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TELECOM Digest     Thu, 21 Sep 95 16:03:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 398

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Variable Length Phone Numbers (Tony Harminc)
    Re: Cellular "Emergency" Use (Curtis Wheeler)
    Re: Fonorola Network Plans (sp@questor.org)
    Re: Pacific Bell Pay Phones (Robert Jacobson)
    Re: Beach House Payphone (Collin Park)
    Re: Need Help To Deal With "Slamming" (Glen Roberts)
    Re: FBI Arrests America OnLine Users (Mike Stockman)
    Pole Mounted City Fire Alarm Boxes (Tony Harminc)
    Re: An Idea for LECs to Communicate Area Code Splits (Leonard 
Erickson)
    Re: Beyond V.34, V.34bis and Rockwell's 33.6 (Stephen Palm)
    Re: V.34+ Documentation Wanted (Christian Weisgerber)
    Windows Software For Keith K110 Telephone Exchange (Jerome Komen)

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



naddy@mips.pfalz.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

Most of this has been dealt with by people pointing out that compelled
signalling is widely used in Germany and other parts of Europe, but
is essentially unknown in North America.

One point remains to be covered, however:

> What is a phone number? For the most part, a phone number is a *route*
> through the network.

This is absolutely not true in North America.  One of the fundamental
principles of the NANP long distance network from the earliest days is
that of Destination Code Routing.  Each switch in the network is
capable of doing a database lookup on (typically) six digits of the
phone number to determine the action to take to advance the call.  The
individual digits of the number in no way specify the route the call
is to take through the network; this is a decision made by each switch
as needed, and is based on much more than the digits in the number.
Currently available trunks, congestion, previous routing history, and
many other factors can be taken into consideration to make routing
decisions.

I say "database lookup" advisedly: in the early days the database
consisted of plastic cards read mechanically, and database updates
were made by manually punching new cards.  These days, of course,
the database is more what we think of when we use that word in a
computer context: tables in memory or on disk.

The relationship between the digits in a phone number and the routing
of a call to that number is weakening even further.  Right now, there
is no connection at all between the digits of an 800 number and its
routing - the entire ten digits are looked up in a database and only
then are routing decisions made.  As local competition increases, this
will be true of all calls - even local ones.

Tying the routing of a call to the digits in the number is the
huge failing of SxS switching systems.

> Okay, you dial +49 or within Germany 0. Now you're on the long 
distance
> level of the German Telekom network.

> You dial          selects
> - <6>             South western Germany.
> - 6<2>            The Ludwigshafen/Mannheim area.
> - 62<1>           The cities of Ludwigshafen and Mannheim themselves.
> - 621 <5>         Ludwigshafen.
> - 621 5<8>        The particular part of Ludwigshafen I live in.
> - 621 58<70460>   That's my line. My phone is ringing!
>                   (Actually, the final 0 helps selecting a particular
>                   device on my ISDN line.)

> Easy, isn't it?

Easy yes -- but a disaster for planning and orderly growth.  This sort
of design ensures that Germany will not have portable numbers for a
long time.

Okay -- you are in Germany and you start to dial +1 40 ...
Now with your scheme, the local switch would have to pick up a trunk to
somewhere -- to where ?  It isn't even known what country you are 
calling
yet!  Then you dial 3 as the next digit, and the switch in Germany knows
you are calling Canada rather than the USA.  But Germany has trunks to
at least two points in the area covered by area code 403 - which one 
should
it pick up ?  The next digit is 9, but still nothing is known - it could
be somewhere near Calgary, or over a thousand miles north in the 
Northwest
Territories. Only after two more digits (say 79) is it finally known
what local area the called line is in.


Tony Harminc

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



Mark Earle <mearle@falcon.tamucc.edu> wrote:

> A while back (but sometime this year, I think) someone posted about a
> cellular carrier that would take registrations via fax/mail with
> credit card payment. The idea was that this carrier would activiate
> your phone, and then you could roam legitimately in any market.
 
> The per minute rate was quite high, but there were minimal monthly
> fees. This service was intended primarily for 2nd or 3rd phones 
> used only in true times of need and not for casual use.

> I've searched the archives (mine and the "official" ones) and cannot
> locate this reference. Would some kind soul either point me to the
> original article, or maybe remember the name of this company?

Our rep from MCSI was talking about this with me not too long ago.
She said that one of the carriers in Las Vegas (A or B -- can't
remember) had a really low basic rate with a pretty steep per min
rate.  People from outside Vegas were doing exactly what you described
in order to have a phone for emergencies for something like
9.95/month.  And I think 911 calls are free of airtime charges to
roamers on most/all systems, aren't they?

