TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Jan 95 16:40:00 CST Volume 15 : Issue 60 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: North Korea Holds US Representative Over $10K Phone Bill (Alan Shen) Re: Long Distance Caller ID (ludden@indirect.com) Re: Privately Owned Cables on Public Utility Poles (Mark Fletcher) Re: Cellular Fraud: How Much of it is Real Money? (Robert Levandowski) Re: Internet Mail With Half the Address? (Larry Drebes) Re: Where to Find Nice-Looking Phones? (Bill Garfield) Re: Using U.S. Modem in Israel (Supak Lailert) Re: 800 Numbers From Overseas (Kimmo Ketolainen) Re: Telephony Card/Software Needed (John Lundgren) Re: Telephony Card/Software Needed (Dale Wooden) Re: Telephony Card/Software Needed (Harold Buehl) Re: Planning to Purchase a Voice Mail System (Greg Habstritt) Re: Planning to Purchase a Voice Mail System (Bill Garfield) 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: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Shen Subject: Re: North Korea Holds US Representative Over $10K Phone Bill Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 10:36:17 -0800 Organization: University of Washington On Thu, 19 Jan 1995, Paul Robinson wrote: > In Jack Anderson's column today, he reports that when Representative > Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico) tried to cross the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) > between North and South Korea, with the casket carrying the remains of > Chief Warrant Officer David Hilemon, North Korean officials refused to let > him cross until the bill was paid. > In Cash. > $10,000 is about eight times North Korea's per capita yearly income. Why didn't they just bring a satellite phone with him? Or was he out of range? $10K for 23 calls ... is a LITTLE too much for me ... Daniel Kao ------------------------------ From: ludden@indirect.com Subject: Re: Long Distance Caller ID Organization: Internet Direct, indirect.com Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 18:51:56 GMT Paul J Zawada writes: > I've had a couple of interesting conversations with the folks at > Ameritech regarading the delivery of interstate Caller-ID information. > I have a question or two regarding the availablity of the above service, > so let me summarize and pose a question or two to the readers of TELECOM > Digest. > How useful is Caller-ID in other parts of the country? Do other folks > that have the service get "OUT OF AREA" for 99.5% of their interstate > calls, or am I just in the wrong city to get that info? I'd be > especially interested to hear how well it works in the Chicago area > since Chicago is also served by Ameritech Illinois. US West has offered Caller-ID in the Phoenix Metro Area for over a year now, and I have been quite pleased with it. All non-cellular local calls either have display a name and number, or PRIVATE NAME for blocked calls. I recieved a note from US WEST in December saying that they would have long distance Caller-ID in place by summer 95, as well as having Caller-ID work when a call-waiting call comes in (so you can decide whether to answer or not). Lee ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 13:55:52 -0800 From: mfletch@ix.netcom.com (Mark Fletcher) Subject: Re: Privately Owned Cables on Public Utility Poles > In many areas the local cable company has rights to access > all pole space (for a small fee per year per pole, as a rule). > I've found the cable operators to be more that willing to construct > and maintain private fiber optic cables, for reasonable costs. > This is the very simplest solution I've found, they have all the > rights, equipment and contractors in place. > You should also consider fiber due to its longer life and lower > problem level, e.g. lightning immunity, etc. > There are also contractors who are willing to take on such a project > on a turnkey basis, including negotiating access rights. They can > be located by contacting a few of the larger contractors, such > as Henkels and McCoy, and others out of industry directories. > You might want to consider the use of a experienced consultant for > this project. They know who to approach and what to consider. We tried a few contractors who "knew the ropes" on who to contact, but their cable prices were through the roof! The cable company is an interesting route though ... It looks like T1 may be an answer, and cost effective from the RBOC, and TELCO Inc. has an interesting product that links direct with the Northern Telcom Meridian for 2500 or Digital sets. Getting close to the answer! Thanks all! ------------------------------ From: rlvd_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Robert Levandowski) Subject: Re: Cellular Fraud: How Much of it is Real Money? Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York Date: Tue, 24 Jan 95 22:05:43 GMT > is 'worth'. If all you and Paul are saying is that people or companies who > have things stolen from them occassionally inflate the value of what was > stolen for reasons of their own, i.e. insurance payoff, then I would agree > with you. Yes, they do that. If they report what they sold as worth > one dollar and what was stolen as worth two dollars (for the same quantity > or product, etc) then that is wrong. If they report what was stolen as > worth the same amount as that which was sold, then I don't think that is > wrong. > To put it another way, consider a large supermarket in a city like Chicago. > Jewel Food Stores tosses a huge amount of perishable stuff out in the > dumpster each week when their new stock comes in. Milk with an expiration > date only two or three days away. Loaves of bread which have been around > awhile or which got banged up and the wrapping slightly sliced open by > accident in transit. Entire cartons of eggs where one egg got broken. Boxes > of breakfast cereal smashed up in transit. In other words, perfectly > good food, but American consumers are picky people. Homeless or other poor > people with sophistication or 'street-smarts' know exactly what day, or > rather night of the week each Jewel store in the area gets its deliveries > and within minutes or maybe an hour what time to go hit those dumpsters > and clean them out. Granted, you can't be too picky about variety; you > can have a dozen boxes of corn flakes because they threw out the whole > carton when the box on top got sliced open accidently by the stock clerk > opening the carton, but don't look for any Raisin Bran this week. And in > the middle of winter, all those gallon jugs of milk are just fine, but > in the middle of the summer if they've been out there in the dumpster more > than an hour or so, you don't want them ... otherwise, everything is fine. > So since a grocery store is going to toss out all of its perishables when > a new order comes in, and since they never manage to sell it all, and > since the price tag for the item is probably five times higher than what > they paid for it, what real problem is there if someone wants to shoplift > a little right from the store? Right? Now substitute cellular carriers > and/or telcos and/or software writers. If sneaking something out without > paying is cool, then fine. If 'shoplifting' is wrong, then it is wrong. PAT] This is an interesting analogy, but it's not quite what the original poster was trying to say, I think. To expand: If said supermarket were to suffer from a crime wave, and a certain amount of milk were stolen, but no more milk than would normally be discarded in any given week as you described, what if the supermarket then turned around and announced it would increase its milk prices to make up for its losses? Should it figure the value of the lost milk at full retail, or at wholesale? It would not have sold the milk; if they recover the full retail price, they would end up making more money than they would have if the crime had not occurred in the first place. Persomally, I don't think that's reasonable, from the customer's point of view. When you move from supermarkets to cellular carriers, an additional factor comes in. The cellular system transmits its authentication in the clear, making it relatively easy for modern crooks to commit cellular fraud. I've seen lots of people here mention this, and it seems the carriers must have known this weakness. To go back to the analogy, would the supermarket customers be happy about rate increases if they found out the store had knowingly left the back door unlocked and unguarded every night, at the time the milk thefts occurred? I see the point as being: the cellular customers are not responsible for the theft of their billing codes. They exercise reasonable caution in protecting the company from fraud; it is the system that is at fault and it's not reasonable to ask people not to use their phones. In this case, it's bad enough to be charged for theft beyond your control, and even worse to be charged based on theoretical costs that will net the company more money than they'd get if there were no crime to start with. Rob Levandowski Computer Interest Floor associate / University of Rochester macwhiz@cif.rochester.