
From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu  Mon Sep 25 19:31:15 1995
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1995
19:31:15 -0400
telecomlist-outbound; Mon, 25 Sep 1995 14:05:08 -0500
1995
14:05:04 -0500
To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 25 Sep 95 14:05:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 404

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    President Clinton Speaks on E.T. (Clinton Speech via M. Troutman)
    Carribean Hurricane Damage (FEMA Public Affairs via Danny Burstein)
    GSM Cellular Tariffs For Norway (Markus Schlegel)
    Need DID Access in NY - NYTel Unresponsive! (Doug Reuben)
    Announcing TELECOM UPDATE (Ian Angus)
    Last Laugh! CLID in CA - Alice at the State Bldg! (S.J. Slavin)

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



President Clinton spoke last Thursday to school students in California.
Here are his comments.

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

Remarks By The President On Education Technology And Connecting
Classrooms 

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to thank
Mr. Delecourt and all of the people who hosted us here. To Mayor
Jordan and your outstanding California Commissioner of Education
Delaine Eastin and to all of the others who are gathered here today --
thank you very much for being here with us. (Applause.) 

I want to say to all the students here that the Vice President and I
are delighted to see you. Normally, we would not want to be responsible 
for taking you out of class, but today we think maybe we have a good
reason, and we hope we have a chance to shake hands with a lot of you
as soon as this brief ceremony is over. I want to say to all of the
executives of the information companies that we just met with how very
grateful I am to you and I'll say a few words about them in a moment.

I came here to San Francisco today to issue a challenge to America to
see to it that every classroom in our country -- every classroom in
our country is connected to the Information Superhighway.  To 
demonstrate 
that this is possible, we are all here today to announce a giant step
toward that future. By the end of this school year, every school in
California, 12,000 of them, will have access to the Internet and its
vast world of knowledge. By the end of this school year, fully 20
percent of California's classrooms, 2,500 -- kindergartens, elementary, 
middle and high schools, from one end of this state to the other, will
be connected for computers. If that can be done in California, we can
do it in the rest of America. 

But the key is to have the kind of partnership that we are celebrating
here.  The job of connecting California schools will be undertaken by
a wide alliance of private sector companies -- among them, Sun
Microsystems, Apple, Xerox Parc, Oracle, 3Com, Silicon Graphics,
Applied Materials, TCI, Cisco Systems and others. Our administration
has brought these companies together, we have set goals, but they are
doing the rest.  Just as the connecting of our classrooms is a model
for the 21st century, so is the way we are doing it here today -- with
government as a catalyst, not a blank check. So today, I challenge
business and industry and local government throughout our country to
make a commitment of time and resources so that by the year 2000,
every classroom in America will be connected.

Tens of millions of parents all across our nation have watched their
children play every kind of video game from Mortal Kombat and Primal
Rage to Killer Instinct and Super Streetfighter. But the really
important new computer game in America is learning. And we are going
to put it at the disposal of every child in this country by the end of
the century.

Last month, I announced a broad initiative to stop our children from
being addicted to tobacco because it was bad for them. Today I hope to
encourage a good habit -- a lifelong commitment to learning.  I want
to get the children of America hooked on education through computers.

Our country was built on a simple value that we have an obligation to
pass better lives and better opportunities on to the next generation.
And we see them all here. Education is the way we make this promise
real. Today, at the dawn of a new century, in the midst of an
information and communications revolution, education depends upon
computers. If we make an opportunity for every student, a fact in the
world of modems and megabytes, we can go a long way toward making the
American Dream a reality for every student. Not virtual reality --
reality for every student.

The facts speak for themselves. Children with access to computers
learn faster and learn better. Scores on standardized tests for
children taught with computers, according to "Apple Classrooms of
Tomorrow," a 10-year report that is coming out in a few days, caused
scores to go up by 10 to 15 percent.  Children mastered basic skills
in 30 percent less time than would normally have been the case. Also,
they stayed in school.  Absenteeism dropped from over eight percent to
under five percent.

I cannot emphasize how important this is at a time when we want people
to stay in school and get as much education as they possibly can.
Technology enriches education, it teaches our children how to learn
better, as the Vice President and I saw with the young people who
walked in with us in their three different exhibitions of learning,
and we thank them for that today.