But -- the reason we were discussing it was because some of our
personnel were having roaming trouble.  She was telling me about other
people doing the Vegas thing and having trouble when they went to use
the phone for the first time.  Seemed that if your phone was never
used on the "home" system, it may look invalid and not be able to
roam.


Curtis Wheeler - Pleasanton, CA

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

4777


In article <telecom15.384.1@eecs.nwu.edu>, Dave Leibold <Dave.Leibold@
superctl.tor250.org> wrote:

> [from Bell News, 4 Sept 95 - Bell Canada's version of events]

> Despite its ambitious growth plans, industry analysts look upon
> Fonorola with a jaundiced eye. It has recorded multimillion dollars
> losses since it set up shop in 1993, with the money-losing trend
> still holding sway. Last year, its president left the company after
> only eight months on the job.

I suspect this is Bell's propaganda to its employees.  A recent issue
of the Financial Post cited Fonorola as one of three such companies in
Canada which were expected to do well and were holding their own,
while Unitel and a few others were in quite a bind.


FREE ACCESS TO E-MAIL & NEWS at +1 604 681 0670.  INFO on Environment,
Science, Medicine, AIDS, Native (Indigenous) Issues and more.  We sell
ZyXEL, Penril, Telebit and more world-wide to support this Free Public
Community Service.  :::>   Info from:  mail-server@questor.org    <:::

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



Bob Deward in an earlier posting defends Pacific Bell's policies on
payphone removal.  In my own comments, I indicated that a California
bill to curtail payphone removal, primarily in inner-city
neighborhoods but anywhere where subscriptions were lower than the
average, was watered down by telephone company lobbyists to a law
requiring merely two weeks notice before a payphone was removed.  I
stand by my account.  I did not identify Pacific Bell as a major
antagonist in this effort, but if Bob wants to assume the mantle, so
be it.  I never heard mention one by any telephone company lobbyist
regarding drug use or civic order as a rationale for removing a
payphone; it was always due to economic reasons, at least during the
passage of the law we are discussing.


Bob Jacobson
Principal Consultant/Staff Director
Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee
CA Legislature, 1981-89

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



Two experiences along these lines, one of them second-hand.

Steve Bunning (bunning@acec.com) wrote:

> of North Carolina.  The rental house I stayed in had an interesting
< arrangement for phone service.

An understatement!  Mine was near Lake Tahoe, California.  In my case,
10288 was blocked, so I called the operator and asked how to get to an
AT&T operator.  "Is there any way I could place the call for you?"  I
didn't say "hell, no", just "No."  The number she gave me was 1-800-321-
0288, which worked fine.  Now, the other part of the experience: I
normally use a callback service from here (in Japan), wherein I call a
number in the US and hang up as soon as it starts to ring.  The
service calls me back and presents me with a US dial tone, and I can
talk anywhere in the US for about 55 cents/minute 24 hours a day.
This 55 cents is the Japan rate; intra-US it's even cheaper.  So I
used my AT&T access to call my callback service to inform it of the
new number -- but once the call was completed, any attempted tones
from the touch-pad resulted in a disconnect!

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wouldn't it have been easier to just 
unplug
> or bypass the dialer somehow?    PAT]

A fascinating idea. Is it a foregone conclusion that the dialer had to
be on the premises?  In the rental house we used, there was a locked 
closet
for which we weren't given the key. Could that have been the location
of the mystery dialer?  Maybe if we had cut off the main breaker, the
dialer would have automagically just become a straight-thru connect to
the local phone company?  I wonder.

The second experience, which is second hand:  a friend of mine lives
in a "company dorm" here in Japan.  The telephone "service" there is
also very interesting.  All phone calls go thru Axxx telephone service,
which charges more for long-distance calls than NTT or KDD do.  This
is absolutely astonishing.  Anyway, use of the touch-pad after a call
is completed results in the call's being disconnected!!  This prevents
use of some call-back services, as well as preventing employees from
using the company's voice-mail system.  

Making use of a particular rip-off telecom carrier a condition of
rental is probably illegal in the US, but here in Japan I believe it
to be a not uncommon practice.  The goverment's official position seems 
to have nothing to do with consumer welfare here, which as an American
I find a little annoying.

My personal two yen's worth, and absolutely not a statement of my 
employer.


Collin

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



KBC6891 (KC6891@megaweb.com) wrote:

> A friend of mine in Mass was ripped off by some small long distance
> company by illegal connection without consent.  That person has had
> some deep discount package to call with MCI so he/she called abroad
> alot unknowing that the line had been slammed to some other company.
> That result to a very, very big LD bills with some outrageous charges.
> That person called the sleazy company to complaint and asked for
> record of consent to hook up.  The customer service gave some run
> around then said they don't have any proof other than it might be
> local telco's mistakes or might be some one in the family has given
> the permission.  

