
From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu  Thu Aug 31 22:30:20 1995
by
1995
22:30:20 -0400
telecomlist-outbound; Thu, 31 Aug 1995 19:09:02 -0500
1995
19:09:00 -0500
To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu



There have been reports received that issue 365 from Tuesday has somehow
gone astray in the mailing process. A duplicate copy is being 
transmitted
at this time and is attached herewith.

If you already received 365 and this is a duplicate, then please disgard
it with my apologies. I really do not know what is going on to make the
mail so sluggish the past couple of weeks. After all, in email post 
offices
we do not have random violence, shootings and dissident workers like 
they
do in snailmail post offices.     <g>

PAT

TELECOM Digest     Tue, 29 Aug 95 23:05:30 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 365

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: San Francisco Area Codes (Mark J. Cuccia)
    Re: AT&T 1-500 Number - Any Advice? (Glenn Foote)
    Re: V&H Questions (James E. Bellaire)
    Re: AT&T Moving Into Local Exchange Market (David Breneman)
    Re: Telex History (pjk@ssax.com)

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



Peter_Mansfield@australia.notes.pw.com wrote:

> Reading Mark Cuccia's interesting and informative history of the
> Mexican hacks and TWX, this reminded me of something I read in Carl
> Moore's history.of.area.splits in the Telecom Archives a while back 
> dealing with the introduction of area code 318 in 1951, which I'm 
> interested in finding out more about. Carl writes:

>> 415/318 California, 1951

>> 318 was used for San Francisco only, during the Englewood (N.J.)
>> Customer DDD Trials; Oakland remained in 415. Sometime before 1957,
>> 318 was reclaimed for future use, and San Francisco returned to 415.

>> 504/318 Louisiana, 1957
>> 318, used earlier for San Francisco, had been reclaimed by this time.

> Furthermore, in 1959, according to Carl Moore's file, 415 did a
> *three-way split* with West Central California moving to 408 and North
> West California moving to 707, with the San Francisco Area retaining
> 415 (which, as we know, later split again to form 415/510).

I was the one who faxed Carl Moore a few months back with this info,
to help him fill in the gaps in his Area Code history. It was
photocopies of NPA maps from various time periods in the late 1940's
and throughout the 1950's, from articles on Long-Distance, numbering and
dialing, switching, etc.  from Bell Telephone Magazine, Bell 
Laboratories 
Record magazine, Bell System Technical Journal, and from AT&T's Notes
on the Network (1955 edition which was then titled "Notes on Nationwide 
Dialing"), and from a historical list of NPA assignments that my contact 
at Bellcore faxed me last year.

> So, do any historians out there know anything more about these DDD
> trials, specifically why a new NPA was allocated, and then reclaimed
> several years later. Also, was it a full cutover, or simply some kind
> of optional 'overlay' where either 318 or 415 could be used to reach
> San Francisco? If San Francisco was still in 318 for some time after
> 1951, why then did it return to 415, which was obviously nearing
> capacity, as it split three ways a few years later?

All press-releases in newspapers (microfilm back issues of the {New
York Times}) or back issues of {Time, Life, Newsweek}, etc. had a brief
blurb of an article in late 1951 stating that the Mayor of Englewood
NJ called the mayors of San Francisco and nearby towns. Calls to
points east of San Francisco Bay (Oakland) were dialed 415 + NNX-XXXX
(there was NO 1+; just straight ten digits). The call from the
Englewood NJ mayor to the San Francisco mayor was dialed 318 + NNX-XXXX.
The call from Englewood to towns north of the Golden Gate were also
dialed 318 + NNX-XXXX. 

AT&T's publication entitled Events In Telecommunications History also
refers to the Englewood NJ trials.  Incidently, it was not known at
that time as DDD (Direct Distance Dialing) but something like Customer
Toll Dialing or Nationwide Customer Dialing (something like what the
UK used to call STD-Subscriber Trunk Dialing). There were also
articles on this in magazines such as {Popular Science, Popular
Mechanics, and Popular Electronics}. 318 was also mentioned.  BTW, the
'official' maps in Bell's magazines in the early 1950's did *not*
include 318!

