
From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu  Tue Oct 10 23:44:15 1995
by
1995
23:44:15 -0400
telecomlist-outbound; Tue, 10 Oct 1995 20:00:59 -0500
1995
20:00:57 -0500
To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 10 Oct 95 20:00:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 429

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Cross-Canada Trip (Dave Leibold)
    Dutch Renumbering Scheme Almost an April 1 Joke (Alex van Es)
    Distributed Line Hunt (Kevin Kadow)
    Telecommunications Survey (Judith Oppenheimer)
    Telecommunications Survey in _The_Economist_ (Bob Goudreau)
    California Opportunity/Help Wanted (Bob Schwartz)
    Enterprise Management Summit '95 - Free Exhibits Pass 
(summit@netcom.com)
    Opinions on PC-Based IVR Systems (Wynn Quon)
    Redundant Systems (D. Matthew Ford)
    Periphonics VPS 7000 For Sale (James Wiley)
    FCC Issues NPRM re Toll Free Numbers (Judith Oppenheimer)
    Circuit ID Formats (Randy Tischler)

TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
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----------------------------------------------------------------------



I had the opportunity to travel throughout Canada in August, some of
it by rail (an endangered species here), the rest by bus.

Cards ...

This was a good opportunity to try out a few of the pre-paid phone
cards that are now available to Canadians. This included a $15 value
Bell Canada "Hello" pass which was included with VIA Rail's Canrailpass, 
a Trendwatch card, and a Callsaver card.

All these cards operate using an 800 number access, with a "PIN" or card
number code. The prepaid amounts associated with the cards is reduced as
calls are made. Customer service numbers were printed on all three
brands of cards. PIN numbers were 8 digits for Trendwatch, 10 digits
for Callsaver, and 12 digits for Bell/Stentor's Hello pass.

The Hello pass operation was straightforward enough, but the recorded
introductory greeting changed according to which province one was in.
In British Columbia, the greeting would mention "BC Tel" while in
Manitoba it would say "MTS". The confusing part occurs when users are
prompted to enter their "BC Tel", "MTS" or "MT&T" Hello card numbers,
even though the card itself may have been bought in Bell Canada 
territory.

I noticed no call supervision problems, especially with the Hello
pass, although another make of card (Cardinal) warns that billing
begins after five rings. It's normally possible to access touch-tone
operated services after placing the call (again, different card
companies may give different results).

Rates: the Hello pass costs start at 50c/min for calls within a
province, or $1 within Canada to another province. The Callsaver
card has the lowest rates based in the 416/905 area codes; that is,
a call placed from anywhere in Canada or the USA to a 416/905 point
costs the lowest 50c/min rate (to the rest of Canada and continental
USA, the Callsaver rate is 65c/min). All cards are generally good
at indicating how much time is left to complete a given call, or
otherwise indicates how many units are left to be used.

Wild North-West ...

The Edmonton-Yellowknife bus trip takes two transfers and just under
23 hours to do. One bus stop was at Indian Cabins, Alberta (just a few
km south of the NWT border); this place has but 8 residents connected
with a highway store. One can find a radio payphone there (lift the
receiver, wait for the radio operator, arrange for payment accordingly). 
Arctic Frontier Carriers, the bus operator responsible for the Hay
River/Enterprise to Yellowknife link of the trip, lives up to its
name: the driver has radio contact throughout the trip, particularly
useful considering there are very few settlements along the way, and
plenty of gravel road to boot.

In Yellowknife, Northwestel's offices take up one of the taller 
buildings
in the city (just down the street from where I stayed, at one of the 
other
taller buildings).

This city of 15k has most of the telephone features taken for granted
in the rest of North America: credit card dialing, call waiting,
reasonable quality connections. The various phone cards can even be
used in the north, thanks to 800 number access.

Other Yellowknife features:

* Free local phone calls could be made from the tourist centre.

* One of the streets there is actually called Ragged Ass Road (one 
wonders
  why the city can't seem to maintain a street sign for this :-)).

* Summer months are actually quite warm, despite the northern latitude.
  Gardeners are very active as are cyclists. The winter months are 
something
  else, though.

