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TELECOM Digest     Tue, 10 Oct 95 17:12:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 428

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Hugh Pritchard)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (David L. Kindred)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Gordon Burditt)
    Re: What to Call the Three Parts of AT&T? (Henry Baker)
    Re: What to Call the Three Parts of AT&T? (Israel Moskowitz)
    Re: What to Call the Three Parts of AT&T? (Bud Couch)
    Re: What to Call the Three Parts of AT&T? (Robert Casey)
    Re: What to Call the Three Parts of AT&T? (Gary D. Shapiro)
    Re: Dead Line, Annoying Red Tape (Mark E. Daniel)
    Re: Dead Line, Annoying Red Tape (Bill Fenner)
    Re: Bell Name Change (Mark J. Cuccia)
    Re: Bell Name Change (John Levine)
    Re: Bell Name Change (Bob Goudreau)
    Re: Bell Name Change (Stan Schwartz)
    Re: Bell Name Change (Ed Ellers)
    Re: Bell Name Change (Eric Hunt)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------



In a recent posting, jsinger@scn.org (Joseph Singer) claimed that

> Sorry Pat, but this is not quite correct.  910-410-TIME translates to 
> 303-499-7111.  It's the WWV number.  The 202 number you mentioned is 
the 
> National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC.  If you'll dial all 
three 
> numbers you'll find that the 303 number is the same as the 900 number.

While I know nothing about the WWV number, I do live in the Washington
Metro area, and Pat is right: 202-653-1800 is the U.S. Naval Observatory 
Master Clock Time Announcement number.  From the "Blue Pages" part of
the Bell Atlantic (C&P Telephone) Northern Virginia directory:

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
     Navy Department Of The
          Naval Observatory Mass[achusetts] Ave at 34th St NW
               Master Clock Time Announcement.....900-410-8463
               Guard Desk-General Info............202-653-1507
               Tour Info-Recorded Message.........202-653-1543

The headquarters of the "National Bureau of Standards" is no longer in
downtown DC.  It relocated (in the '70s, I believe) to Gaithersburg,
Montgomery County, Maryland; and was renamed the "National Institute for
Standards and Technology" (NIST).  Any NIST phone numbers would have the
area code 301.


Hugh
Hugh_Pritchard@MCImail.com
(703) 414-9051

------------------------------



Someone a while back wrote:

> I have a question. Where does telco obtain their time signal
> from to synchronize their clocks and equipment.

I have not yet seen anyone mention Radio Station WWVB, a 60 khz
broadcast that also originates from Colorado.  This longwave station
has the advantage over the shortwave stations that there is little, if
any, problem caused by signal fading, multipath interference, etc.
The WWVB receivers I have seen offer 1 pps and 1 khz clock outputs
that are not only accurate, but in sync with the Colorado master
clock.  Unfortunately, the WWVB receivers are not cheap.

There are also GPS receivers dedicated to providing just the time, and
also providing 1 pps clocks and the like.  These also seem to be more
expensive than some of full function GPS receivers, but do include
RS-232 ports and the like.

My employer has been including WWVB or GPS clocks in our larger
systems for many years.  Unfortunately, not all of the telco's
equipment is connected to such a time source.  I can recall several
cases where all hell broke loose when a CO tech misread his/her watch
(or calendar) and a 1AESS or 2BESS mis-recorded large quantities of
call records.  Definitely not a pretty sight.


EMail: kindred@telesciences.com   Phone: +1 609 866 1000 x222
Snail: Securicor Telesciences Inc, 351 New Albany Rd, Moorestown, NJ
08057-1177
Web:   http://www.telesciences.com/~kindred/index.html

------------------------------



> There is a neat little shareware Windows program out there called 
TimeSync. 

> It connects to the USNO Internet Time Server at tick.usno.navy.mil, 
and sets

> your computer's clock to the USNO's time.  It's easy to use, as long 
as you 
> know how many minutes difference you are from UTC.  I'm not exactly
> sure where you get it, but I'll e-mail it to anybody who asks.  (I did
> try to telnet to 'tick', but got nowhere).

