TELECOM Digest Wed, 8 Feb 95 23:06:00 CST Volume 15 : Issue 86 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Access to "500" Numbers (Richard Cox) 500 Service Comments (Jeff Buckingham) Voice Delay Standards Information Wanted (Alex Zacharov) Voice Teleconferencing (TNTPKT) A Problem With 205/334 DA (Scott D. Fybush) GO Communications (Steve Samler) Radio Amateur Telecommunications Society WWW Page (Andrew Funk) ICA Annual Conference/Supercomm '95 - Mar 19-23 - Anaheim, CA (Bob Harper) Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs (John Combs) Re: LD Termination Fees Charges (Jerry Harder) Re: Information Wanted on MagNet Communications (Christopher H. Snider) Re: Can Anyone Recommend Excell LD Phone Service? (Christopher H. Snider) Re: Plumber Arrested: Fraudulent Call Forwarding (Jim Ancona) Re: Memorex PBX Help Needed (John Combs) Re: Ten Digit Dialing (Bob Goudreau) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 11:04:47 -0500 From: richard@mandarin.com Subject: Access to "500" Numbers PAT said: >> Anyway, feel free to call me at any reasonable hour: 500-677-1616 But not, it seems, from outside the mainland US! Callers from the UK are told that the number "has not been recognised" and when I asked British Telecom why this is so, they insisted that the numbers do not even exist. Pressed on this point, BT contacted AT&T who (initially) said the same thing but later had to admit that the numbers do exist, and that they STILL had not "officially" told BT about them -- and as a result BT had not put the necessary data about these numbers into the international access switches in London. It seems BT will be discussing this with AT&T, MCI and Sprint later today, and we just might be able to call you later this week. But until then, UK customers simply can't call US 500 numbers. And when we DO get access, we'll all remember the time difference before we make that call, right? Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology, PO Box 111, Penarth, South Glamorgan CF64 3YG Voice: 0956 700111; Fax: 0956 700110; VoiceMail: 0941 151515 e-mail address: richard@mandarin.com; PGP2.6 public key on request [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh -- so that was you Wednesday morning at 6 AM Chicago time was it? And then about 90 minutes later, more or less 7:30 AM I get a call from a fellow at AT&T in New York, in what he called 'International'. *He* wanted to know what is a 500 number. It seems lots of folks who work for AT&T have not even heard of this new service. Is that wild or not? So ... you badgered BT and AT&T from your end; I humiliated that poor fellow from AT&T on my end; maybe some good will come from it all later this week as you point out. I'd like to think you and I were responsible for getting access started from the UK to the USA on 500 numbers; but that may be delusions of grandeur on my part. In a related message on this topic, presented next in this issue, Jeff Buckingham wonders what all the fuss is about with 500 numbers and discusses a product from his company which is almost identical. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: 500 Service Comments From: Jeff_Buckingham%CallAmerica@emailusa.com (BUCKINGHAM, JEFF) Date: 08 Feb 95 11:59:55 EST I continue to be amazed at people's fascination with 500 numbers. Why is everyone putting up with so many problems just to receive a phone call? The irony to me is that the type of number does not have anything to do with the service that it's pointed to. I have a virtual number service (MyLine) with a local DID number and an 800 number. The 800 number works from anywhere in the US and Canada, from all hotels, payphones, PBX's, etc. The local number works locally and from international locations. I have a locator service that works today, without any problems. I know that AT&T sets things up in very strange ways (PIN numbers and AT&T recordings) but there are several virtual number providers out there today providing service that works on 800 and DID. I may point a 500 number (I have the 545 prefix reserved) to my virtual number if they ever work all the problems out but at least people will be able to reach me for the immediate future. All I am suggesting is that we stop the insanity and use the numbers we want to point to the services that we want. Jeff Buckingham jbucking@callamerica.com 805-545-5100 fax 805-541-7007 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'My Line' is a very good service. I have mentioned it before here, but newer readers may not know about it. In the past, one complaint about 800 numbers was that they could not easily be forwarded from one location to another throughout a busy day. None of the big three thought it was worth doing. Then Cable & Wireless came along with forwardable 800 service, but you had to pay an extra fee each month if you wanted the ability to automatically switch destinations. Enter 'My Line': Your own personal 800 number, not one of the gimmicks like MCI where you dial a number in common to everyone and enter a PIN. Persons calling your 800 number here a recording in your voice saying something like 'Hi, this is Pat ... please stand by while your call is transferred to me.' The switch then outdials the call to wherever you have told it you will be. Callers can enter a two digit 'override code' (if you told them about it and what code to enter) and this will force the call to be transferred to your 'priority' number instead of your 'normal' call forwarding number. You can toggle between 'call forwarding' and 'number referral'. In the latter case, instead of actually outdialing the call to you, the switch announces that 'calls are being taken at XXX-XXX-XXXX.' Priority calls still get outdialed directly to you of course, provided the caller entered the customer-defineable priority code. Voicemail is part of the package when you fail to answer; the switch withdraws the outdialed call and puts it in voicemail instead. 