Are you obligated (legally) to pay for services or products foisted upon
you, that you did not order or contact for?

Might the answer to slamming, simply be to refuse to pay any bills 
issued,
and when the company makes an attempt to collect the debt, sue/counter-
sue
them for violate of your state's consumer protection statute?

All the time you keep using their service, until they (at no charge to 
you)
put things back the way they were. After you receive your first bill for
their bogus service, reply with a certified letter that you did not 
order
nor contact the services, you will not pay for them, and they are liable
to you for damages under your state's consumer protection act.


Glen L. Roberts, Host Full Disclosure Live (WWCR 5065khz - Sundays 8pm
eastern)
(WOYL AM-1340, Oil City, PA). Tech Talk Network; Telstar 302, Ch 21, 5.8 
Audio

Look for articles, catalog, downloadable programs and great links on:
http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/glr.html


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The thing is you did 'order and contract
for the service'. Your dialing of the telephone served as your 
instructions.
Your local telco routed it via an incorrect vendor based on their most-
likely good faith misunderstanding of your intentions based on what they
were told by the intruding carrier.  And when you say 'all the time you
keep using their service until they put things back as they were' you 
are going to have a problem there also. You have a legal obligation to
mitigate the losses which result in any dispute. If you continue to use
their service knowing that you do not intend to pay and knowing that 
the carrier did not willfully (that is, with their knowledge) extend
their services to you in a bonafide customer relationship then you are
guilty of unlawful enrichment; that is, taking advantage of someone
else's mistake, which under the law, you may not do. 

Now if you can *prove* that the carrier change was done willfully with
an intent to defraud by the carrier which did it, you then of course
can sue them for tampering with your phone service, but if it was an
error then you have the responsibility to call attention to the error
but *not abuse it*.  You do have pay (assuming it was an error and
not willful) the carrier the amount you would have paid to the carrier
of your choice; after all you did purchase communication services. You
certainly do not have to pay any administration fee to your local telco
for the error regards getting your line changed back again. But I would
take care about continuing to use the wrong carrier expecting not to
have to pay for any of it.    PAT] 

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



In article <telecom15.387.5@eecs.nwu.edu>, our illustrious moderator 
wrote:

> Let's say a user becomes offended at some other user whose only 
'offense'
> is they happen to be gay -- like you for example. And that user 
happens 
> to be very homophobic (not at all an unusual status on AOL), so he 
goes
> to AOL and says 'I got a letter from this child molestor'. Now you 
know


                                                                                             

> and I know that 'gay' does NOT equal 'molestor'. But the homophobic 
user
> still turns you in, maybe embellishes the story a little, etc. Now 
what
> does AOL do at that point?

AOL probably does nothing at this point. Here's why:

AOL's "Terms of Service" instructions say that when you get offensive or
"violating" e-mail from somebody, you should forward (not copy and 
paste)
the message to the TOS police. Why? Because the AOL software forwards a
message *without* letting the user edit it first. You can only forward 
an
unchanged, original message. If the AOL cops receive a copied-and-pasted
message, they say they won't act on it because it's not an original and
could have been edited.

This is a responsible way to work. Your scenario -- blowing an innocent 
e-mail out of proportion and getting some poor person put under 
surveillance 
-- can't happen as described. It would take a real message, not an
imagined one, for AOL to take action (if you believe they follow their
own rules).

While I appreciate your paranoia and would never suggest that you give 
it
up, AOL has still not shown any indication of having read private e-mail
without the consent of either sender (unlikely) or recipient. They're as
secure as, say, mail over the Internet or CompuServe ... which is to 
say,
no more secure than a postcard.


Mike      Internet: stockman@jagunet.com
AOL: MStockman    CompuServe: 72500,3110


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



Martin McCormick <martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu> wrote:

[Fire alarms boxes that pulsed out their location]

> The alarm boxes vanished from streets in Tulsa and Oklahoma
> City as well as many other places as soon as 911 became the method of
> choice to report emergencies.  I also remember that many of the street
> boxes had a glass window that one had to break with an attached hammer
> to activate the alarm.  This always seemed dumb and dangerous to me,
> but I am sure there was a good reason for it.

Even today many fire alarm pull handles have a glass strip or other
device that doesn't automatically reset itself.  It's to ensure that
misuse can be punished: there can be no excuses like "I was just
looking at it to see how it worked, and I accidently set it off".  You
have to take a very positive action to give the alarm.  It (the
dangling handle and/or broken glass) also makes it obvious to the
repair/inspection people that the unit has been set off and needs
work.