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I telnetted to tick without any problem 
(that
> is to stay the network was up; there were no connectivity problems) 
but I
> had no login for it of course. I tried FTP thinking there might be 
stuff
> in a public directory, but tick does not allow anonymous ftp 
connections.
> Is there also a DOS version of this that you are aware of?    PAT]

This server probably uses NTP (Network Time Protocol) to transfer time
information over the net.  One-shot setting of the time would be done
with a program like 'ntpdate' on UNIX and I think there are DOS and
Windows ports of it, not necessarily with that name.  Some versions of
the client program prefer to use multiple servers (to detect servers
with bogus time), and they measure round-trip times of packets to
compensate for the network delay.  They also average several samples
from each server.

There is no "login" although servers can restrict who they will talk
to by IP address.  Most servers are very strict about who they will
accept time information FROM.  You don't want some joker goofing up
your clock.

UNIX systems and other multi-tasking systems can keep their clocks
sync'd to a server by running an ntp daemon.  This corrects not only
the current time, but it can also adjust the system clock frequency (a
correction is applied by the OS) to compensate for errors in crystals.
This keeps the clocks in better sync even if they lose net connectivity.  
These systems can also act as servers for other systems.  You can
probably get accurate time within tens of milliseconds.  A really
serious server like tick probably won't want load from ftp or telnet
interfering with time service.  If there are public documents for ftp,
they are probably on another host.

There is a hierarchy of time servers.  A server like tick or one
connected to a radio clock (such as a GPS receiver, WWV receiver,
or in Germany, a DCF77 receiver) driven from a time reference is a 
stratum 1 server.  There are a lot of public stratum 2 or stratum 3 
servers that sync from stratum 1 or 2 servers.  It may be better to 
sync from a server close to you in network path (like the one at 
your ISP) than having everyone go directly to tick over a long 
network path.  It is definitely better to have an office of a 
few thousand systems obtain time from a couple of local servers (which
sync from stratum 2 servers) rather than all of them going directly 
to the stratum 1 servers.  They will at least stay close to each 
other if the office is cut off from the net.  

A lot of the methods used in NTP, including the use of stratum "number
of hops from the reference" numbers to avoid loops and deal with
network partitioning, were developed by the Bell System originally, or
at least they made extensive use of it.


Gordon L. Burditt    sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon

------------------------------



In article <telecom15.423.4@eecs.nwu.edu>, lchism@mcs.com wrote:

> John R Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:

>> The other two pieces, the one that builds equipment and
>> the one that sells computers, remain unnamed.  Clearly, this is a job

> Since mean ol' Uncle Scrooge is no longer with us, how 'bout Huey,
> Lewy, and Dewy?

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Some of their competitors are hoping it
> will turn out more like Moe, Curley and Larry of The Three Stooges.  
PAT]

Between these three pieces and the Baby Bells, don't we now have the
Decibels?


www/ftp directory:
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/home.html

------------------------------



In article <telecom15.413.13@eecs.nwu.edu>, John R Levine 
<johnl@iecc.com>
wrote:

> I see in the press releases that after the three-way AT&T split, the
> piece that handles telephone service and stuff like that will be
> called AT&T.  The other two pieces, the one that builds equipment and
> the one that sells computers, remain unnamed.  Clearly, this is a job
> for The TELECOM Digest.

How about  AT&T  BT&T  CT&T ?


izm@panix.com   Israel Moskowitz   WA2ZKG 

------------------------------



In article <telecom15.422.2@eecs.nwu.edu> wwalker@qualcomm.com (Bill
Walker) writes:

> In article <telecom15.413.13@eecs.nwu.edu>, John R Levine 
<johnl@iecc.com>
> wrote:

>> I see in the press releases that after the three-way AT&T split, the
>> piece that handles telephone service and stuff like that will be
>> called AT&T.  The other two pieces, the one that builds equipment and
>> the one that sells computers, remain unnamed.  Clearly, this is a job
>> for The TELECOM Digest.

