TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Jan 95 15:55:30 CST Volume 15 : Issue 67 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "The Mosaic Navigator" by Gilster (Rob Slade) WilTel's New Telecom Atlas (Leslie Smith) ACC Reports Increase in Billable Minutes (Dave Leibold) Canada and Chile Sign Telecom Research Agreement (Nigel Allen) NACN Problems With Cell One/Utah (Brianhead) (Doug Reuben) Needed: Network Solutions Manager (Lambert Schuyler Jr.) Bell Atlantic ISDN, Part II (Hersh Jeff) More on Universal International Freephone Numbers (Judith Oppenheimer) Gigabit Networking Workshop GBN'95 - Call for Participation (J. Sterbenz) Does AT&T 7506 TAD 03A Pass CID to RS232 of Orignating Caller? (ulmo@panix) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 14:54:30 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Mosaic Navigator" by Gilster BKMOSNAV.RVW 941201 "The Mosaic Navigator", Gilster, 1995, 0-471-11336-0, U$16.95 %A Paul Gilster gilster@interpath.net %C 5353 Dundas Street West, 4th Floor, Etobicoke, ON M9B 6H8 %D 1995 %G 0-471-11336-0 %I John Wiley & Sons, Inc. %O U$16.95 416-236-4433 fax: 416-236-4448 %P 243 %T "The Mosaic Navigator" HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the standard for the construction and use of documents which link to other items on the net through the use of URLs (Universal Resource Locators). The World Wide Web is the term which refers to the interconnected set of documents which use HTTP. (World Wide Web is often abbreviated to WWW, W3, or just Web, although this latter causes confusion with a social issues information network by the same name.) Mosaic is an HTTP or W3 client program, often referred to as a "browser". In addition, the Mosaic browser has a graphical interface, and can utilize "viewer" software to display graphics, sound, and video in conjunction with HTTP "pages". There are other browsers, some, like WWW and lynx, text-based. Other graphical clients include Netscape, now being built by one of the original Mosaic developers, and a proprietary part of the new "Warp" version of OS/2. Mosaic, itself, exists in multiple freeware, shareware, and commercial versions, and can be obtained for MS-Windows, the Macintosh, and X. For those who have access to the Internet, but do not yet have Mosaic or the necessary SLIP or PPP access, this book is an excellent guide to getting set up. Chapters three and four give quite detailed instructions for obtaining, installing, and configuring the program. This includes an explanation of the MOSAIC.INI file for Windows. Other resources include Mosaic and W3-related newsgroups and mailing lists. Chapter six is also a solid guide to the use of Mosaic to access ftp, telnet, Gopher, and Usenet news resources. Gilster's "The Internet Navigator" (cf. BKINTNAV.RVW) and "Finding It On the Internet" (cf. BKFNDINT.RVW) are both excellent works, and the weaknesses of this one are shortcomings only in light of that comparison. The explanations of the World Wide Web, HTTP, and Mosaic, while good, are not up to the previous standard. The directions are not quite as lucid, and sometimes seem to assume more knowledge on the part of the reader. Coverage of the actual operation of Mosaic could be stronger: figures would have benefitted from the use of pointers to items being selected, and the discussion of Mosaic menu items is better in the O'Reilly & Associates' Mosaic handbooks (cf. BKMOSAHX.RVW). Also, while Gilster does discuss the fact that the capabilities of HTTP, W3, and Mosaic may be misused for trivialities, that point is not made strongly enough. He mentions the frustration involved with trying to use Mosaic with a slow modem, but not the growing impact of massive graphic, video, and sound file transfers on the bandwidth of the net as a whole. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKMOSNAV.RVW 941201. Permission given to distribute in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Jan 95 12:08:10 CST From: leslie_smith@wiltel.com Subject: WilTel's New Telecom Atlas Dear Telecom Digest, WilTel is excited to announce our New Telecom Atlas. We would love to know what you and your readers think about this new service that WilTel now provides. My name is Leslie Smith and if you would like to talk with me about our New Telecom Atlas, I can be reached at 918-588-3645, or at Leslie_Smith@wiltel.com. Thank you very much, Leslie Smith Your Ticket to the "World" Have you ever wondered where in the World you could find International Telecom Information at one location on the Internet? Well, wonder no longer, because WilTel has laid the "World" at your fingertips with our New Telecom Atlas. Whether you need to know about the South of France or South Dakota, WilTel's New Telecom Atlas allows you to maneuver around the "World" with ease. The Telecom Atlas provides sojourners overseas with a clickable map of International Carriers and Telecom Research Centers. If your trip is not as far from home, the Telecom Atlas also provides clickable information on Interexchange Carrier Sites, Regional Bell Operating Companies, Freenets, Research Testbeds, and Value Priced Long Distance Providers to those of us in the U.S. The WilTel Telecom Atlas is part of WilTel's Telecom Library. WilTel is devoted to ensuring that Telecommunication information is readily available and easily comprehendable to the public. If you would like to