'My Line' also offers callback service for international calls, along with 'Wake Up Service'. You tell it when to call and wake you each morning. You use these additional features by entering your PIN during the initial recorded announcement. When it starts talking ("Hi, this is Pat, please hold, etc") you punch in your passcode right over the announcement; it switches to maintainence mode with the prompt, "My Line is ready". You change your call forwarding, listen to voicemail, etc. Best of all is the pricing. 'My Line' costs about the same as the plain vanilla 800 service you get from the Big Three, but they don't offer all the bells and whistles. Really, I don't understand why anyone these days would subscribe to 800 service from the Big Three when you can get so many extras from smaller carriers like My Line. This is the same company which offers 'Call America' 800 service, also discussed here in the past. I think John Levine and a few of you subscribe to that one; I do also. (Yes, I have two 800 numbers, two 700 numbers, my new 500 number, and three 708 numbers. That's not counting my pager; also a 708 number.) Anyway, please send off email to Jeff Buckingham, or call or fax. He'll send you complete details on 'My Line'. I've used this service for about a year now and am very pleased with it. You'll like it also. Here is his .signature again: jbucking@callamerica.com 805-545-5100 fax 805-541-7007 Whenever I run messages about My Line -- and I am quite impressed with the service -- I always get a message within a day or two from Arch Telecom telling about their version of the same thing. I imagine they will write again, and if so, I'll tell you about that one also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: alexz@tmx100.elex.co.il (Alex Zacharov) Subject: Voice Delay Standards Information Wanted Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 16:49:12 GMT Organization: Telrad Ltd. Voice packetzation and compression introduce some delay. I am looking for information on the following: 1) Standard recommendations for end-to-end delay with echo cancellation. 2) Standard recommendations for end-to-end delay without echo cancellation. 3) Standard recommendations for CPE delay (i.e. maximum delay that is allowed to be introduced by CPE which performs voice compression/ packetization). I am especially interested in this one. I am interested in European and American standards. Any information will be appreciated. Regards, Alex alexz@tmx100.elex.co.il ------------------------------ From: tntpkt@aol.com Subject: Voice Teleconferencing Date: 8 Feb 1995 17:50:37 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: tntpkt@aol.com Hi! Can anyone provide me with the name/number of a firm capable of doing voice teleconferencing? The "Big 3" have the service, but want a good deal for it. We are a small chemcial R&D shop in need of having five to seven parties thru out the US joined in a voice teleconference on a regular basis. Thanks in advance for your assistance! Tim ------------------------------ From: fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush) Subject: A Problem With 205/334 DA Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 04:46:40 GMT Has anyone ever gotten this message from 205-555-1212 or 334-555- 1212?: "Due to a high volume of calls, your call cannot be completed. Please try again later." (paraphrased, but you get the point) That's how my calls to both numbers were answered Monday afternoon around 1pm Eastern. I tried through several carriers, and even used one of my company's tie lines that dials out from 908 instead of 617. Calls to other points in Alabama (well, at least to 334-479) completed properly. Later in the day, calls were again being completed properly to Alabama DA. So ... anyone know what happened? By the way, my company's internal phone system does not yet recognize 334, or for that matter 360 or 630. The "real" NYNEX phone lines at work and at home are functioning correctly now. Scott Fybush - fybush@world.std.