
From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu  Thu Oct 12 21:58:04 1995
by
1995
21:58:04 -0400
telecomlist-outbound; Thu, 12 Oct 1995 17:55:10 -0500
1995
17:55:08 -0500
To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 12 Oct 95 17:55:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 434

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Pac*Bell Lied, Do I Have Any Recourse? (Edward A. Kleinhample)
    Re: Pac*Bell Lied, Do I Have Any Recourse? (Tom Watson)
    Re: Caller ID During Call Waiting (Peter Polishuk)
    Re: Old Telco Question (David Breneman)
    Re: New French Numbering Plan (James E. Bellaire)
    Re: How to Make Dial-up Stay up As Long as Possible? (Pete 
Kruckenberg)
    Re: Dutch Renumbering Scheme Almost an April 1 Joke (Piet van 
Oostrum)
    Re: What to Call the Three Parts of AT&T? (Tony Harminc)
    Re: What to Call the Three Parts of AT&T? (Daryl R. Gibson)
    Re: What to Call the Three Parts of AT&T? (David Breneman)
    Re: Help! I've Been Slammed by WilTel! (dharper521@aol.com)
    Re: Variable Length Phone Numbers (Peter Corlett)
    Re: Eliminate Dialing Weirdnesses - We Can Save Lives (Peter 
Corlett)
    Re: Connecting Modem to Multi-Line Phone (Pete Kruckenberg)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Roger Wells)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? 
(barry@broadcast.net)

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



On issue 422, Dave Close adds:

> The error is classifying service at all. At one time, percentage of 
time
> the line was in use may have justified higher rates due to expensive
> lines. But today, service is essentially without cost beyond overhead.
> There is no remaining justification for charging residences less or
> businesses more except that there are more residences and their 
occupants
> vote. See the cover story in this week's issue of the {Economist}.

As long as there is government regulation of LECs, there is
justification for the classification of service as residential or
business. Business customers tend to be clustered together in
geographically small urban areas, requiring a less expensive physical
plant to service the large number of circuits needed by modern
business. Because these customers are paying a premium price for their
services, the telco is less fussy about pulling an additional pair of
wires their way. The bulk of telco's profits come from this class of
service.  The residential customers tend to be spread out with a small
number of subscribers over a large geographic area - this means a more
expensive physical plant, and lower revenues. The residential class of
service is largely subsidised by the business class revenues in order
to keep costs relatively level.  There has been talk of doing away
with allocation of revenues and allowing telco to charge a subscriber
what it costs to provide them service. Those of us who live well
outside of primary business centers will find ourselves paying
considerable more for our home telephone service.


Ed Kleinhample 
Network Systems Guru and General Practitioner of PC hardware
Land O' Lakes, FL.    70574.3514@compuserve.com

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



In article <telecom15.430.10@eecs.nwu.edu>, wd6ehr@kaiwan.com (Mike
Curtis) wrote:

> Amateur radio repeaters are usually located at commercial radio sites. 
> Historically, the phone company has insisted that autopatches 
(telephone
> line access) use commercial lines, even though business communication 
is
> expressly forbidden by the FCC.  Several years back, this was 
overturned,
> and amateur autopatches may insist on residential service even though 
the
> autopatch is located in a commercial site.

Been there, done that. 

Boy did it take a whole lot of fighting with Pacific Ding-A-Ling, but
when I mentioned Amateur Radio, something clicked.  You should see
what installers do when they need to go to a mountaintop and I'm over
two counties away from the site.  The problems I had also involved the
fact that the hill is half way between two CO's and they couldn't
decide which prefix I should get.  They insisted that an installer go
to the hill.

The other problem is that I have instruments connected to the line, and
other bozos visiting the site would go INSIDE my cabinet to make calls.  
I
would get phone bills and then call up the number and complain.  It 
would
keep on happening, so I decided to fight back.  I changed the lines to
ground start.  The abuse stopped immediately!!  I felt vindicated.