* Canada Post ate the postcard sent to my parents ... this is but one
  of the reasons many Canadians have a healthy respect for the USPS.
  Other postcards did at least reach their destinations. 'Net postcards
  here we come...

Not as Wild West ...

Edmonton: Ed Tel maintains a historical telephone museum in this city,
complete with various phones, a caller ID demo, a chance to play with
limited versions of step-by-step, crossbar and electronic switches, and
even a few examples of telephones that survived fires (albeit in 
different
shape than they were originally). A few of the exhibits once lived in
Toronto's Ontario Science Centre, such as a wire-pair matching game
(i.e. learn how to tell which ends of two-colour coded wires will make
the connections). The Ed Tel museum is not to be confused with the
less elaborate "Vista 33" which is AGT's mini-museum. I don't know if
there are plans to merge the two (or if this had been done, since I
didn't visit Vista 33 this time).

Saskatoon: The Diefenbaker centre is a museumish building on the U. of
Saskatchewan campus that is named after the former Prime Minister.
Among the Diefenbaker memorabilia sits a blue-turquoise coloured 
telephone
with a handset plaque that reads:

   "Presented to the Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker, P.C., Q.C., M.P.
   Prime Minister of Canada, who used this instrument in conversation
   with President J.F. Kennedy of The United States of America Between
   Whitehorse, Y.T. and Hyannisport, Mass. July 22, 1961 to inaugurate
   the Canadian National Telecommunications Canada-Alaska Microwave
   System."

Winnipeg: MTS announced its "Name That Number" service, a pay
offering where callers dial 555.1313, give up to two subscriber
numbers for 50 cents, and get the names for those numbers. Similar
services exist in the U.S. in places such as Chicago and Tampa. This
was subject to CRTC approval.

The trains often take breaks of 10-60 minutes at certain stations.
These allow for such things as servicing, crew changes, etc. Many
passengers often take such opportunities to wander around, make phone
calls, check out the town scenery. At one such break, the Sioux
Lookout, Ontario has no payphones; the nearest ones found were at a
convenience store across the street (and both were utterly
dysfunctional when I found them on the eastbound journey back to
Ontario).

Looking East ...

Not much to report on the Atlantic, other than MT&T's payphones in
Halifax are mostly without phone books. In better news, the main library
in that city has a terminal or two connected to the Chebucto Free-Net,
and even had some colour WWW browser terminals on hand.

Montreal was the first place I spotted Bell Canada's specially-equipped
payphones for their forthcoming QuickChange/LaPuce EEPROM cards. This
should begin to bring Canada up to the sorts of card services available
in many other nations.

Those are just a few scattered highlights of this year's big vacation.
The Canadian Thanksgiving weekend has just begun, so holiday greetings
as appropriate.


Fidonet:  Dave Leibold 1:259/730@fidonet.org
Internet: Dave.Leibold@f730.n259.z1.gryn.org

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



October 10th is a date marked on many company calenders here in the
Netherlands. For a change the reason is not a national holiday but on
this day almost six million phone numbers are going to be renumbered.
Phonenumbers starting with 020 (Amsterdam), 010 (Rotterdam), 070 (The
Hague) and the cities Almere and Almelo are not being affected by the
renumbering.

Nationwide the Dutch PTT has been spreading renumbering guides. Other
products that are available are PC programs to convert data files and 
portable calculators that can convert numbers for you.

Your truly is one of the person being affected by this renumbering
scheme.  Luckily my phone number is only going to get a extra digit,
changing the number from 055-421184 into 055-5421184. Unfortunatly
there are many people being less lucky, getting an extra digit PLUS a
total new areacode.

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.

Luckily the PTT is spending millions in commercials reminding people
to dial the new number from October 10th on. 

The reasons for the renumbering are;

- making the European 112 alarm number possible
- creating space for extra numbers
- leaving room for competition

Especially that last reason "leaving room for competition" is mentioned
a lot as a good reason. "The dutch market wants a second telecom 
provider,
so we had no choice then to renumber and create space"; almost blaming
the dutch customer for wanting a second provider. 


Alex van Es
Alex@Worldaccess.NL, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands
Phone:+31-55-421184  Pager:+31-6-59333551 (CT-2 Greenpoint)
Voicemail: +31-6-59958458

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



Does anybody have information on the Distributed Line Hunt service?
Getting information from Ameritech is like pulling teeth.