> A person I talk to at the part that builds equipment has taken to 
saying
> her employer is "the company formerly known as AT&T".

I don't understand what is taking them so long ... unless one of the
executive staff has a brother-in-law "conman^H^H^H sultant" that they
are trying to employ to come up with a name.

After all "Bell Labs/Western Electric" was good enough for the first 
eighty 
years or so.


Bud Couch - ADC Kentrox   bud@kentrox.com (192.228.59.2)  

------------------------------

guest)


How about:

Moe, Larry and Curley

Huey, Duey, and Louie

(I used to work for the phone company (AT&T Bell Labs) untill I had a
manager who shafted me.  "The people of Bell Labs are very good, they
have to be, to achieve what they do dispite the awful management there!

------------------------------



Why not just A, T and &T ?

Gary D. Shapiro...on the WWW at http://www.rain.org/~gshapiro/
The quote that solves all problems goes here, but I've lost it.

------------------------------



I'm having a problem similar to that.  Except that my line isn't
really dead.  It's just "off-hook" though nothing connected to that
line is really off-hook.  My two-line phone hapily reports "in-use" on
that line.  But I can't get it to go back on-hook.  Ameritech might
even fix it if they ever get around to it.  Oh the fun of phone
trouble and oh the stupidity of repair droans ... "Do you have a
cordless or an answering machine?" ARGGG!  Oh.  The line actually
comes and goes.  When you can dial on it there is plenty of static.
Then you just won't be able to make it go back on-hook after a call.


Mark E. Daniel
mark@legend.akron.oh.us (paged Notify)
mark@lsi.ald.net (Direct INet [POP3]) 

------------------------------



In article <telecom15.413.1@eecs.nwu.edu>, TELECOM Digest Editor noted
in response to something from Linc Madison <lincmad@netcom.com>:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Perhaps they would have been willing to
> forward the bad line to your other line for the day or so needed.  
PAT]

PAC*Bell did this for us when our main line went dead -- we have two
other POTS lines, with unlisted numbers and used for modem calls.
When I complained about the fact that they claimed it was going to
take two days before someone could come out and take a look at it, they
offered to call-forward to one of the other lines, and I played some
demarc games and wired that line to the house jacks.  So we lost the
use of a modem line, but people could still call us.

(BTW, the situation when we lost one of our lines sounds a lot like
Linc's -- one of N lines goes, but in our case the telco said there was
a ringer on the line when I had it unplugged from the demarc!  I spoke
with a supervisor and suggested that our pair had been stolen by an
installer [our neighborhood is short on pairs] and all of a sudden he
found an open at the CO!  Amazing.)


Bill

------------------------------



            



Stan Schwartz <stan@vnet.net> wrote:

> I just thought I'd take this opportunity to mention that earlier this
> week, the name change became official.  Southern Bell and SouthWestern
                                                                 ^^^^^^^
> Bell became BellSOUTH.


Just being nitpicky here-

I live in New Orleans which is (was) South CENTRAL Bell (a BellSouth 
Company).
                                           ^^^^^^^                            
South *Central* Bell covers (covered) Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, 
Tennessee, Kentucky, while Southern Bell is (was) Florida, Georgia, 
South 
Carolina, North Carolina

South *Western* Bell is another operating company (and regional 
corporation) 
altogather (since the 1984 split) which covers Texas, Arkansas, 
Oklahoma, 
Kansas, Missouri.

And BTW, the logo for the 'regulated operating telephone company' 
division is 
the 'slanted' print of BELLSOUTH, with the word BELL in bold, but they 
*did* 
retain the actual little blue bell (circa 1970 version) with the name 
change. 
At least that is how it looks on the recent bill inserts describing the 
name 
change.