WHY was there this *special* code I don't know for sure. I can only
guess that maybe there were some Central Office code/naming/letter
conflicts within the SF Bay area? or maybe it was a routing
determination? Incidently, when Englewood NJ was able to dial
long-distance in 1951, it was *only* to specified towns/cities, such
as Northern NJ area, NY City Metro area, Boston, Washington DC, SF Bay
area, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. These larger metro areas were
predominantly Panel and Crossbar (#1 and #5) switching regions, with
little or no Step-by-Step, although there were still some operator/
manual local central offices in these cities. Automated Toll Switching
was handled on a #4XB switch. 

Maybe since only specific *cities* were identified by the dialable
areacode, it *could* be that AT&T wanted to identify Oakland as 415
and San Francisco as 318, until customers were more familiar with
nationwide toll dialing. It could be that AT&T wanted to eliminate
accidental wrong numbers (which would have been billed a MUCH higher
toll charge than we know today; unless you are using Integratel or
other AOSlime! <g>). If a NJ customer intended to dial 318 (San
Francisco), but followed with the seven dial pulls which was actually
an Oakland number (in error), then they *might* have gone to an
intercept recording/operator.

I don't know how long 318 was actually used to dial San Francisco -- I
have nothing in print showing when it was 'put-back-into' 415 or 
whatever, 
other than I do know that when Louisiana's 'single' NPA, 504, was
split in 1957, with 504 remaining for southeast Louisiana (New Orleans, 
Baton Rouge, etc), and 318 covering western/northern Louisiana
(Lafayette, New Iberia, Shreveport, Monroe, Alexandria, Lake Charles,
etc).

In an early 1950's issue of {Bell Telephone Magazine}, there was
mention of a Customer instruction booklets for Long-Distance dialing,
for those areas which *could* dial LD. There was a small photo of the
cover of a booklet and also some of the inside. However the resolution
of the photo was NOT good, and I could not make out any text of the
booklet itself in the magazine photo. It seems that the booklet gave
Area Codes for those points which were customer direct dialable from
that particular point at that time, and the Exchange Names and cities
within the area code that could be dialed. Even tho' today I can get
all of the current NPA-NXX info I want from Bellcore, I'd give
'anything' -- well not really <grin> for a copy of one of those 40+
year old booklets.

> Finally, are there any other known cases such as this, where an area
> code is split and is later reclaimed, or changed back to the former
> code or somehow reshuffled (apart from another split or overlay)?

I wouldn't actually call the use of 318 for San Francisco a split -- but
that is the only case I know of this. Other than the fact that 903 had
been used for the *extreme* border of northwest Mexico but reclaimed
in 1980 when 70-6 was used (when AT&T and Telefonos de Mexico placed
these border towns more specifically in +52-6XX..), and then 70-6 and
90-5 being reclaimed; and lets not forget the TWX special Areacodes
(N10's) were 'reclaimed' when TWX was 'removed' from the Bell System's
DDD switching network. All of these codes (318, 903, 706, 905, 510,
610, 710, 810, 910) have uses today which were NOT there original use.

And, BTW, from Events in Telecommunications History (AT&T): on 15 June
1966, it is mentioned that Lowell Wingert of AT&T Long Lines placed a
call from Philadelphia to Geneva Switzerland by dialing 200-233-1011.
Of course this was some kind of special 'patch' code, since I had read
in issues of Bell's magazines dated prior to 1966 that 011+ was going
to be the IDDD access prefix, and that there were plans for Country
Codes as we know them today.  There is NO use of 41 for Switzerland in
this demonstration international call.

> Incidentally, the above three-way split of 415 in 1959 seems to 
indicate 
> that the current three-way split planned for Chicago cannot claim to
> be the first, especially since the Chicago split/reorganization is
> being implemented over about two years, and not all at once. (I don't
> think anyone actually claimed that it *was* the first, just that that
> it was the only one that anybody could think of!)