Tom Watson    tsw@3do.com   (Home: tsw@johana.com)


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you suggesting that 'other bozos'
at the location did not know how to jump a ground start line and get
dial tone? Was there no source of ground in the vicinity?  And then,
how did your users make outgoing calls?   PAT]

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



In article <telecom15.431.5@eecs.nwu.edu>, Lynne Gregg 
<lynne.gregg@attws.
com> wrote:

>> Is anyone manufacturing Customer Premises Equipment yet which meets
>> the Bellcore spec for receiving Caller ID during a Call Waiting
>> signal?

> Yes, several manufacturers are working on wireline terminals.  AT&T
> Wireless Services supports Caller ID with Call Waiting in it's network
> (TDMA cellular sets).

Northern Telecom also has equipment that meet these standards.


Peter Polishuk   Nortel Marketing Communications 
Switching Networks  ESN 255-4295 or 992-4295
Peter_Polishuk@nt.com

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



In article <telecom15.432.10@eecs.nwu.edu> Paul J Zawada 
<zawada@ncsa.uiuc.
edu> writes:

> TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Stan Schwartz 
<stan@vnet.net>:

>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It was probably an access point for
>> Western Union Telegraph Company cables. They were never in the local
>> telco business.

Deletions...
 
> So while WU may never had been in the local telco business, it looks
> like MCI will use their conduit to provide said service ...

But, Western Union *was* in the local telephone business!  They bought
the rights to all of Thomas Edison's telephone patents, including his
superior carbon-granule microphone, and went in head-to-head
competition with Bell in many markets.  And, they almost drove Bell
out of business until an agreement was reached whereby WU would stick
to (what's now called) data and Bell would stick to voice transmission.  
This all happened in the 1880s.  The main reason WU surrendered its
phone service to Bell was that they didn't think there was much future
in it -- their main fear was that Bell would establish a network of
lines on the "pretext" of providing phone service, which could later
be converted to telegraphy in competition with WU.  When the agreement
was reached, Bell was no longer a threat.

Yeah.


David Breneman
Unix System Administrator       Mail: david.breneman@attws.com
IS - Operations                 (Formerly: ~@mccaw.com)
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc.    Phone: +1-206-803-7362


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In fact, a regular poster here has a 
neat .sig file he attaches occassionally which quotes the contents
of a memo circulated among Western Union executives in the 1880's
telling how they believe the telephone to have little value to them.
Little did they know.   PAT]

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



praffin@teaser.fr (patrick raffin) wrote:

> FRANCE NEW NUMBERING PLAN

> On 18 October 1996, most French telephone numbers will change.

With no permissive period?  Ouch!

> Here is what will happen, as far as it is documented now.  All errors
> and omissions are mine (P. Raffin, 1995/10/08, praffin@teaser.fr).

I think I got the regular numbers right, from an international 
perspective:

 Paris               now +33-1-xx-xx-xxxx    will be +33-1-xx-xx-xxxx
 NorthWest France    now +33-xx-xx-xxxx      will be +33-2-xx-xx-xxxx
 NorthEast France    now +33-xx-xx-xxxx      will be +33-3-xx-xx-xxxx
 SouthEast France    now +33-xx-xx-xxxx      will be +33-4-xx-xx-xxxx
 SouthWest France    now +33-xx-xx-xxxx      will be +33-5-xx-xx-xxxx

I am assuming that the +33 then eight digit rule also applies to
pagers/mobiles, and eight digit special services when calling from
outside France, making

 Eurosignal Pagers   now +33-01-xxxxxx
 Eurosignal Pagers   now +33-02-xxxxxx
 Eurosignal Pagers   now +33-03-xxxxxx
 Eurosignal Pagers   now +33-04-xxxxxx
 Toll Free           now +33-05-xxxxxx       will be +33-800-xxxxxx
 Other Pagers        now +33-06-xxxxxx
 GSM - France Tel    now +33-07-xxxxxx       will be +33-807-xxxxxx
 GSM - SFR           now +33-09-xxxxxx       will be +33-809-xxxxxx
 Extended Services   now     36-xxxxxx       will be    0836-xxxxxx

But you do not mention what is happening to the pagers.  Are they
moving to the +33-8 range with the mobile phones?

