TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Jan 95 23:39:00 CST Volume 15 : Issue 71 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Earthquake in Area 206 (Ry Jones) Cellular Telephones Built Into Watches (Timothy Benson) Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs (amer310@aol.com) Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Cellular Fraud: How Much of it is Real Money? (Matthew P. Downs) Re: Cellular Fraud: How Much of it is Real Money? (Nick Sayer) Re: North Korea Holds US Representative Over $10K Phone Bill (Ben Combee) Re: Five Digit Phone Numbers (John Lundgren) Re: Five Digit Phone Numbers (Wes Leatherock) Re: Old Phone Number Format Question (Tony Harminc) Re: Privately Owned Cables on Public Utility Poles (John Lundgren) Re: Privately Owned Cables on Public Utility Poles (Patton M. Turner) Re: 500 Numbers and CID (John Lundgren) Last Laugh! Telecom and Pasta (Paul A. Migliorelli) 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: rjones@halcyon.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) Subject: Earthquake in Area 206 Date: 31 Jan 1995 03:21:12 GMT Organization: NW NEXUS, Inc. -- Internet Made Easy (206) 455-3505 Two days ago a small tremor hit NPA 206. I called someone on the other side of Lake Washington on my cell because the land lines were overloaded. I kept the phone off the hook for about ten seconds after I had already connected on the cellular and finally got a dialtone. Maybe Mt Rainier blew? :) Interesting that in the few seconds after the tremor enough people were already on the phone to overload it. rjones@halcyon.com net. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 10:58:03 EST From: Timothy Benson Subject: Cellular Telephones Built Into Watches I am a MBA student and I am currently doing market research on the combination cellular telephone-wristwatch product. Does your company offer this product or something that would be considered a competitor to this product? Do you know where I might obtain some information about a product like this? Your assistance is appreciated. Tim ------------------------------ From: amer310@aol.com (Amer310) Subject: Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs Date: 31 Jan 1995 20:50:53 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: amer310@aol.com (Amer310) Regarding Access Charges, I own a small long distance company so I have to be somewhat of an expert. We pay roughly 50% of gross revenue for access charges. The amounts range from 1.7 to 8 cents per minute on each end of the call. Each Bell company or independent has different pricing for in state and out of state calls. There is also a differnce in some states for originating vs terminating calls. There is no such thing a free access period! Let me know if you have any other questions. Jeff ------------------------------ From: Judith Oppenheimer Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 10:25:43 -0500 Subject: Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs David Lewis of AT&T wrote: > Is it just me, or do these numbers (which I'll take on faith for > now) demonstrate a massive inefficiency and misallocation of costs in > the current cost structure of telecommunications? > If 95% of traffic is local (I'll define as "intraLATA"), Then 95% of > costs (fixed and variable) are due to local traffic. But the majority > (say, 80%) of LEC revenue is from access charges. Therefore 80% of > revenue is paying for 5% of cost, and 20% of revenue is paying for 95% > of cost. > Does this make sense? Local should be charged higher because it is expensive. You provide unlimited free calling for a flat fee instead of charging on a call by call basis. Of course you lose money. Local access charges are profitable, and are on a call by call basis. LEC's don't want to lose that revenue. With bypass and local exchange competition it could be tough. Remember the costs associated with access. A LD call is dialed (say international), the local switch has to do all the work to validate the number and then pass it off to the pick. The pick "just routes" a number. (oversimplification.) But the LEC doesn't get paid for all the incomplete calls, all the dial back calls, etc and that costs money. So local service pays for itself (barely) and profit comes from access charges which is also an expensive proposition. (Some local companies, especally rural, don't even handle long distance. They just pass it off to someone else to do.) There is verification, routing and don't forget billing to do. It is expensive. Judith Oppenheimer ------------------------------ From: mpd@adc.com (Matthew P. Downs) Subject: Re: Cellular Fraud: How Much of it is Real Money? Date: 31 Jan 1995 13:38:12 GMT Organization: ADC Telecommunications I don't understand the difference ... it's all real money ... instead of being able to lower my rates, they have to increase them in order to purchase more switching capacity, pay more in employee wages to track the fraud, buy more computers in order to analyze all calls that are occurring, etc. When does this become "unreal money"? If my monthly minimum could have been $9 instead of $20, that sure the hell is real money to me ... maybe not to the cellular company, but to me it is. $.02 Matt ------------------------------ From: nsayer@quack.kfu.com (Nick Sayer) Subject: Re: Cellular Fraud: How Much of it is Real Money? Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'. Date: 31 Jan 1995 06:53:43 UTC Barry Margolin writes: > So if fraudulent calls increase the load on the network, the carrier > will have to increase the capacity to accomodate it. Can anyone actually document a case where a carrier of _any_ sort, be it cellular, local, long distance, or _airline_ for that matter has actually had to increase capacity because of said fraudulent use? Anyone? > This costs money, but because the calls are fraudulent there's no > corresponding income to pay for it. This is precisely the same as any > other kind of theft: the vendor fails to receive income when someone > gets something that the vendor paid for. That's as may be, but that conclusion proceeds from a rather tall assumption. Nick Sayer N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NOAM +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest' URL: http://www.kfu.com/~nsayer/ ------------------------------ From: combee@prism.gatech.edu (Benjamin L. Combee) Subject: Re: North Korea Holds US Representative Over $10K Phone Bill Date: 31 Jan 1995 06:42:03 -0500 Organization: ROASF Atlanta Reply-To: combee@prism.gatech.edu In article , Alan Shen wrote: > 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. > 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 ... Apparently, the State Department didn't want to include North Korea in their Friends & Family calling circle. :) #define NAME "Ben Combee" #define E-MAIL "combee@prism.gatech.edu" #define URL "http://www.gatech.edu/acm/combee.html" ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Five Digit Phone Numbers Date: 31 Jan 1995 04:57:17 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Carl Moore (cmoore@ARL.MIL) wrote: > I am originallly from Wilmington, Delaware. For many years, what > became the {News-Journal} newspapers were on what became 302-654- 5351. > (Please don't call that number; it was changed long ago!) Originally > (and I had to read about this since I am too young to remember that > far back) it would have been printed as "Wilmington 4-5351" or simply > "4-5351" with Wilmington being understood; I believe you had to ask > the operator if you wanted to reach such a number. "Wilmington" was > replaced by "OLympia" (OL for short) when it came time for customers > to be able to dial directly. Then, in 1966, Diamond State Telephone > stopped printing exchange names in the Wilmington phone book, and > existing numbers of form OLx-xxxx began to be printed as 65x-xxxx. I have several wooden coat hangers that I inherited with four or five digit numbers of the dry cleaners on them, probably from back in the 50's. Then later, all the phone numbers were five digits preceded with NEwmark as the word. Now they are just 63x-xxxx. > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > Does anyone remember when all the military bases around the USA had > their own special arrangements? Camp McCoy in Wisconsin, for example, > was just 'Camp McCoy' to the long distance operator; it had four digit > extensions but no actual 'main listed number'. It was just 'Camp McCoy, > extension xxxx' via the long distance operator. Ditto Fort Benjamin > Harrison in southern Indiana and Great Lakes Naval Base. PAT] I worked on a switchboard when I was in Gernmany, and I remember the Autovon lines that we had. I don't know why, but they were always low in volume. They worked but everyone had to yell in the field phones to get thru. Maybe that's why they were so weak: because the phones were field phones. We had phantom lines that were weak, but some were better than the Autovon lines. Then there were the lines that were on the microwaves from missile site to missile site. They were always hollow sounding or singing. I'm glad that things are a lot better nowadays. I really hated getting stuck with that stupid copperweld steel field phone wire. 