And, while I don't have exact dates (month, date) only the year of
introduction of Area Codes back in the 1940's, 50's, early 60's, I
don't think that 415 was split three-ways overnight into 408, 707, and a
smaller 415.

Also, I don't think that areacodes reaching 'capacity' meant the same
that it does today. Back then, the electromechanical switches diddn't
handle the capacity of lines and trunks, unlike the ESS and Digital
switches of today.  Even #4XB and #5XB had special routing 
considerations 
when assigning Central Office codes. Back then there was also a lot
more 'protection' of C/O codes when a 'community of interest' straddled 
an areacode boundary. These days there will be less and less of code
protection in the North American numbering plan, and rather more
mandatory ten-digit dialing, both across an NPA boundary, and even
within NPA's.

John Higdon is from the San Jose / San Francisco area. Maybe he might
have some info to enlighten us on 318's use for calling into SF from
outside of CA, or maybe some Bay area Exchange Name history -- (and SF
was probably the only area of the country that used 55X numbers before
All Number Calling -- KLondike-x (55X) WAS used in San Francisco, while
most areas of the country never seemed to use the 55X range prior to
the 1960s).


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

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



In response to a query on misc.consumers I recently responded to the
above request.  I am posting the reply here too in an effort to
continue the discussion regarding 500 numbers, their problems, and the
impact that their failure has on the providors and users.

Comments are always welcome.

[Hi Pat, is _your_ 500 number working yet ??]

  To:   Gina Waterman<ckh@earth.roc.servtech.com>
  Re:   AT&T 500 numbers = Bad News ...
 

> Has anyone used AT&T's 1-500 Easy Reach Service?

> I would appreciate any advice as I am looking into using it for
> business purposes.

> Please email. Thanks--Gina
 
Gina,
      Let me start off by explaining that I am a semi-retired
independent telecommunications consultant (voice systems and networks)
with over 25 years experience in the industry.

      I have had the 500 service since that day after it was
announced. My experience is that is just doesn't work!  The reasons
are many, but the result is the same from many places. Even in the US,
access to 500 numbers is restricted and not just from pay phones
(where it is really needed), and privately owned systems (PBX's), but
also from homes and business accounts as well.  This is true even when
the long distance carrier for that number is AT&T.

      The concept is fine, just walk up to a phone, dial 1+500+xxx-xxxx 
and 
be connected. (0+500 is also an option, more on that later) The
reality is that in over 25 _personal attempts_ to do this from various
sites around the country, the call is denied UNLESS I first dial
10+ATT or 1-800-CALL-ATT.  For the astute business person, or someone
who is really determined to use the number (like myself) this
_sometimes_ works.  For others who are not so sophisticated the
process is a disaster.  _AT&T_ operators have told _me_ the following:
 
      "Those are porn numbers ... they can't be dialed from a pay 
phone."
(I wonder how many of my clients heard that one!)

      "There is no such thing as a 500 number ... you must mean an 800
number ... please try your call again ... thank you for using AT&T ...
<click> ... buzzz ..." (nice try ... time to use another service)

      "We can't connect you to that number, it must be dialed directly."
(AT&T states that when calling from outside the US, to contact them to
complete the call.)

      "My equipment won't accept that number as a valid number." (Maybe
not, but your billing equipment does.)
 
      There _are_ many more, but I can't remember all of them,
fortunately.  In my _considered signed personal opinion_ (which I
normally charge good money for) the 500 service from AT&T _should not
be considered_ as a viable option at this time.  When I see AT&T
making a serious attempt to correct the myriad of problems that plague
this service I _may_ reconsider that opinion.

      Until then, and because of the broken promises in relation to this
service, which I consider symptomatic of a growing problem with the 
quality
of service and serious lack of integrity at AT&T, I am doing the 
following:
 
      I have started reviewing _all_ of my past recommendations to 
clients
regarding the selection of a long distance carrier.  My professional
decision factors involving recommendations for service have always taken
into account more than price.  The real issue is this:
 
      When a company no longer can be counted on to deliver what it
      promises in quality or quantity it is time to re-evaluate it's 
role
      as a supplier.
 