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am reminded of several years ago when I had a neighbor by the name of Mike Polonski and his wife. They were an older, retired couple. Not being able to get by on what Social Security paid them as a married couple, they decided to get a divorce -- after fifty years of marriage! -- so that each of them would begin getting their own check each month, in a total amount higher than what they gpt as a married couple. None the less they continued to live together, they were simply divorced in the eyes of the law is all. We would get together for dinner at least once a week, sometimes more often. Time and again, at dinner in their home, we had only the finest meats, vegtables, and other foods. Where do you do your shopping, I asked ... Mr. Polonski's answer shocked me: the Carnegie Safeway dumpsters every Tuesday about midnight, he said. He saw my startled look and explained what I said in my previous message. Every Wednesday morning at 4:00 am the semi-trailer truck full of stock for the store would show up. About the same time the refrigerator truck would show up with milk, eggs, butter, ice cream, etc. Then soon the 'bread man' would be there. In anticipation, the stock clerks late Tuesday night began cleaning out the old stuff from the shelves; anything with an expiration date *even two or three days ahead* had to be disgarded. The store knew the stuff was still good, but they figured if someone had milk at home with the current day or the day before as the expiration and they got sick for some reason they would blame in on the 'spoiled milk' and sue the store. It was easier to dump it all. You would not believe all the stuff they throw out ... I know I did not believe it until about a week later Mr. Polonski came to my home and brought three large shopping bags with him. "Here," he said, "I did your shopping for this week." He had already taken home three or four bags for himself, and these were mine. Milk, peanut butter, crackers, bread, several boxes of macaroni and cheese, hamburger helper, two packages of pre-sliced balogna (this was in the winter; I caution you against taking the meat or dairy stuff in the summer!) and more. Everything had some minor thing wrong with it; usually it was near the 'must be sold by' date. Some boxes were smashed. A box of 48 Milky Way candy bars where two of the bars on the top row had been sliced in half accidentally with a box-cutting knife. I asked him if he ever had the nerve to take something he did not want back inside the store to the courtesy counter to get a refund and tell them he 'lost his reciept' ... he said no, but he knew of one older lady who 'did it all the time' until Safeway finally slapped her hands for it and told her to stay away from the store and the dumpsters. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ltd@netcom.com (Larry Drebes) Subject: Re: Internet Mail With Half the Address? Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 13:49:43 GMT Try Four11. It's free to search and add your own info. It has both a Web interface ( http://www.Four11.com ) and an e-mail interface (free@four11.com). ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Where to Find Nice-Looking Phones? From: bill.garfield@yob.com (Bill Garfield) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 95 12:10:00 -0600 Organization: Ye Olde Bailey BBS - Houston, TX - 713-520-1569 Reply-To: bill.garfield@yob.com (Bill Garfield) ophidian59@aol.com (Ophidian59) in writes: {some deleted} > While on the subject of phones, I'd really like to find one of those > old yet very mod (e.g. 60's) British phones with the dial and the > hook-switch on the bottom. Anyone? Wasn't this the "ERICO" phone of that era? I recall they were very modernistic-looking for the day, but the dial and switchook contacts were prone to cause static after a few months use and the carbon button mic tended to get packed easily from overzealous hangups. :-) Neat phones, but a maintenance nightmare. Ye Olde Bailey BBS Zyxel 713-520-1569(V.32bis) USR 713-520- 9566(V.34/FC) Houston,Texas yob.com Home of alt.cosuard ------------------------------ From: lailert@ucssun1.sdsu.edu (Supak Lailert) Subject: Re: Using U.S. Modem in Israel Date: 24 Jan 1995 05:25:12 GMT Organization: San Diego State University, College of Sciences Jeremie Kass (kass@tacout.army.mil) wrote: > I am interested in using the modem I use in the U.S. while I am in > Israel. Is there any technical and/or legal problem in doing this? > Also, what kind of telephone jacks are used there? This will be > connected