I assume that the 1x services are not available from outside France, but 
are 
the 36xx / 36xx-xxxx services available?  Is Toll Free available out of 
country?

TIA for any clarifications.


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

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



M C Wong (mcw@aus.hp.com) wrote:

>     I wonder if anyone has any good advices/suggestions of making a
> dial-up link stays up as long as possible?

Two things.

First, contact your phone company and ask them to stop testing the line. 
They have stuff that periodically tests analog lines to make sure 
they're 
in working condition. However, this causes problems when it's a modem 
line. Just tell them it's a line used for modem communications and they 
should be able to remove the testing. Be sure to have it done on both 
ends of the call.

Second, make your modems more tolerant of intermittent signal loss 
(which 
is what happens), configure them with the command ATS10=100 (or some 
other high value). This will let the modem continue trying to connect in 
spite of a long loss of carrier. Be sure to use this command on both 
modems, and save the configuration into NVRAM (usually using the AT&W 
command). I've had good success with using this.

You're still going to get disconnects now and then, so be sure your 
modem's configured to make DCD follow the actual carrier detect, rather 
than be held high artificially. And be sure to write all configuration 
changes to NVRAM so you don't lose them.

Another thing you might do is have a separate daemon that periodically
pings the other end of the SLIP connection, and if it can't see the 
other
end, hard-resets the modem (usually done by dropping DTR). If you had 
this
on both ends, it'd eliminate most of your modem hang problems. 


Good luck.

Pete Kruckenberg    pete@inquo.net

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



alex@worldaccess.nl (Alex van Es) (AvE) writes:

> PTT is appearantly expecting a lot of trouble coming out of this
> renumbering, therefore the old numbers will also keep on working for
> the coming six months.  In the beginning of April the old numbers will
> be disconnected. And that is in my opinion where the problems are
> going to start. Many people will not change their friend's phone 
number
> straight away. After all, converting phone numbers is not the most
> interesting job to do, and so many people decide to delay it till some
> rainy Sunday afternoon. And if that rainy Sunday is not coming along
> to soon, they probably trashed their renumbering guide, forgetting all
> about it. And then around the beginning of April trouble is going to
> start. All of the sudden you will be forced to dial the new number.

On the first day, the PTT reported that 30% of the calls used the new
numbers, while 49% used the old numbers, the rest being numbers that 
don't
change. I think this is not bad for a first day.

Secondly, they will monitor the change rate and adapt the advertising. 
So
if next year too many people are still using the old numbers you can 
expect
a flood of commercials.

Finally, I think there will be no abrupt shutting off the old numbers
but there will be a period where a message will be given if you dial
the old number.


Piet van Oostrum <piet@cs.ruu.nl>
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet

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



Ed Ellers <edellers@delphi.com> wrote:

> I'm tempted to suggest "Western Telecom" or just "WEC," given that
> Western's two offshoots -- Northern Electric and Nippon Electric --
> are, of course, now called Northern Telecom and NEC.  (Actually,
> Western was often referred to as "WECo" within the Bell System.)

Northern Electric was hardly an "offshoot" of Western Electric.  Yes,
for many years Northern built sets and CO equipment under licence from
WE, but they also had a thriving business making the likes of radios,
power cable, and even refrigerators!

Western Telecom might be fine, but they'd need to watch out for
Western Telephone and Telecommunications (WT&T), a tiny Toronto
company that specializes in old electromechanical key systems and
PBXs.  (Of course suggestions that WT&T's name was chosen to try to


                                          

confuse people are preposterous ...)