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know what happened? Yes, I know what happened: ahem! Due to a high volume of calls, telco was unable to complete your call. The recording was rather self- explanatory wasn't it? It is another way of saying 'all circuits are busy now; please try your call again later.' At the time you called, DA was probably swamped with calls coming out their ears and other orifices. It happens, especially if their computer was down and they were doing manual lookups on microfilm or from books. They probably had every operator, clerk, typist, supervisor and secretary at their disposal taking calls and they were still getting buried alive. Calls to other points completed properly because other points were not swamped with calls waiting in a queue for an answer. You get caught up in that rush here in 312/708 occassionally also; but unless it is really severe they don't tell you to call back another time; they just hold you in a queue with an endlessly repeating message that, ' ... all positions are busy; please wait, an operator will be with you shortly ...'. They have really cut back on help answering calls to Repair; here in Chicago it is totally automated now. When you dial 611 you do *not* get connected at all to a live person unless you specifically bail out at one of the prompts. You punch the buttons to tell them the number you are calling from, and you punch the buttons to answer multiple choice questions about what is wrong with your service. I'd say you just hit them on a bad day in Alabama, or at a bad time. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 14:57:43 -0500 (EST) From: Steve Samler Subject: GO Communications GO and Northern Tel had a press release last week (1/30) about GO committing to purchase 346 million dolllars of equipment for their PCS system. The release had the following contacts and phones: Steven Zecola Pres and CEO GO David Lowry Chf. Tech Officer GO Norhtern Tel contacts Mark Buford 214 684 8512 Frank McNally 703 712 8374 Phillips and Associates (PR firm?) Scott Phillips 312 943 8858 There was no location given for GO nor were there phone numbers. ------------------------------ From: kb7uv@panix.com (Andrew Funk) Subject: Radio Amateur Telecommunications Society WWW Page Date: 8 Feb 1995 15:15:05 -0500 The Radio Amateur Telecommunications Society is now on the Web: http://www.webcom.com/~arfunk/rats.html From here are links to various RATS projects, including the ROSE X.25 Packet Switch, etc. Andrew Funk, KB7UV Tech Producer/Editor Internet: kb7uv@panix.com WCBS-TV Channel 2 News http://www.webcom.com/~arfunk/ New York, NY USA ------------------------------ From: intlcoma@onramp.net (Bob Harper) Subject: ICA Annual Conference/Supercomm '95 - Mar 19-23 - Anaheim, CA Date: 8 Feb 1995 20:27:15 GMT Organization: ICA Reply-To: intlcoma@onramp.net International Communications Association 1995 Annual Conference 15 tracks with over 80 dcom sessions 23 in-depth tutorials (Full and Half) day. Web Address URL = http://www.onramp.net/ica/ ICA E - Mail icadls@seas.smu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Feb 95 00:30 EST From: Testmark Laboratories <0006718446@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs For what it's worth, when I was still a GTE employee (Jan. '92), I viewed a videoconference by Kent Foster (a senior executive of GTE) sent via scrambled satellite broadcast to all employees. The topic of this discussion was why GTE was laying off yet more employees even though it had shown record profits the previous year. For the last few years, GTE had been consolidating on providing local phone service, and selling off other branches that weren't directly related, such as GTE Sylvania, and, thank goodness, GTE TestMark Laboratories. However, Kent actually admitted that for each $1.00 of local service that GTE sold, it cost them $1.28! The only reason GTE was profitable was the subscriber line charge for long distance access, plus the lucrative intra-LATA long distance market! Since these two sources of revenue are definitely doomed, GTE had to continue laying off employees úÿ so they could become cost-competitive in the local service area, their chosen area of competition. He actually went on to discuss scenarios where local competition was allowed, e.g., cable companies providing local phone service, along with "cream-skimmers" putting fiber rings to steal away large businesses in the main cities where GTE did business. If 40% of GTE's business was lost in those prime areas, the company might actually collapse due to insufficient revenues to service the huge long-term debt all telcos incur because of CO and outside plant purchases! It is a fact of life that for the last century, the various state PUCs and the FCC have treated local service as a RIGHT of citizens, and they kept local service rates artificially low so widows and orphans could afford phone service. According to Kent Foster, GTE would almost have to double local service basic rates to make a decent profit margin on the service, but the PUCs would never allow it. So, we have Catch-22. The FCC doesn't want the cost of local service to rise, but they are allowing intra-LATA long distance competition now, and the long distance providers are pressuring GTE and the RBOCs to lower or eliminate the long distance access charge. (Don't forget, AT&T recently bought a huge cellular company, which is definitely one way to bypass long distance access charges! And, MCI announced a 20 billion dollar plan to put in their own local service options in their twenty-largest markets, another "cream-skimming" operation!) If the FCC doesn't acknowledge reality, we might end up with the cost of local phone