to a residential line, so will it be the same RJ-11 jack as > here? I've had a problem of using a US modem in other countries. I used SupraExpress 144i modem in Thailand and it doesn't detect the busy signal so that automatic redialing is impossible. The answer from Supra tech support is that "Your modem is adjusted to detect US busy signal. The UK busy tone used in Thailand is different. They are faster. There is no way to adjust the modem to detect the busy signal." (Thailand uses UK telephone standard). Is this true? Supak Lailert -- MBA (IS) Program, San Diego State University lailert@rohan.sdsu.edu lailert@aol.com ------------------------------ From: Kimmo.Ketolainen@utu.fi (Kimmo Ketolainen) Subject: Re: 800 Numbers From Overseas Organization: Turun yliopisto - University of Turku, Turku, Finland Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 12:44:25 GMT I seem to have terrible trouble with accessing the 1 800 numbers from Finland, using Telecom Finland (code 990). About every second try gives me the usual error message "the number is not in use" instead of "access to the 800 number you have dialed is not free of charge outside the United States. If answered, you will be charged international direct dialing rates for this call. If you do not want to proceed with this call, please hang up now." Luckily I have a redial button. I called this week one of the other international operators, Finnet (99= 9) and was told that they are planning to offer similar service. Kimmo Ketolainen University of Turku home +358 21 237 8227 Kimmo.Ketolainen@utu.fi shoe +358 40 500 2957 FIN-20540 Turku http://www.utu.fi/finland.html work +358 21 262 1496 ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Telephony Card/Software Needed Date: 24 Jan 1995 00:08:00 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Paul Garfield (garfield@vanilla.cs.umn.edu) wrote: > I've seen a couple similar questions posted but haven't seen an > answer. Please post the answer. I'm looking for cards for IBM PCs > that can handle phone calls. I need to be able to program how the > call is handled (when and what to play and record, what to do with > touch tone presses, etc). All I've seen is things for one line. I úÿ > want to start with about four lines but have the ability to upgrade to > perhaps 24, so I need multiple (four or eight) lines per card. What > are good vendors for this and where can I go for information? Thanks. Try Periphonics for a vendor. 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: Dale Wooden Subject: Re: Telephony Card/Software Needed Date: 24 Jan 1995 15:53:01 GMT Organization: NB*Net > answer. Please post the answer. I'm looking for cards for IBM PCs > that can handle phone calls. I need to be able to program how the > call is handled (when and what to play and record, what to do with > touch tone presses, etc). All I've seen is things for one line. I > want to start with about four lines but have the ability to upgrade to > perhaps 24, so I need multiple (four or eight) lines per card. What > are good vendors for this and where can I go for information? Thanks. Pika Technologies Inc has such a card, the V12. It is programmable and comes in several configurations. you can contact Rahul Virmani at (613) 591-1555 or rahul.virmani@pika.ca Hope this helps. We have had very good success with this card in our own products and have been very pleased with the service. Dale Wooden ------------------------------ From: hbuehl@dsm1.dsmnet.com Subject: Re: Telephony Card/Software Needed Date: 23 Jan 1995 22:46:49 GMT Organization: Des Moines Internet Reply-To: hbuehl@dsm1.dsmnet.com In , garfield@vanilla.cs.umn.edu (Paul Garfield) writes: > I've seen a couple similar questions posted but haven't seen an > answer. Please post the answer. I'm looking for cards for IBM PCs > that can handle phone calls. I need to be able to program how the > call is handled (when and what to play and record, what to do with > touch tone presses, etc). All I've seen is things for one line. I > want to start with about four lines but have the ability to upgrade to > perhaps 24, so I need multiple (four or eight) lines per card. What > are good vendors for this and where can I go for information? Thanks. There are a number of PC based solutions for being able to take multiple line analog and digital trunks, do stuff such as play voice scripts and capture DTMF Digits, generally referred to as VRU or to actually recognize the the caller's voice, generally referred to as Voice Recognition. Natural MicroSystems of Natick MA and Dialogic