We must make technological literacy a standard. Preparing our children
for a lifetime of computer use is now just as essential as teaching
them to read and write and do math. With this effort, we are also
reinforcing the core convictions that have stood us so well for so
long. Computers offer a world that lives up to our highest hopes of
equal opportunity for all. And look what we need equal opportunity for
all for.

Computers give us a world where people are judged not by the color of
their skin or their gender or their family's income, but by their
minds, how well they can express themselves on those screens. If we
can teach our children these values, if they can learn to respect
themselves and each other, then we can be certain we'll have stronger
families, stronger communities, and a stronger America in the 21st
century.

I could think of no better place for us to begin than here in
California -- the state that leads the world in technological
innovation. Until now, this leadership too often has stopped at the
schoolroom door, for California ranks 45th in the nation in the ration
of students to computers. While suburban children often have access to
computers in their homes, other children in rural areas and inner
cities pass their school years without coming close to the Information
Superhighway. The longer they're kept away, the less chance they have
of building good lives in a global economy.

Well, thanks to the dedicated Americans gathered here today, all that
is going to change.  These companies who compete vigorously every day
in the marketplace have come together in the classroom. We shared with
them our vision, and they shared with us their ideas, their resources,
and their know-how. Every company represented here today is making a
different contribution, but they're all committed to the goal of
connecting California because they know the future depends upon it.

Sun Microsystems is organizing a coalition of companies and
volunteering in Net Day, an effort to install networks in at least
2,000 schools. And the number is growing with each new company joining
the effort. In the morning, volunteers will arrive at each school. By
noon they will have wired the library, the labs, the classrooms. By
nightfall, those schools will have the technology they deserve.

Smart Valley, a coalition of Silicon Valley companies, has contributed
$15 million to putting technology in our schools. Smart Valley has
agreed to develop 500 model technology schools over the next two
years.

America Online has offered Internet services for a year. Even those
phone companies that are always going after each other on TV have
joined forces in this cause. AT&T will provide Internet access and
voice mail to all California schools. Sprint will help to connect the
schools. MCI will provide software for entry into the Internet and
help to connect the schools. And Pacific Bell, which has led the way
in linking California schools, is accelerating its efforts this school
year by hooking them up to high-speech phone lines.

I want to thank them all, and I'd like to ask the leaders of these
companies here to stand, and I hope the children will give them a
hand, because they've done a great thing for your future.

Please stand up, all of you who met with me earlier today. Thank you
so much. (Applause.)

This is an enormous effort. It will take the same spirit and tenacity
that built our railroads and highways. It will take leadership and
dedication of groups like the advisory council I have appointed on the
Information Superhighway. So let us begin. Let today mark the start of
our mission to connect every school in America by the year 2000.

If we can connect 20 percent of the schools in the largest state in
the nation in less than a year, we can surely connect the rest of the
country by the end of the decade. In the coming days, I will announce
the winners of our Technology Learning Challenge. And over the next
several weeks, I will put forward a public-private partnership plan
that lays out how we can move our entire nation toward the goal of
technological literacy for every young person in America.

Here are its guiding principles: Modern computers in every classroom,
accessible to every student from kindergarten through 12th grade,
networks that connect students to other students, schools to other
schools, and both to the world outside. Educational software that is
worthy of our children and their best aspirations and, finally,
teachers with the training and the assistance they need to make the
most of these new technologies.

Make no mistake: You can count on us for leadership, but the goal we
have set cannot be set and cannot be achieved by government alone. It
can only be met the way these companies are doing it -- with 
communities, 
businesses, governments, teachers, parents and students all joining
together -- a high-tech barn-raising.

What we are doing is the equivalent of going to a dusty adobe
settlement in early 19th century California and giving every child a
slate and a piece of chalk to write with. It's akin to walking into a
rough-hewn classroom in the Sierras of the 1860s and wiring it for
electricity for the first time. It's like going to the Central Valley
in the 1930s to the canvas classrooms of the Dust Bowl refugees and
giving every child this book. Chalk boards, electricity, accessible
books -- there was a time, believe it or not, when all these were
rare.  Now, every one is such a familiar part of our lives that we
take them for granted.