learn more about Wiltel and our many services, we can be reached at http://www.wiltel.com. ------------------------------ From: dleibold@gvc.com (Dave Leibold) Subject: ACC Reports Increase in Billable Minutes Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 00:26:51 -0500 [from a news release via CNW] ACC TELENTERPRISES LTD. BILLABLE MINUTES UP OVER 25% TORONTO, Jan. 24 /CNW/ - ACC Telenterprises Ltd. (`ACC') is pleased to announce that their billable minutes for the fourth quarter 1994 are up more than 25% over the same period last year. Billable minutes were reported at 127,245,250 compared to 101,555,897 billable minutes in the fourth quarter of 1993. Commenting on the strong growth, Mr. Steve Dubnik, President and Chief Executive Officer stated, "This increase in traffic is in line with our expected growth. It is exciting to confirm that our billable minutes are trending as planned." The company's U.S. affiliate, ACC Long Distance Corp., has also reported over 14% growth in billable minutes. Their billable minutes in the fourth quarter were 144,519,771 compared to 126,109,656 billable minutes in the fourth quarter of 1993. It's affiliate, ACC Long Distance UK Ltd., reports billable minutes in the fourth quarter of 1994 were up 215% over the third quarter in 1994. The 11,048,441 minutes in the fourth quarter compares to 3,503,304 billable minutes reported in the previous quarter. The billable minutes were 21,795 in the fourth quarter of 1993. ACC TelEnterprises Ltd., together with its sister companies ACC Long Distance Corp. in the United States and ACC Long Distance UK Ltd. is a multinational provider of enhanced telecommunications services. The Canadian company is headquartered in Toronto and provides worldwide long distance voice and data services to business and residential customers in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberts and British Columbia. The company operates in 33 metropolitan centres and currently has an annualized revenue run rate in excess of $100 million. ACC TelEnterprises Ltd. is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Montreal Stock Exchange under the symbol "ACL". For further information: Barry K. Singer, Vice President, Legal and Regulatory, ACC TelEnterprises Ltd., Etobicoke, Ontario, Tel: (416) 236-3636, Fax: (416) 236-4749. ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Subject: Canada and Chile Sign Telecom Research Agreement Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 20:19:31 EST Organization: Allen Telecom Policy Consultants, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Here is a press release from Industry Canada, the Industry department of the Canadian federal government. Other Industry Canada press releases are available from the ftp/www/gopher site (debra.dgbt.doc.ca) operated by the department. I don't work for the government. File name:01-26-95.b Internet address: debra.dgbt.doc.ca File path: /pub/isc/Industry.Canada.News.Releases/1995 Date archived: Mon Jan 30 08:58:38 EST 1995 Archive name: Industry Canada, Canadian Federal Government Archived by: tyson@debra.dgbt.doc.ca Originator: Industry Canada CANADA AND CHILE SIGN MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT ON COMMUNICATIONS DEVELOPMENT DAVOS, Switzerland, January 26, 1995 -- Industry Minister John Manley today welcomed the signing of an agreement between Industry Canada's Communications Research Centre (CRC) and the Chilean government's Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications to establish a framework for collaboration in telecommunications research and development. The agreement was signed in Santiago, Chile, today by Trade Minister Roy MacLaren during the trade mission led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien. The agreement provides the Chilean Ministry of Transportation and Communications with access to CRC's expertise in communications R&D including spectrum management, remote telecommunications, networks and broadcast technologies. "This agreement underlines the CRC's international reputation for excellence in communications research," said Mr. Manley. "The Centre's increasing participation in such international collaborations helps bring Canadian technology and capabilities to world, and translates into new opportunities for the growth of the telecommunications sector in the National Capital Region and Canada." Under the agreement, CRC will provide technical consulting services on a cost-recovery basis, technology transfer, exchange programs and set up conferences and technical symposia. There is no monetary value attached to the agreement. Any CRC technologies transferred will be subject to separate licensing agreements. For additional information, please contact: Kevin Shackell CRC (613) 998-0138 - forwarded by Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ndallen@io.org ------------------------------ From: dreuben@interpage.net (Doug Reuben) Subject: NACN Problems with Cell One/Utah (Brianhead) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 07:10:41 EST For the past five days, I've noticed that the system serving Brianhead, Utah (for once I am unsure of the SID! :) ), seems to be unable to deliver any sort of switch recordings. When someone calls my 914-643 number, and my phone rings in Brianhead, and goes unanswered, NOTHING happens! The ringing just stops, and the line remains open, but callers do NOT get