of Parsippany NJ are a couple of names that leap to mind, although there are certainly others. Go to Barnes and Noble, or one of the Book Superstores and pick up a copy of Computer Telephony Magazine. It is like a toy catalog of all of the new CTI hardware and software. Harold Buehl Croyle & Associates Des Moines, IA ------------------------------ From: gregicg@cadvision.com Subject: Re: Planning to Purchase a Voice Mail System Date: 23 Jan 1995 20:45:48 GMT Organization: CADVision > We purchased a system from Phoneby which was bought out by VMX. The > system works, but has less features than Pacx Bells's system. We > tried to upgrade it a year or so ago, but they wanted an arm and a leg > to put a larger hard disk in it. The hard disk is a regular Maxtor > MFM disk drive, something like 170 MB. They wanted thousands to > upgrade it. The only thing special is that it's formatted in a > proprietary format. Alot of the major manufacturers go about their upgrades in this way. Pretty well EVERY Voice Processing manufacturer uses regular off-the-shelf components, and they are all PC-Based (whether they like to admit it or not.) Some claim "stand-alone" but that just means they sell their components under their own name and proprietary nature, and charge crazy amounts of dollars for it. They often install a 200+ MB HDrive into their systems, but only format a certain percentage of it depending on how much you pay for. Then, when you upgrade, they send out a technical specialist who inserts a 5 1/4" floppy and runs a little UPGRADE program that basically formats a larger part of the drive (as they put it, "unlocks more memory". So, you end up paying hundreds of dollars for something that should really have no cost involved at all. That is one of the biggest rip-offs in Voice Processing today. greg@cadvision.com Greg Habstritt Intellitech Communications Group Calgary, Alberta, Canada ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Planning to Purchase a Voice Mail System From: bill.garfield@yob.com (Bill Garfield) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 95 12:10:00 -0600 Organization: Ye Olde Bailey BBS - Houston, TX - 713-520-1569 Reply-To: bill.garfield@yob.com (Bill Garfield) Paul Hebert (paul_hebert@powershare.markem.com) wrote: > My company is doing research for selection of a voice mail system. We > have presentations scheduled with Octel and Centigram. Would anyone > have some technical or user related insight into these systems? We > have an NEC 2400 switch. Any interface issues we should be aware of? I've had an OCTEL "Aspen" (mid-sized) system in service since 1990 (nearly five years now) with absolutely -ZERO- downtime. It is fully integrated with my Mitel SX2000SG pbx and just keeps working and working. I originally purchased a service contract from OCTEL but finally let it go as they were about like the Maytag man... :-)) I've had them out once, to replace a disk drive. My Octel Aspen system has 20 ports and serves approx. 800 users. Much to Octel's chegrin, I'm still at the original installed software rev level, 8.45.:-) My system is running four 80-meg drives and is still at less than 1/2 capacity. Small mailbox sizes and short save times help that alot. I typically allow each user a max of 20 two-minute msgs with a "new" message hold window of 21 days and a save/archive window of seven days, tho I do make an occasional exception -- just don't let it become a filing cabinet nor an attic. Make that a -POLICY- and your life as System Administrator will be much more pleasant. Run monthly subscriber usage reports to keep tabs on your big "exception" mailbox users as they can bring your disk space to its knees if they abuse the "save" priviledge. Force passwords to six digits, minimum. Beware that "auto attendant" can become a sneak path for toll fraud with any voicemail system. Otherwise, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? You tell me ... As an aside, my Octel/Aspen system sits in a 68-degrees/temp-stable environment and is powered through a Liebert PDU (clean power), plus has a sturdy industrial grade UPS behind it. That may contribute to the good results thus far achieved. I know if the need arose that I'd sure buy another one in a heartbeat. Bill Garfield The pbx/datacomm guy Panhandle Eastern Corp, Houston NYSE: PEL America's Natural Gas Transportation Company Ye Olde Bailey BBS Zyxel 713-520-1569(V.32bis) USR 713-520- 9566(V.34/FC) Houston,Texas yob.com Home of alt.cosuard ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #60 *****************************