If we stay on course, we'll soon reach a day when children and their
parents and their teachers will walk into a classroom filled with
computers, and not even give it a second thought. Let's go to work.
Our future depends upon it, and these children's lives will be better
for it.

Thank you very much. (Applause.) 

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



Some reports from FEMA about the hurricane damage in the Virgin Islands.
Check out the information given regarding utility damage and repairs.

              ---------- Forwarded message ----------

 To: roboaccount@fema.gov


A Task Force has been established to address fraud, waste, and abuse.
This is standard procedure in all disaster responses managed by FEMA
under the Stafford Act.  The Task Force is intended to stop
individuals who are not entitled to assistance from applying, to
identify those who are not legally in the country, to counter
fraudulent claims, and to prevent fraudulent claims against the
Federal Insurance Administration.

There will be approximately 120,000 lbs. of food shipped into St.
Thomas today for household distribution to all three Virgin Islands
tomorrow.  An estimated 40,000 of the 50,000 residents on St. Thomas
need emergency food at this time.

Current information, including press releases, maps, and weather
information, regarding the status of the Federal response to Hurricane
Marilyn in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands is available on the FEMA
Home Page on the Internet at http:\\www.fema.gov .  This information
is being published and managed by FEMA Public Affairs.

Tomorrow (Monday) food will be distributed in bags at all distribution
centers.  Each bag will provide enough food for 2 people for one day.
Larger families may pick up more than one bag, proportionate to the
size of their family.

As we enter the ninth day of operations in the Virgin Islands, the
military has flown 657 sorties of all types bringing in 5.25 million
pounds of cargo.  We are currently delivering 80,000 gallons of water
and 50,000 lbs of ice daily on the islands.  We have delivered 12,000
rolls of plastic, approximately 8,000,000 square feet.

Federal Responders

A total of 2694 federal agency personnel deployed in the field as of 
today:
     
Federal Emergency Management Agency
     332 Emergency Management Specialists
     66  MERS/MATTS Communicators
     
Department of Defense
     16  Mobile Field Kitchen Support Personnel
     225 Mass Care teams
     6   Combat Control Team personnel
     210 Tanker/Airlift Control Element (TALCE)
     112 USACE
     4   NCS
     186 Various affiliations
     
Federal Law Enforcement
     468 Special Agents and Sworn Officers
     31  Charleston SC Police Officers
    
Public Health and Related Services
     213 USPHS Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMATS)/MSU
     12  DVA
     17  EPA
     9   Food and Consumer Service

Other Departments and Agencies
     282 Incident Management team personnel 
     3   Department of Interior (DOI)
     3   Department of Energy (DOE)
     999 American Red Cross (ARC) (not counting PR and USVI volunteers)
     2   Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

ESF #1 (Transportation - Department of Transportation (DOT))

Three plane loads (50 pallets per plane) of plastic sheeting will
depart today for St. Thomas from Jacksonville, FL.  One or two
additional planes will go tomorrow.  All plastic sheeting has now
arrived in Jacksonville. A flight from Dallas to St. Croix will
deliver 50 additional pallets of plastic and is scheduled to arrive at
8:00 pm..

120,000 pounds of food is being sent from Kansas City to St. Thomas
today.  Dog and cat food will be sent September 25 from Atlanta.
Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) personnel from Florida and
Tulsa departed by 11:30 am.  American Red Cross (150 people) are being
transported from Atlanta to St. Thomas.

The ongoing shuttle from San Juan and St. Thomas is carrying 
approximately 
200 people daily.

ESF #2 (Communications - NCS)

Federal disaster veterans state that, overall, this disaster has
created on St.  Thomas the most extensive telecommunications and
electric power infrastructure damage seen in over 20 years (much worse
than Hurricane Andrew in Miami or Hurricane Hugo in VI and South
Carolina).  While Central Office facilities have basically survived,
the island's heavy reliance on aerial distribution plant has crippled
interoffice and subscriber connectivity.
     
Initial priority has been directed towards restoring the cellular
infrastructure.  Two systems operate on island: VITELCO and
CellularONE. Off-island communications has been aided by AT&T's
restoration of undersea cable connectivity to the Charlotte Amalie
area via microwave links.  The donated MCI satellite phone banks have
been loaded and departed for St. Thomas.  Ground transportation and
refueling requirements for the MCI phone banks are being coordinated
at the Disaster Field Office (DFO).