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: wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 07:45:40 GMT Subject: Re: Five Digit Phone Numbers Quoting Carl Moore : > I am originallly from Wilmington, Delaware. For many years, what > became the {News-Journal} newspapers were on what became > 302-654-5351. (Please don't call that number; it was changed long > ago!) Originally (and I had to read about this since I am too > young to remember that far back) it would have been printed as > "Wilmington 4-5351" or simply "4-5351" with Wilmington being > understood; I believe you had to ask the operator if you wanted > to reach such a number. Five-digit numbers were once quite common for dial service in all but very large cities. It wasn't that "Wilmington" was understood; that was the whole telephone number, and it was in Wilmington. Since there all dialing was local, the concept of a name or prefix didn't exist. For long distance calls, you reached a long distance operator, told her what city and what number you wanted, and she plugged into either a ringdown or straightforward trunk to the inward operator in that city, rang on it, if was a ringdown trunk, and passed the number to the inward operator by voice when she answered. The inward operator dialed the number (typically with a rotary dial on the keyshelf) to connect with the desired number. (If there were no direct trunks to the called city, the operator had to go through other cities on the way to get there; routes to popular destinations were on a keyshelf bulletin; if not there, she connected to a rate and route operator and inquired as to the route.) > Does anyone remember when all the military bases around the USA > had their own special arrangements? Camp McCoy in Wisconsin, for > example, was just 'Camp McCoy' to the long distance operator; it > had four digit extensions but no actual 'main listed number'. It > was just 'Camp McCoy, extension xxxx' via the long distance > operator. Ditto Fort Benjamin Harrison in southern Indiana and > Great Lakes Naval Base. PAT] The military bases were probably classified as exchanges for toll purposes and so you reached them over a toll trunk, same as a long distance call to any other exchange. Military bases always had special arrangements for connecting to both the exchange and toll network and had their own operators (and switches, where the military post had dial service). But talk of the newspaper in Wilmington and unusual arrangements reminds me of the time when I was working for The Daily Oklahoman in Oklahoma City (2-1211 and also L.D. 343; do you remember toll terminals?) and I had occasion to call Phillips, Texas, about a fire. Phillips was a company town of a Phillips Petroleum Company subsidiary near Borger, Texas, where they had one or more chemical plants. I had the number in Phillips and I placed a call with the long distance operator. She went to rate and route (see above) who gave her the routing of "TC Borger" (toll center Borger). So she connected with Borger and asked for Phillips. The inward operator responded "your ticket reads Borger 666, a PBX." So this was a case where it really was a PBX with extension numbers. This was probably around 1949 or 1950. Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu wes.leatherock@f2001.n147.z1.fidonet.org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This reminds me of when the operator in North Bay, Ontario was the inward operator for all the little towns northward along Imperial Highway 11, clear up to Hearst. When you called any of those points, the long distance operator always got a report from Rate and Route which indicated North Bay. So your operator dialed something and presently there came a response over the wire "North Bay!" and your operator would ask for the number in Hearst, for example, but the other úÿ end would say 'just a minute, I will ring the operator in Hearst for you and you give her the number you want.' You'd hear this 'kerchunk' sound as she was ringing, and sooner or later "Hearst" came on the line to ask for 'number please?'. That is, unless you called after about 10 pm at night ... call that late, and North Bay had a different answer for your operator, who seemed astounded to hear such a thing: "Is this an emergency call to Hearst, Ontario?" (your operator would repeat the question to you, and you would say no.) "Well operator, we are not supposed to ring her after ten o'clock at night unless its an emergency. She goes to bed at ten. If it's an emergency I will ring her, but we are not supposed to call until after seven in the morning. Seven is when we give her a wake up call." Then there was Alma, Quebec. Alma served as the inward for several places in the far northern reaches of Quebec but connections were made over *AM radio links*. Rate and Route would give your local operator the notation 'other place' to mark on the ticket and a number to dial which reached Alma Inward. If your operator thought it strange that the 'phone company' in Hearst closed down overnight, she thought it even stranger when the operator in Alma answered, always first in French then immediatly in English saying 'Alma Radio'. Your operator would ask for one of those places and the Alma operator would answer almost indignantly: "oooh! madamoiselle! They are not going to answer me now! They only promise to listen to zee radio between seven and nine oclock. Do you want me to try anyway? Maybe they will answer." So giving it a try, she would go on the radio circuit from her switchboard and with sometimes horrible static in the background when she was not transmitting, she would try to raise them. First in French then in English over and over, four or five times calling for whatever small village it was 'this is Alma on Channel 1, do you copy me'. Then she would go try on Channel 2. Finally she would say there was no response from them, and almost as an afterthought, 'madamoiselle, where are you calling from?' The operator would tell her she was in Chicago. "Shee cah go? In zee United States? Operator, you call me back at seven o'clock, I will see that they talk to you then." Long ago times, indeed. That would have been in the middle 1950's. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 15:40:17 EST From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: Old Phone Number Format Question wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu wrote: > Philips, the Netherlands company, was not very well known in > the United States before World War II. During World War II, after the > Netherlands was occupied by Germany, their American operation became > separate under the name North American Philips Company, which used the > trade name Norelco. Just to add another piece to the puzzle: in Canada the Norelco trademark was not owned by Philips but by The Northern Electric Company Ltd., which made radios, wire and cable, telephone equipment, and even appliances like refrigerators. Northern Electric was majority owned by The Bell Telephone Company of Canada (now Bell Canada), and was renamed Northern Telecom in the mid 1970s. It is now best known for its DMS switches and related telecom equipment. In Canada, the Philips electric razors and such are sold under the Philishave name. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Privately Owned Cables on Public Utility Poles Date: 1 Feb 1995 03:04:52 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Mark Fletcher (mfletch@ix.netcom.com) wrote: > 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 grateful. > Please reply via direct e-mail to mfletch@ix.netcom.com. I will post my > findings and a summary for all interested. It sounds like you have a good idea, if what you need is 100 pairs of hard copper. Check the numbers and see how the costs look for a period of time, and you might be saving a lot real quick. If you can use some groups of 24 circuits, then T-1 gear could be another answer to saving some money. Or instead of running your own cable, you could run fiber instead. Or radio gear could also eliminate the dependence on the telco altogether. I would get one of the above and implement it, and not go completely independent of the telco until I was sure that the fiber or radio was going to be a reliable substitute. Maybe keep 1/3 of the telco lines just in case. 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: pturner@netcom.com (Patton M Turner) Subject: Re: Privately Owned Cables on Public Utility Poles Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 03:17:26 GMT You can rent space on the poles under conditions imposed by the PUC and or City. Usually the telco owns the poles, telco pays something like 40 % of cost and the CATV firms 10%. You only need a few inches of space on the pole, but remember to consider maintainance costs and restoration if the pole gets knocked down. Also as a non-common carrier you won't get the cooperation the telco gets if you have inductive noise problems. Have you thought of T1s or mucrowave? Patton Turner KB4GRZ pturner@netcom.com FAA Telecommunications ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: 500 Numbers and CID Date: 31 Jan 1995 04:42:44 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Mark Stieger (stud@subzero.winternet.com) wrote: > Here's something I haven't seen asked in here. When nationwide Caller > ID is available, and someone calls you through a 500 number, will > their CID information be passed, or will the 500 number (or some ATT > number show up? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know, and let's talk about it [deleted] > gets installed here. Meanwhile of course, AT&T promptly billed me for > the service on January 24 -- on my local Ameritech bill -- so much for > how it is out of their control until Ameritech cooperates. PAT] I think here in Pac*Bell land, the Calif PUC requires that if the subscriber had a loss of service greater than 24 hours, they can remove the loss from their bill. Like if the phone is out two days, they can subtract 2/30 of a month's bill. Of course, that doesn't include other charges like toll calls. So if you get service on the 30th, you might be able to get away without paying the loss between the 24th and 30th. I'm assuming that the regulatory laws are somewhat uniform from state to state. 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 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 09:16:05 EST From: Paul A. Migliorelli Subject: Last Laugh! Telecom and Pasta Have any of you heard the Kraft macaroni and cheese ad with the little child singing that he "wants the blue box", and that he has the "blue box blues"? Most interesting indeed. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #71 *****************************