service suddenly jumping to impossible prices in the rural areas, while dropping slightly in the large cities. This scenario is made more believable by the fact that GTE stock has basically been a non-performer for the last few years, in spite of new record profits each and every year! The investors obviously think they know what the future holds for GTE and the RBOCs! John Combs, Project Engineer, TestMark Laboratories, testmark@mcimail.com ------------------------------ Date: 08 Feb 95 20:49:08 EST From: rta <75462.3552@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: LD Termination Fees to RBOCs Fred R. Goldstein writes in Volume 15, Issue 82 > That happens to be the way Feature Group trunks are priced. Of course > the whole trick to FG pricing is that it's intended to be "contributory" > (profitable). This comes from the old separations game of "splifs", > for "subscriber plant factor" (SPF). In that game, the average usage > of LOCAL lines is divided into interstate and intrastate baskets. The > interstate portion is MULTIPLIED by SPF and then the total cost is > divided amongst the two jurisictions. Given SPF of 3 (old ballpark; I > don't know what it is now), then if 15% of calls in a jurisdiction > were interstate, then the cost would be divided 85:45 to local/interstate. > The subsidy, folks, is in the splifs. > Interstate cost is currently divided into the part paid via tolls and > the part paid via CALC ($3-6/mo "access charges"). The toll-usage > part is divided into different components and adds up to 3- 5c/minute/ > side-of-call for most telcos. In practice, only residential and small business customers pay these rates. My clients primarily, Fortune 500 and governments, typically utilize DS1, leased fiber from the LEC, or CAPs to avoid these charges. Another way costs have been increased this that the SPF is based on the *cost* of providing switches. Since most of these were installed under *rate based* regulation, the LEC had every reason to oversize the switch and to *gold plate* the switch as well as the local trans- mission facilities. It is correct that much of the cost for long distance is due to SPF. But this begs the question as to why the SPF ratios were set the way they were. Large and medium size business provide the majority of LD revenues in the US. Residential and small businesses account for the bulk of the lines and voters. From a political and regulatory perspective it made and still makes sense to have business customers, particularly large business customers, subsidize small business and residential customers. The key question in the long run is whether residential and small business customers will accept higher rates or will they turn to the political process to reverse the current trend to increased competition for LD access and ultimately for local service. Jerry Harder Senior Partner Renaissance Telecommunciations Associates 615-231-6126 754623552@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: Christopher Harwood Snider Subject: Re: Information Wanted on MagNet Communications Organization: University of Virginia Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 15:26:23 GMT franjo03@dons.ac.usfca.edu writes: > I would like to know whether anyone here has heard of MagNet > Communications. They are one of those new long-distance carriers that > offer flat-rate billing at six-second increments. I am new to this > type of industry and would like to get some people's opinions (if they > have any) before and if I am to convert my LD service. Any opinions > that you might have would be greatly appreciated. Magnet is a multilevel marketing reseller. I do not know anything about their rates or marketing plan other than that. Personally, I would avoid resellers for business lines. Regards, Christopher H. Snider Telecommunications Consulting American Access chs2c@virginia.edu ------------------------------ From: Christopher Harwood Snider Subject: Re: Can Anyone Recommend ExcelL LD Phone Service? Organization: University of Virginia Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 15:30:08 GMT sascjt@unx.sas.com writes: > A friend of mine and her mother are Marketing Reps for Excel LD phone > service. They say that they can save me a significant amount of money > over AT&T, my current LD carrier. Their examples are the differences > in charges for one-minute phone calls. EXCEL has lower flat rates, > while AT&T charges more for the first minute, but they virtually are > identical for longer calls (avg. time: 10 minutes). EXCEL also charges > a $3.00 flat fee for their service. Excel is a multilevel marketing reseller. Like I said in another followup, I would not trust a business line to a reseller. The rates that I have seen from resellers are generally better than those of the Big Three, but there is a risk involved. Regards, Christopher H. Snider Telecommunications Consulting American Access chs2c@virginia.edu ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Plumber Arrested: Fraudulent Call Forwarding From: janco@atluw01.dbsoftware.com (Jim Ancona) Organization: D & B Software Date: Wed, 08 Feb 95 09:55:01 EST In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This same report appeared in > alt.dcom.telecom