Northern Telecom has recently taken to calling itself Nortel; I'm not
sure what Nortel Manufacturing (a maker of glassblowing equipment)
thinks of this.  No clash unless it comes to fibre, perhaps ?


Tony Harminc

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



Since the stock ticker designator for AT&T is "T", I thought we could 
always 
call them "T2" and "T3"

Those of you who haven't heard of "Terminator 2" will no doubt not get 
this 
joke ...


Daryl
(801)378-2950       (801)489-6348
drg@du1.byu.edu     71171.2036@compuserve.com

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



bud@kentrox.com (Bud Couch) wrote:

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

If you'll recall, part of the consent decree was that AT&T could not
use the Bell name.  The one exception was Bell Labs, and the reason
had to do more with national prestige than any business reason.  If
you will remember, right after the breakup, AT&T changed it's name to
the name it had prior to becoming AT&T - American Bell.  This was the
name used in the late 1800s.  I still have a 9-track tape of UNIX
Version 7 for the 3B15 at home, with stickers all over it saying
(paraphrased) "Please note that all instances of the name American
Bell should be construed to be American Telephone and Telegraph
Company."  An acquaintance who worked for AT&T Computer Systems even
saved the name sign off the building.  "American Bell Computer
Systems."  Maybe now that time has passed and so many of the "Baby
Bells" have dropped the Bell name, AT&T will be allowed to adopt it
again for one of more of their divisions, but I doubt it.

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



Wiltel has recently been purchased by LDDS. You may wnat to look them up
in the book. 

As far as your rights, you will need to pay what your charges would have
been on the carrier you wnat or originally had. You will also want to 
have
the phone company "freeze" your PIC. Meaning that the phone company will
not change your carrier without your written approval. Slamming is
typically a result of the carrier sending in a request for your line to 
be
PICd to them. 

There are very tight FCC regulations around this issue today. They have
recently changed many of the requirements in favor of the consumer and 
the
carriers that are attempting to run a clean shop.

You can also file a complaint with the FCC and Public Service 
Commission.
This may not result in anything other than a mark against the carrier. 
If
they get enough marks they get investigated and in amny cases fined.

An Operator Services Provider (ONCOR) was recently fined $500,000 for
slamming 92 payphones. 

The system does work.

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



In article 13@eecs.nwu.edu, bowilliams@gems.vcu.edu (Boyce G. Williams,
Jr.) writes:

> I have a database of country codes and the name of the country that
> goes with it, but not much more.  My only "source" giving a clue about
> the display is an "Airman's Guide" I found in a bookstore where a
> German phone number is displayed as eleven digit "WW-XXXX-YY-ZZZ",
> English as eleven digit "WW-XXX-YY-ZZZZ" and Japan as ten digit
> "XX-YYYY-ZZZZ".  The first three digits is the country code, so how
> does the remainding numbers appears locally in that country?  

UK numbering isn't quite like that; there are several schemes. The 0
prefix is just to indicate to the equipment that you are making a
national call, and is not part of the number (but is still written.)

Metropolitan areas, with seven digit codes:

 (01x1) xxx xxxx [Old traditional areas]
 (011x) xxx xxxx [New areas, created 4/95 due to number shortage]

Other STD areas:

 (01xxx) xxxxxx
 (01xxx) xxxxx
 Some exchanges in the middle of nowhere are given as
 (01xxx xx) xxxx

 Whether these actually have four digit local numbers, I don't know. I 
though
 these had all been removed until one popped up on my bill. I know no 
way
 of identifying such exchanges without a lookup table.

Special services, without 01 prefix:

 0xxx xxxxxx


Peter Corlett ** corlepnd@aston.ac.uk
http://www.aston.ac.uk/~corlepnd

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



In article 11@eecs.nwu.edu, Ed Ellers <edellers@delphi.com> writes:

> Toby Nixon <tnixon@microsoft.com> writes:

>> So, why SHOULDN'T the phone network be designed so that computers can 
>> be connected to the network ANYWHERE and be permitted to input a 
>> fully-qualified international number (including country code) and 
have 
>> the NETWORK figure out how to route the call, instead of the computer 
>> needing to be pre-programmed to know exactly which subset of the 
phone 
>> number needs to be dialed, along with whatever prefixes are needed?  