About three or four years ago, there was a public notice that
BellSouth was applying to the FCC (and other federal agencies) as well
as all nine states' regulatory agencies for the 'name-merger'. A few
months ago, it was announced that South Central Bell was changing its
name to BellSouth. Sometime earlier this year, Business Office and
Repair reps would answer the line as BellSouth. Last week, the 'ID'
recording/jingle on 0+ inTRA LATA calls changed from South Central
Bell to BellSouth and the 'live, human' operators were beginning to
answer as BellSouth on operator assisted calls, altho' I think that
some of them *might* still answer (or begin to answer a call) as South
Central Bell (or Southern Bell for their territory) out of habit.

Anyway, the bill insert requests customers to begin making out their
checks to BellSouth. I've always made out *my* checks to "The South
Central Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company" even tho' SCBell never had
the '& Telegraph' as part of their name, while Southern Bell DID. Bell
always accepted my checks, and I would assume that they will continue
to do so even if I continue to make them out to the more 'traditional/
nostalgic' sounding name.


MARK J. CUCCIA   PHONE/WRITE/WIRE:     HOME:  (USA)    Tel: CHestnut 1-
2497
WORK: mcuccia@law.tulane.edu          |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-
2497)
Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28  |fwds on no-answr 
to
Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-
5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail

------------------------------



> I just thought I'd take this opportunity to mention that earlier this
> week, the name change became official.  Southern Bell and SouthWestern
> Bell became BellSOUTH.

Depatment of minor corrections: BellSouth is what used to be Southern
Bell and South Central Bell.

Southwestern Bell, which is its own RBOC, turned into SBC (named after
their stock ticker symbol) but the last I heard their telco arm was
still Southwestern Bell.

This seems to be this year's fad in the RBOCs, since NYNEX got rid of
the New England Tel and New York Tel, and Bell Atlantic got rid of all
their great old company names including the Chesapeake and Potomac
telephone companies and Diamond State Tel.

US West merged their telco operations together some years ago, but
considering the black eye they've given themselves with their
horrendous third-world quality service in the southwest (reports of
waiting a year for service to be connected), it's about time for them
to pick a new name, too.


Regards,

John R. Levine, Trumansburg NY
Primary perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies"
and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be

------------------------------



Stan Schwartz <stan@vnet.net> wrote:
 
> I just thought I'd take this opportunity to mention that earlier this
> week, the name change became official.  Southern Bell and SouthWestern
> Bell became BellSOUTH.

Actually, the two former subsidiaries of BellSouth were Southern Bell
and South *Central* Bell.  Southwestern Bell is another RBOC entirely.


Bob Goudreau   Data General Corporation
goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com  62 Alexander Drive 
+1 919 248 6231   Research Triangle Park, NC  27709, USA

------------------------------



> Depatment of minor corrections: BellSouth is what used to be Southern
> Bell and South Central Bell.

Whoops, you're right.  MeaTeleCulpa.

> This seems to be this year's fad in the RBOCs, since NYNEX got rid of
> the New England Tel and New York Tel, and Bell Atlantic got rid of all
> their great old company names including the Chesapeake and Potomac
> telephone companies and Diamond State Tel.

It seems like BellSOUTH's new name was partially to give it a bit more
recognition at the '96 Olympics in Atlanta (BellSOUTH's HQ).  They
call themselves the "Official Telephone Company of the '96 Olympics".
Like there's a choice?  That's like calling Georgia the "Official
State of Atlanta".

------------------------------



Stan Schwartz <stan@vnet.net> writes:
 
> I just thought I'd take this opportunity to mention that earlier this
> week, the name change became official.  Southern Bell and SouthWestern
> Bell became BellSOUTH.
 
Nope, the other one is (was) South Central Bell.  Actually the parent
company has been called BellSouth since divestiture; it covers exactly
the same territory Southern Bell did before South Central Bell was
spun off in 1968, so the two have become one again.

------------------------------



I was in Birmingham, Alabama three weeks ago and noticed that they were
changing the South Central Bell tower downtown to say "BellSouth" on
the top instead of the simple Bell logo that had been there since the
tower was built.


Eric Hunt     ehunt@bga.com (preferred)
Austin, TX    hunt@metrowerks.com  

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #428
******************************

                                                                                              