any message at all! This is a particular problem as coverage is quite transient, and you can easily find yourself in a dead spot where there is no coverage at all. If you had been registered in the system 20 minutes prior to hitting the dead spot, calls will be sent out to Utah, yet since you are in a dead spot, the switch will not send any ringing tones back to the caller, and all the caller hears is dead air, ad infinitum! If the phone is inactive for more than 20 minutes, it usually resets to the NY switch properly, but the fact that no recording is reported when the phone is registered in Utah and either "off" or in a dead or "no service" area is particularly confusing to callers who already have enough difficulty waiting for the beeps, tones, clicks, and other messages which they frequently must endure to reach my phone while roaming. (Although NACN roaming is by far more seamless than most B-side systems ... the B side in the Northeast laughable in most cases with inane messages and hold times.) Doug * Interpage Network Services/CID Tech * (203) 499-5221 ------------------------------ From: sfbatl@mindspring.com (Lambert Schuyler Jr.) Subject: Needed: Network Solutions Manager Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 15:57:02 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. NEEDED: Manager - Network Support Solutions (NSS) Consulting The Company: Recognized internationally as a premier professional services firm noted for its information systems integration, strategic consulting, change management and process management consulting services. The company s Telecom Industry Consulting Group, is a leader in providing consulting services to telecommunications operating companies worldwide. The Position: The group provides specialized systems integration and process reengineering consulting services in the areas of network operations support, material logistics, service delivery and service assurance. The Manager - Network Support Solutions (NSS) Consulting position offers an outstanding career opportunity for a manager with telecom carrier network operations support systems experience to join this premier consulting firm. Professional Requirements: Candidates for the position will have at least three years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Such exper ience will have included assignments with direct responsibility for the p lanning and execution of network support solutions information systems de velopment projects. A candidate s experience may have been gained while working with a telecom carrier or firms that serve the telecom carrier industry such as hardware/solutions vendors, systems integrators, strategic consultants or information systems consultants. A technical undergraduate degree is expected. Compensation/Location: The financial package for the position will include an attractive salary and company provided fringe benefits. Relocation may not be required. If interested, please contact: Gabrielle Griffith (I am with an Executive Search firm) E-Mail: sfbatl@mindspring.com Fax: 404-804-1917 ------------------------------ From: Hersh Jeff Subject: Bell Atlantic ISDN, Part II Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 11:52:00 PST In TELECOM Digest V15 #63 I wrote: > My office (located in Eatontown, NJ, area code 908) recently had two ISDN > lines installed for experimental purposes. We receive our ISDN from a > #5ESS. It was obvious, despite what is written about Bell Atlantic in > "Reengineering the Corporation," that it is very inexperienced and > unorganized in providing ISDN service. All we asked for was two ISDN > BRI lines with NT-1s. It took about two months before we were able to > get the lines installed, and we have already had to replace the NT- 1s > once. Anyone else have experience with Bell Atlantic ISDN? úÿ There's another issue I neglected to mention in the original submission: billing. As I mentioned, the ISDN lines are used for experimental purposes, for maybe five to seven hours per month. Our usage bills for the latest three billing cycles are as follows (at $.05 per minute): November 94: 3228 minutes (about 54 hours) December 94: 3392 minutes (about 56 hours) January 95: 3406 minutes (about 57 hours). All time is charged for circuit switch data calls (BA's name). In no case did we actually use that much access. We have been trying to get call detail from Bell Atlantic for the specific charges (mostly dialed destination and time of day) to see if we can pinpoint the trouble. BA says it cannot provide that type of info, so that right now we're at a standoff. (I have trouble believing it can't do this.) If anyone has any experience with how ISDN is billed and if similar problems have been experienced, please let me know. We know we didn't use nearly this much time. TIA, Jeff Hersh hershj@bah.com ------------------------------ From: Judith Oppenheimer Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 11:51:30 -0500 Subject: More on Universal International Freephone Numbers In reference to John Carl Brown's posting on January 24th: Everything he says confirms what we have said. But it doesn't answer the question -- why are the carriers refusing to support the U.S. users that did make their wishes known? If it is such a participatory process, why are the U.S. carriers ignoring the users who are participating? I would be happy to provide *current and