      Over the course of my consulting career I made recommendations
totaling much more than $19 million dollars (per year) in long
distance usage.  I expect current use has increased that figure. After
my most recent discussion with an AT&T customer service supervisor
regarding a significant failure of an AT&T operators refusal to accept
my 500 number (plus pin) as a credit card number (from a restricted,
dial disabled, pay phone in North Carolina), which you are _supposed_
to be able to do, and the total failure of AT&T to address the myriad
of problems surrounding this 500 (and other) issues, I have decided to
go back to those clients and (for free) perform another analysis of
their long distance costs. The point is this:
 
      If we take the supposed business integrity of AT&T (or any other
      company) out of the picture, there is little to nothing to 
separate
      them other than price. If that is the case, and I believe that 
THEY
      have made it so, then I expect that many of the new analysis will
      show AT&T in a less than favorable light.  
 
      This is doubly sad because it is within their power to address
and fix these issues.  For some reason, they choose not to do so. And,
if they choose not to be a responsible organization, I choose take
that irresponsibility into account when determining recommendations
for any clients; future, present or past.
 
So, Gina, all that aside; my recommendations for your problems:
 
      Get a _very_good_ 24 hour telephone seven days per week
answering service.  Communicate with them frequently. Let them know
where you are at all times.  Pay whatever it cost.  If you _need_ the
service, the cost will be well worth it.
 

Glenn "Elephant" Foote ...... glnfoote@freenet.columbus.oh.us


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually my experience has, in general
been the opposite of yours. I have never seen a payphone which rejected
500 calls (other than the bug in the system a month ago reported here
which was fixed fairly promptly). I have never had to dial 10288 to get
through on 500, and furthermore, dialing 10288 would not make a whit of
difference anyway; we all know that the local telco examines all the
data given first and *then, provided they find it in their routing 
tables*
hand it off to the requested carrier. I can see a situation where the
local telco might examine the 500 prefix and hand it to the carrier who
is assigned that prefix or number, as is done with 800 calls now, but in
that case your use of 10xxx would not matter either, just as 10xxx means
nothing when dialing an 800 number.   PAT]

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

_
                                                                                                            




Note: The original question was regarding converting VH to lat/long to 
global mileage.

In TD362 lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) wrote:

> There is a program, called NPA, which will do what you want.
> Here is the info on the latest version:

> NPA for WINDOWS <04Jul95> - Comprehensive area code (NPA), prefix
> (NXX), and city name locator. [SNIP]

> I tried to find an contact number for the author, but this is a
> WINDOZE program, and everything but the file description is in the
> form of a Windows .hlp file.

> The author goes by the name of PC Consultant, and is located in 
Houston.

He also goes by the name Robert Ricketts.  Last I knew (April '95) his
email was <rkr@pel.com>. He also is 73670.1164@compuserve.com. His snail 
address: PO Box 42086 Houston, TX 77242-2086.  His contact number is 
(713) 
826-2629, V-MAIL ONLY, but he does call back quickly most of the time
(especially if you want to register!).  The contact information is on
the 'setup tab' in the program.  Press (MORE) from the main program
screen to read it.

> This is an excellent program.  I have been using the DOS version for a
> couple of years.

I second that.  Mr. Ricketts keeps up with all the new NPA's too.  The
new version adds multiple ZIPs per NXX as well as labeling NXXs based
on type (USA only, Cellular or Landline).  Although there are a few
errors in which NXXs are assigned to cellular, probably carried from
his source.

BTW: The new version <Jul08> is available via CompuServe (GO TELECOM).  
It 
hasn't appeared elsewhere on the net yet.