Skypager service is now working on St. Thomas as of 2:15 pm September
24.  ESF #2 is coordinating restoration of ten lines to Emergency
Broadcast System (EBS) radio station in St. Thomas FEMA, FEMA


                                                        

personnel are assessing providing a laser shot between Disaster Field
Office (DFO) and Vitelco Central Office.

Vitelco Cellular is on site at Disaster Field Office (DFO) to program
cellular phones for federal response workers.  Vitelco wireless has a
representative on site in Disaster Field Office (DFO) to coordinate
federal disaster telecommunications priorities and requirements.
Vitelco has been appraised of the requirements for the Disaster Field
Office (DFO) and the four Recovery Centers that have been identified,
two on St. Thomas, one on St. Croix, and one on St. John.

One of the 400 MHZ repeaters has been repaired by the service provider
and is operational.  The second repeater has been repaired and is
providing intermittent service.  The service provider will send
additional technicians to the site on September 25.  The 150 MHZ
system ordered by FEMA is operational on a five system portable
repeater network and 200 handsets.  An additional 200 handsets and 5
full size repeaters are on order and expected delivery to St. Thomas
is September 25.

ESF #3 (Public Works and Engineering - Army Corp of Engineers) 

A bottled water contract for delivery of 50,000 gallons per day is in
place and will be effective on September 25.  FEMA is arranging
priority movement of 2,800 rolls (20x100 ft. each) of plastic sheeting
from Thomasville and Denton MERS to St. Croix and St. Thomas.
Delivery of the plastic sheeting to St.  Thomas and St. Croix for the
contractor to use in reconstruction work is a pressing issue. Part of
the shipment of four Army Corp of Engineers 750kws generators arrived
in Puerto Rico on a C-5A and are being barged to St.  Thomas.  The
remaining generators are being prepared for movement via C-17 direct
to St. Thomas for use at the hospital.  Five FEMA generators (2-550kw,
3-425kw) will be flown from Jackson, MS, to the Virgin Islands for use
in high priority areas.

ESF #4 (Firefighting - USDA)

Two fire stations on St. Thomas are not functional at this time and
have been de-activated.  Roofing, electricity, communications systems,
and fire suppression equipment have been damaged or destroyed.  The
North Station must be completely rebuilt.  Plans for reconstructing
the stations on St.  Croix and St. John will be delivered by September
24.  Fire operations will continue from the Charlotte Amalie Station
and Tutu Station until further notice.  It should be noted that
response times from the remaining stations to unprotected areas is
greatly increased due to traffic congestion, debris remaining in roads
and increased distances to be traveled.  The build up of debris
between structures on steeper mid-slopes presents an increased fuel
hazard requiring analysis to recommend appropriate strategies for fire
suppression and fuel treatment.

On St. John, there is minor damage to one fire station and roof damage
to a second.  Both stations are currently staffed however.  Response
time to potential incidents is slightly impacted and road debris clean
up is proceeding well.

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



At http://www.unik.no/~markus/norgsm.html you can find a listing of
GSM cellular tariffs for Norway.

Since this page has been unexpectedly successful, I am thinking about
enlarging the view to Europe in general. For this, I would be thankful
if oyu could send me information on this subject.

Please also see the "request for info" at 
http://www.unik.no/~markus/gsmhe.html


Thanks, 

Markus Schlegel
At UNIK, Center for Technology, University of Oslo (Norway)
markus@unik.no

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



We've recently come to the conclusion that DID *may* be better than 
adding new phone lines all the time ...:)

With that in mind, I called down to the local New York Telephone 
business 
center in New York City to inquire about rates, how it would be set up, 
transition to DID, etc, ie, basic information.

I was told by the rep: "Ok, please fax us the questions and we will have 
someone get back to you next week". Ok, well, maybe they think I'm a 
vendor or something, so I explain I just want some general information 
about the service, and the rep goes "Well, write all the questions down 
and fax it to us, and we will get back to you next week." 