un-edited* documents - timeline, E.169, and more, to whomever emails their fax number to me. Judith Oppenheimer, Producer@Pipeline.com Interactive CallBrand(TM) ------------------------------ From: jpgs@gte.com (James Sterbenz) Subject: Gigabit Networking Workshop GBN'95 -- Call for Participation Date: 31 Jan 1995 13:51:26 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories Incorporated GIGABIT NETWORKING WORKSHOP GBN'95 - Call for Participation 2 April 1995 - Boston, Massachusetts, USA Sponsored by the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Gigabit Networking in conjunction with INFOCOM'95 PURPOSE AND FORMAT The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for presenting and discussing very recent work in gigabit networking and publishing it in a timely manner. The workshop will consist of short presentations and discussions of current work in high bandwidth networking, as well as longer discussion sessions. The workshop will take place from 8:30 AM until 3:00 PM with lunch provided. There will be an open business meeting of the Technical Committee on Gigabit Networking following the workshop at 3:00 PM. The workshop will consist of a number of short informal presentations and discussion on current research and implementation, hot topics, position statements, and controversial issues relating to high bandwidth networking. End-to-end issues including transport and higher layer protocols, host and network interface architecture, operating systems, emerging applications, deployment and management of large networks, economic and regulatory issues, security and privacy, and other societal impacts will be of particular interest. A one-page abstract of the presentation is due on 1 March 1995; all reasonable proposals will be considered (and possibly some controversial ones). The length of the presentations will be limited to 10 or 15 minutes each, with the number of presentation foils strictly limited. Presentations will appear in the online proceedings of the workshop, under URL http://info.gte.com/ieee-tcgn/conference/gbn95 or by FTP from ftp.gte.com/pub/ieee-tcgn/conference/gbn95/. Selected abstracts of the presentations will appear in _IEEE Network Magazine_ (tentatively May 1995), and presenters may be invited to submit papers to a special issue of the _Journal of High Speed Networks_ (JHSN). There will blocks of time reserved for interactive discussion sessions. Suggestions for topics will be taken in advance (email to giga@tele.pitt.edu and Cc: to jpgs@ieee.org), but will also be welcome at the workshop. Controversial topics and outrageous viewpoints are encouraged. A summary of the workshop discussions will appear in _IEEE Network Magazine_. SUBMISSION The submission deadline for the one-page abstract is 1 March 1995. Submission should be in plain text by email to the program chair at jpgs@ieee.org; please include the text "GBN'95 Submission" in the Subject: field. All submissions will be quickly acknowledged; the lack of an acknowledgment indicates that the author should contact the program chair to confirm the receipt of the proposal. Notification of accepted presentations will be made by 10 March 1995, and all accepted presenters are expected to register in advance for the workshop. At the time of the workshop, an electronic version of the presentation foils will be due for inclusion in the online proceedings. Submission in postscript and/or HTML is encouraged; if these formats are not possible, plain text will be accepted. REGISTRATION Registration for the workshop will be handled as part of INFOCOM'95 registration; information is available: on the WWW http://www.research.att.com/~hgs/infocom95/program.html by anonymous FTP gaia.cs.umass.edu/pub/hgschulz/infocom95/progam.txt email request to infocom95@fokus.gmd.de Additional copies of the GBN'95 CFP are available: on the WWW http://info.gte.com/ieee- tcgn/conference/gbn95/cfp.html by anonymous FTP ftp.gte.com/pub/ieee- tcgn/conference/gbn95/cfp.txt email request to jpgs@ieee.org The home page for the TCGN is URL http://info.gte.com/ieee-tcgn, and has additional information. PROGRAM CHAIR PROGRAM COMMITTEE James P. G. Sterbenz Nim Cheung, Bellcore GTE Telecom. Research Laboratory Dave Feldmeier, Bellcore 40 Sylvan Road MS-61, Bryan Lyles, Xerox PARC Waltham, MA 02254 USA Ira Richer, MITRE +1 617 466 2786 Dick Skillen, Northern Telecom jpgs@ieee.org Richard A. Thompson, Univ. of Pittsburgh http://info.gte.com/jpgs Shukri Wakid, NIST James P.G. Sterbenz Senior MTS, Broadband Intelligent Networks jpgs@{acm|ieee}.org GTE Telecommunications Research Laboratory +1 617 466 2786 40 Sylvan Road MS-61, Waltham, MA 02254 USA http://info.gte.com/jpgs ------------------------------ From: ulmo@panix.com Subject: Does AT&T 7506 TAD 03A Pass CID to RS232 of Orignating Caller? Date: 31 Jan 1995 06:13:25 -0500 Organization: URL:http://www.armory.com/~ulmo/ (see rivers.html for PGP key) An early reply would be appreciated ... Today I'm ordering my AT&T 7506 TAD 03A and ISDN service with NYNEX. Does this particular 7506 pass the CID of each caller to the RS232? I want to plug my computer in and have it look into my customer database and pop up the record for the customer before I even know the phone is ringing. I'll program it. I just want to know if the firmware allows it, and how. Thanks. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #67 *****************************