James E. Bellaire (JEB6)  bellaire@tk.com

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



In article <telecom15.360.12@eecs.nwu.edu> -TELECOM Digest Editor noted:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, I don't think they could buy up 
those
> companies. I think all those former AT&T companies have to be left 
alone
> where AT&T is concerned. That is what I meant by saying 'several
monopolies'.
> Today, a hundred years after the government-ordered breakup of the 
Standard
> Oil Trust owned by John Rockefeller, any of the various parts of the 
former
> oil monopoly (Exxon, Amoco, Chevron, etc) are by themselves larger 
than the
> original monopoly. Competition, eh?  So let's open a gasoline refinery 
and
> oil producing business and see how far it gets us ... 

Hey, my girlfriend's father did just that!  He quit his job at Chevron
and opened his own refinery.  While it didn't make him another 
Rockefeller, 
she did grow up in a "two boat family".  He passed away several years
ago, but the company he founded, Associated Petroleum, is a major local 
(Puget Sound area) provider of petroleum products.  "Only in America..."  
I know thia doesn't have anything to do with telecom issues, but it
shows what's possible.  :-)


David Breneman   Unix System Administrator
     Mail: david.breneman@mccaw.com
IS - Operations   (Beginning September 11th: ~@attws.com)
McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc.   Phone: +1-206-803-7362


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are right of course. It can happen
here, but sadly a lot less often than it used to many years ago. Remind
me sometime to tell the story of a fellow nicknamed 'Cappy' who worked
for Illinois Bell back in the 1950-60 era. One day he got fed up, and
with a fellow worker they withdrew all their profit sharing/pension plan
money and moved to some little town in Arizona where they bought the
local telephone cooperative which was on the verge of bankruptcy. They
found wires strung along cattle ranchers fences through the countryside,
susbcriber equipment dating back to the 1930's, etc ... a horrible mess.
But by golly they cleaned it up over a period of a few years and later
sold it for a huge profit. Indeed, it can be done. And what about that
fellow in (I think) Utah with the tiny little telco with a grand total
of eight subscribers?  Is he still around?   You are right ... only in
America.  PAT]

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



The discussion of telex machines brings back memories of an
interesting story ...

In 1986 I was hired to automate a travel agency which did African
Tours.

This being before FAX machines were widespread, most of the
correspondence to Africa was done via Telex.  The agency was rapidly
growing, had purchased a computer, and was seeking to automate
operations wherever possible.

Easylink (store and forward telex via E-mail) from WUTCO had become
available, so with a few hacks to sendmail (UNIX mail program) I was
able to gateway mail into the telex network.  Before then, the company
had a full time telex operator, and telexes were frequently delayed,
went out with the usual mis-spellings due to bad transcription, etc.
Now people could type their own telexes at their desk, and send them
immediately.

So, was everybody happy?  Of course not.  As the case with most travel
agencies, annual turnover was close to 100%, so every month, I would
get a call from the new person, asking "Where's the telex machine?". I
would explain that you prepared telexes with the word processor, and
then e-mailed them to the telex network.  "Ok, how to I punch the
tape, then?" ...

After a few rounds of this, I dug a telex machine out of the dump,
cleaned it up, hooked it to the computer using the current loop
interface, and wrote some shell scripts to simulate connecting to the
telex network.

This worked great for a while.  Then, while I was in Africa, on a
tour, I started getting *telegrams* from the agency, that the telex
machine was broken, and that WUTCO refused to fix it.  The office was
in a total uproar, and they couldn't do business.  In the meantime,
they messengered telexes to the local WUTCO office to carry on.

When I got back, I looked at the computer to troubleshoot the problem.
There was no dial tone at the modem.  I saw a shiny new FAX machine in
the office and noticed its phone line was plugged into ... THE MODEM
LINE!!!!!!

I placed a call to WUTCO, had them install a hard-wired line to the
the telex network, and everybody was happy ever after ... until WUTCO
got out of the telex business.  But, by then, the African travel boom
was over and FAX was king.

Moral of the story: User Interface is everything!


Cheers, etc.,

PJK

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

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #365
******************************


                                                                                    