Errr ... Ok, I thought, maybe I have the wrong office. So once again I
tried "Well, all I really need is to ask some basic questions about
how DID works, rates, how long it generally takes to set up, etc. So I
really don't need to fax anything, 'cause these are sort of general
questions, and don't you have anyone somewhere else to take such
calls?". NYTel's response: "Fax it to us". (I figured the next thing
they would say is "nevermore"! :) )

So before the rep started to break out into a repetitive chorus of
"Quoth the Raven", I figured I'd try one last time: "Look, all I want
you to do is fax me or mail me some literature on DID so that I can
decide if I want to use NYTel, which at this point I am not sure I
do!". And of course you know the answer NYTel gave, so rather than
waste half an hour faxing things to someone who was so enamored by the
concept of faxing that he would probably frame whatever was sent to
him, I figured I'd call the NYTel President's Helpline to see what
they had to offer.

After the usual ten minute wait, I got a rep who at first seemed
interested in helping me, but when I explained the problem, ie, that I
merely wanted to get some more information about DID and that their
business office had been very unhelpful, she quickly lost interest.
(Apparently, the President's Helpline is mainly to prevent irate
telephone customers from calling the NY Public Service Commission. My
complaint really wasn't something you would go to the PSC about, so
she wasn't interested.) She did eventually manage to take my name and
number, and said that someone would call back. She explained that the
people handling DID service have "commitments" to other customers, and
thus couldn't take my call right away.

Huh?!!

Ok, well, maybe I don't know too much about how DID works, but I DO
know what poor service is, and THAT is it! It's outrageous that I or
someone in my office (we only have a small staff, and we are quite
busy) take the time to compose a fax to ask some service rep. at NYTel
some basic questions. Moreover, in the event of a failure, I'd hate to
have to fax a failure report to them and wait a week or so to have the
problem resolved!

So ... any other alternatives besides NYTel? We basically need to have 
maybe 100 DID "numbers" route to 10 or so lines, with expansion as our 
business grows. We'd like to buy them on a "per-use" basis, ie, we don't 
want to get a block of 500 and only use 20 or so for the first few 
months. 

Signalling to our system is also important, and we'd need an effective 
and scaleable method for having DID information signalled to our system.

Any help or responses from other providers besides NYTel/NYNEX would be 
appreciated!


Thanks,

      Doug Reuben  *  dreuben@interpage.net   *  +1 (203) 499 - 5221
Interpage Network Services -- http://www.interpage.net, telnet 
interpage.net
E-Mail Alpha/Numeric Local/Nationwide Paging, Info., and E-Mail <-> Fax 
Svcs 

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



Angus TeleManagement Group is pleased to announce the introduction of
TELECOM UPDATE, a weekly on-line news bulletin for Canadian telecommun-
ications professionals.

TELECOM UPDATE is published on the first business day of each week, 
and is distributed without charge. It is available in two formats:

1. On the World Wide Web: go to http://www.angustel.ca, and select 
TELECOM 
UPDATE from the main menu. The current issue and all past issues are 
available

at that location. 

2. By electronic mail: send an email message to majordomo@angustel.ca.
The body of your message should say only subscribe update <Your Name>.

Angus TeleManagement Group is an independent consulting and research 
firm, 
specializing in business telecommunications since 1979. We publish the 
monthly

magazine TELEMANAGEMENT, and, together with our suster firm, Angus 
Dortmans 
Associates, we provide telecom advisory services to business, 
government, and 
supplier organizations.


IAN ANGUS                       Tel: 905-686-5050 ext 222                  
Angus TeleManagement Group      Fax: 905-686-2655  
8 Old Kingston Road             e-mail: ianangus@angustel.ca 
Ajax Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7     http://www.angustel.ca

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



The FCC Interstate order for CLID remains due 12-1-95. Pacific wants
to offer intrastate at the same time -- makes good sense. But, AHA --
CPUC wants a public education program before they may offer it;
Pacific feels they can provide such a program, but CPUC needs to
approve it first -- can't trust those rascals in LEC-land to put
together a PR campaign, can we? -- and the CPUC won't be able to do
that before Spring, 1996. The State's appeal to the 9th Circuit has
hearings scheduled for November, so CPUC wants the LEC's to ask the
FCC to postpone their nationwide interstate order until California
argues that the feds have no right to pre-empt the state.

Pretty soon Alice will run into the Mad Hatter, crossing Van Ness Ave
going into the State Bldg. One or both must work there on the 5th floor.

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

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #404
******************************

                                         