Toronto lost its pole-mounted fire alarm boxes as recently as 1980,
as I remember.  There are still a few poles with strips of red paint
around them to be found.  One point that has perhaps not been made
clear is the reason these boxes had clockwork code senders in the
first place: they were all connected in parallel on the same wire.
(Well, there were subsets, of course, but typically all the boxes
that rang in one station were on one line.)  If each box had had a
direct wire back to the station there would have been no need for
pulses and clockwork.  As I remember, the wires on the Toronto
poles were very thick -- perhaps 10 gauge or thicker.  These wires
were strung on the municipally owned Hydro (electric power) poles
and not on telephone poles.  I have no idea what voltage was used.


Tony Harminc

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



Mark J. Cuccia <mcuccia@law.tulane.edu> writes:

> BTW, the local telcos DO give a US/Canada map of NPA's in the front of 
their

> local directories. However, in Louisiana (and other SCBell states?), 
there 
> is a notice stating "Areacodes for places not listed..." (a small town 
not 
> able to have its dot on the map or name in the list) "...can be 
obtained 
> from *Directory-Assistance*."

Here in US Worst territory, I get the new phone book in November. The
area code map info is (apparently) "set" for when preparing the books
for folks in areas that get their books in January, and NOT UPDATED for
the rest of the year as they crank out books for other areas. 

Either that, or they just don't bother checking the info all the time 
...

The books that arrived in November 94, (deadline for number changes
making it into the book is early August) shows only the 3334 and 360
splits. That's better than the year before, which only showed the 210,
905 and 909 splits (in other words, it showed as *upcoming* the splits
that took place *before* the book ever arrived, and *none* of the ones
that took place in the rest of the year!)

When we get to the NXX tables for the NPAs in our area, there are large
gaps. Thankfully, when the 541 code goes into effect for the rest of
the state that'll leave 503 covering the area where the exchange list
is more accurate. 

And the four different places that list the *local* exchanges don't
agree with each other! They are also usually *several* years behind.


Leonard Erickson  leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com
(aka Shadow)          shadow@krypton.rain.com (preferred)
FIDO:   1:105/51   Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org 

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



"Earley" == Matthew A Earley <mearley@acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote:

> Is anyone aware of a new or proposed standard that enhances the
> capabilities of ITU's V.34?  I beleive there may be a V.34bis in the
> works.

Actually a "V.34bis" is NOT in the works ... however an Annex to V.34
is being planned.  It will be discussed next month in Munich at the
SG14 Working Party meeting and will come before SG14 in March in
Geneva.  If all goes well it could be officially part of V.34 around
June of 1996.  Higher speeds are one of the items being considered for
the Annex.

> Is the 33.6 a proprietary USR standard or is it part of the roposed
> V.34bis?

Currently, all rates above 28.8 are proprietary. See above for ITU
schedule.


Regards,

Stephen [kiwin] Palm                        TEL (Voice mail): +81-3-5371-
1564
Rockwell - Multimedia Communications Division                COMNET: 930-
1564
Japan Engineering Design Center      (JST=PST+17hours)   FAX: +81-3-5371-
1507
  palm@tokyo.rockwell.com   s.palm@ieee.org   spalm@cmu.edu   
palm@itu.ch

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



Matthew A Earley <mearley@acsu.buffalo.edu> writes:

> I recently logged onto the US Robotics BBS and found the files 
necessary
> to upgrade my V.Everything to a 33.6k data-transmission rate.
> What standard does this faster data rate follow.  I would guess
> it is USR or Rockwell proprietary, or is it a V.34+ from ITU?

No standard so far. ITU-T Study Group XIV is working on an annex to
V.34. AT&T has proposed extensions covering:

- 1664 point constellation;
- encoding 10 bits per symbol instead of 9 (or 8);
- Each of the symbol rates (except 2400) can have one notch up
  for it's highest data rate;

(Summary courtesy of Stephen "kiwin" Palm from Rockwell.)

The revised V.34 specification should be adopted in spring '96, if
everything works according to plan.

Currently, AT&T (Comsphere 38x0+) and USRobotics (Courier) have
implementations of what they call "V.34+".


Christian 'naddy' Weisgerber   naddy@mips.pfalz.de
currently reading: Stephen King, The Stand

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



Hello,

I have just purchased a Keil K110 telephone exchange.  It is supposed
to be controllable by a Windows application, but this software is not
available in Holland yet.

Does somebody have a copy?

Please (also) email me at komen@phil.ruu.nl

Thanks,

Jerome

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

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #398
******************************

                                                                                                                              