today submitted to that newsgroup by Jack Decker who > concluded by saying this was a good reason telcos should password > accounts, presumably to prevent fraudulent Call Forwarding among other > things. The thing he neglected to mention -- nor was it mentioned by > Dave Levenson here -- was that Call Forwarding Ultra (or Enhanced Call > Forwarding or Remote Call Forwarding as it is known in other telcos) > *does* require a password. I believe what Jack was saying was that BILLING ACCOUNTS should have a PIN, to prevent unauthorized individuals from changing service. Apparently what happened in this case is the bad guy called the telco claiming to be one of his competitors. He ordered the remote call forwarding service on their lines, then used it to forward their lines to his number. Note that since HE (the bad guy) ordered the service, HE got to supply the PIN. Another simple way for telco to prevent this sort of thing would be to call back the customer requesting the change, and ask him to verify it. Jim Ancona janco@dbsoftware.com jpa@iii.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Feb 95 10:50 EST From: Testmark Laboratories <0006718446@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Memorex PBX Help Needed Sergei Fishel wrote in TD#78 that he was looking for proprietary phones for a Memorex PBX, and he wondered why they used six wires. The first generation of "hybrid" digital phones, which appeared in the early 1980s on digital PBXs were almost all six wires, with the outermost pair being DC power to the phone, the next pair being digital control for signalling, and the innermost pair being analog voice, which sometimes also carried DTMF tones generated by the phone. Four wire digital phones came a little later in the eighties, and they typically "simplexed" the DC power onto the data and analog voice pairs. "Modern" digital phones are truly digital, and they send digital packets on the single pair, which also feeds DC power to the phone. One unforeseen side effect of this final digital PBX phone design is that it is a modem "killer." People working in offices with digital PBX phones are often unaware that these phones aren't POTS, so they will unplug their proprietary digital phone and plug in their modem (or fax machine). Many brands of digital PBXs supply 300 mA or more to their digital phones, and this will burn up the front end of a POTS modem or fax machine. (Sometimes it even sets the device on fire!) Since Sergei's Memorex phones are six-wire, this suggests they are fairly old, and probably not manufactured anymore. I recommend that he keep reading TELECOM Digest for a week or two, there are a few resellers of old phone equipment who put ads in every so often. John Combs, Project Engineer, TestMark Laboratories, testmark@mcimail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 12:11:11 -0500 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: Ten Digit Dialing Wes Leatherock writes: > In the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, you must dial 10 > (not 11 digits) if you are dialing a call to a local number in the > other area code. (Dallas is in the 214 NPA, Fort Worth in the 817 > NPA.) Will the local telcos ever fix this? By "fix", I don't mean eliminate the ability to dial an inter-NPA local call with only 10 digits; I mean eliminate the prohibition against dialing them with the full 11 digits. Likewise for local calls in the same NPA, of course. > Note that almost all telephone service in the Dallas-Fort > Worth area is flat rate. A local call generates no billing whatever > (except for the very few message rate customers). This is true, I > believe, almost everywhere in the United States except in the > Northeast and in the Chicago area. I think your blanket indictment of the entire Northeast is too strong. Aside from New York City, what other parts of the region mandate Measured Local Service for all residential customers? Meanwhile, Tad Cook writes: > Chicago is a unique case though. Chicago will have an overlay area > code, and since someone using a phone within Chicago could possibly > have no idea what area code it is in, this means that all local calls > must dial the area code and number, since phones right next to each > other could be in different NPAs. Chicago is hardly a unique case. The first overlay NPA (917) went into effect several years ago in New York City, where it overlays 212 and 718. True, 917 was originally reserved just for wireless and (I think) fax and data lines, but I doubt that convention will survive another fill-up of 212. With a bunch of new overlay NPAs coming soon (Houston, Miami, Los Angeles and possibly Atlanta), it will be interesting to see what kinds of dialing plans emerge. > In the rest of North America, we are having to dial the area code for > all long distance calls within the area code, so that the system can > handle the new area codes that look like prefixes. This is not true either. Actually, it's true for *most* of the rest of the NANP, but there are a handful of states (NY and IL among them) which instead went with a 7D dialing plan for intra-NPA long distance. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #86 *****************************