not. There is no way for you to block this. Regards Caller-ID, it *should* be blocked as you requested except I think on long distance calls you now need to do the *67 whether or not you have per-line blocking for local calls. I am not even certain if you can block CID on interstate long distance any longer after the most recent FCC rulings. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rogera@cts.com (Roger Atkinson) Subject: How Many SONET/SDH Network Terminations? Organization: R. F. Atkinson & Co. Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 01:34:29 GMT Does anybody have some notion of how many SONET network terminations are presently in service in the US and Canada? SONET/SDH worldwide? By 'network termination' I mean a connection to a public SONET/SDH network at a customer premise, or a connection between networks, public or private. More important question(s): How many such connections will be in use in the next three to five years, or how many will be installed each year, three to five years from now? We are trying to decide whether to jump on the bandwagon. Educated guesses will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help, Roger Atkinson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 12:22:23 -0500 From: rjs@farnsworth.mit.edu (Richard Jay Solomon) Subject: Need Info on Two-Line, Digital Answering Devices With ANI Has anyone tested or reviewed the Friday machine by Bogen or AT&T's new two-line digital answering machine? Will they respond to ANI like the NTI device mentioned in TELECOM Digest? Richard Solomon MIT Research Program on Communications Policy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 11:37:35 EST From: Anthony D'Auria úÿ Subject: Is the Pentium Bug Really That Bugging? Hi! My name is Anthony D'Auria and I own a P90 super loaded desktop. I use it practically every day for the net and business. I haven't experienced any trouble with the floating point calculations (not that I use them). I think that IBM is making a big deal of a little thing. People with Pentiums start panicking, thinking that their system is all messed up. For an average user, it doesn't seem to fearsome, but if you have some heavy duty stuff to do, it can really do some damage. Question: Does this floating point calculation bug affect system performance? Is that why some Pentiums bottleneck? What and where should a person contact to get the messed up chip replaced? Is it actually worth it? If you have any ideas, respond: dauriaa@voyager.bxscience.edu. With regards, Anthony D'Auria ------------------------------ From: alexz@tmx100.elex.co.il (Alex Zacharov) Subject: ATM Based PBX Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 15:33:21 GMT Organization: Telrad Ltd. Has anybody heard about ATM-based SX-2000 Light PBX from Mitel, that has been advertised in Telecommunications, November 1993? How can I get more information about this product? Please, send answer to: alexz@tmx100.elex.co.il. Thanks. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #35 *****************************