> That could be done easily enough -- all AT&T (or whatever the new
> hardware company will be called), Northern Telecom and others have to
> do is rewrite their switch software.  However, this would eliminate
> the safety feature that now exists in most (but not all) areas where
> you can't accidentally dial a toll call as a local one or vice-versa.

Seems that the US phone system is rather odder than I thought ...  My
number is +44 121 373 xxxx, and a favourite BBS is +44 121 449 xxxx.
As the BBS is local, I can dial 449 xxxx as this is a local code, or
0121 449 xxxx -- which is what is actually dialed. 0044 121 449
xxxx is also a possibility, although it is a bit silly for my
purposes.

BT basically scrapped all the local access numbers (i.e. 9x was a 
shortcut
to another local exchange) and forced everyone to use full national 
numbers
except for your own exchange. Extra routing and billing intelligence was
introduced to handle the extra cases.

The situation is made a bit trickier by using an alternative carrier,
which means the user has to make the distinction, but you can arrange
a very good price deal with BT, which becomes cheaper than the other
operators.

So, basically whether you are local, long distance or international from
a UK number, you can dial the same thing.


Peter Corlett  corlepnd@aston.ac.uk 
http://www.aston.ac.uk/~corlepnd

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



Tom Spielman (tjspiel@maroon.tc.umn.edu) wrote:

> I've had trouble getting a modem to work on a multi-line phone system.
> The jack seems to be the same, but the modem doesn't get a dial tone.
> I've seen some modems that have multi-line features.  Do I need one of
> these?  Can I do it at all?

If your multi-line phone system is digital, you'll need some kind of 
convertor or a special modem. Many digital phone systems have options or 
ports for analog lines, so you could possibly use one of those if your 
system supports it. 

It sounds like you are not on an analog phone system or you would at 
least
get dial-tone. You could try testing the line with an analog phone (just 
bring one in from home) and see if you get anything on it. If you do, 
it's a modem problem. If you don't get a dial tone on the phone, you'll 
need to look into the other options for using your analog modem with 
your 
digital phone system.


Pete Kruckenberg    pete@inquo.net

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



In article <telecom15.425.1@eecs.nwu.edu>, Atri Indiresan 
<atri@eecs.umich.
edu> writes:

> US Naval Observatory Master Clock, Washington, DC
> Estimating network time delay for 4 seconds...delay =   20.5 ms
> MJD   DOY  UTC(USNO) (*<CR><LF> = on-time mark, follows ASCII)
> 49999 282 142613 UTC
> * 
> [many more deleted]
> 49999 282 142633 UTC
> * 

> [question: what is MJD?]

I'll venture a guess; was this by any chance for Sunday, 8 Oct. 1995?
The so-called Julian Date for 8 Oct is 2449999, so I'll guess that MJD
is the Julian Date minus 2400000 or else modulo 100000.

The Julian Date counts the number of days from the start of the Julian
epoch, some day several thousand years B.C.  This date was chosen, if I
recall, because the leap-year cycle, lunar cycle, and calendar were in
sync; details are a bit rusty in my mind.

The person who developed the Julian Date, and I forget his name, named
it for his father, who's given names were Julius Ceasar.  It has nothing
to do with the Julian calendar except that both were named, directly or
indirectly, after Julius Caesar.


Roger Wells

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



>  [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So either tick. (or) tock.usn.navy.mil
>  will work?     PAT]

 "Ve haf ways of making you tock!"


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are we finished with this thread now? All
in favor of ending it raise your hand.  Good, it is unanimous.    PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #434
******************************

                                                  