Apparently this differs from a standard hunt group in that the switch
"remembers" which line answered a call last, then presents the next
call on the next line in sequence. Possibly also known as "Uniform
Call Distribution".

This is useful for when you have a pool of people taking phone orders
and you don't want all the calls to go to the person on line 1 because
all the calls ring there first and hunt down.

Here's the question:

My provider has 64 lines, of which 1/3+ are USR Couriers with the
33.6Kbps software. Right now all the USR modems are at the "bottom" of
the hunt, so people who call the first number hunt through all 64
modems, and people who call the 40th number get the first of the USR
modems.

If service is switched to a DLH(UCD?) hunt group, will I still be able
to get a 33.6 connection by calling the 40th number, or will the call
go to the next modem after the one that answered the call before mine?

Basically what I want to know is if DLH applies to just the first hunt 
number
or to every number in the group.


Thanks!

kadokev@msg.net      Kevin Kadow

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



The URL also contains a new web d.comm site. 
 
> From owner-futurework@csf.colorado.edu Sat Oct  7 14:13 EDT 1995 
> The latest Telecommunications Survey of The Economist is available on: 
> http://www.economist.com 


Judith Oppenheimer, President 
Interactive CallBrand(TM):  Strategic Leadership, Competitive 
Intelligence 
Producer@pipeline.com.    Ph: +1 800 The Expert.    Fax: +1 212 684-
2714. 

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



Readers of the Digest may find the 32-page survey of telecommunications
in the September 30th issue of _The_Economist_ magazine to be of some
interest.  You don't even need to be a subscriber to see this survey;
it's available on the World Wide Web at http://www.economist.com .

On a related note, the acknowledgements in the survey mention a
Jonathan Solomon as one of those due thanks.  This wouldn't happen
to be the TELECOM Digest's own "JSol", would it?


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


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I don't know if it is or not. I
have heard nothing about it. If it is, maybe he will write and tell us.
I can't really imagine it being anyone else.   PAT]

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



I've been asked to post this Help Wanted and to field replies. Recent
articles quote ISDN "cheerleaders" as saying that sales are exploding as
more and more people and businesses want faster ways to access the World
Widw Web while sending and recieving pictures, spreadsheets, and large
files. 
                     --------------------

POSITION: Sales, commissioned

LOCATION: California. Telecommute from your home. Company located in 
Marin
County. 

DESCRIPTION: Developing leads and closing sales of ISDN (business and
residential), Centrex, and LEC call discount plans. 

Please send cover letter and resume: E-Mail, Bob@BCI.NBN.COM or Fax
(415)459-0258 Attn. Bob Schwartz. No voice calls please.

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





                                                               

If you would like to attend Enterprise Management Summit'95, free
SummitPlus show floor passes are available by calling 800-340-2111. You
can also register by accessing the Summit web site at
http://www.summit.micromuse.com.  The SummitPlus pass includes access
to:

* Show floor on October 23, 24, and 25.
* Solutions Centers on Asset Management (sponsored by Intel), Help Desk
(sponsored by Remedy), and Proactive Management (sponsored by CoroNet).

* Keynote addresses by Don Haile of IBM (Managing Information In The
Next Millennium), Jonathan Roberts of Microsoft (Microsoft's Back
Office Strategy), and Making Enterprise Management Work - A Real
World Perspective sponsored by Network Computing Magazine.
* The Wall Street Journal's "Measuring Your Marketability"
* All 14 Product Directions Sessions

Summit '95 will be held this October 23-27 at the Dallas InfoMart. The
theme this year is 'Managing Technology to Meet Business Needs'. Major
areas covered this year include asset management, software
distribution, help desk, applications management, and proactive
management. There will be 57 tutorials and technical sessions, and 50+
exhibitors. The 1995 Summit Shoot-Out will feature Bull, Cabletron,
DEC, IBM, and SunSoft competing head-to-head to show the most effective
enterprise management solution. 

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



Hi, we're looking for an Interactive Voice Response system with an
Applications
Generator package that runs on a PC under Windows 95.

What are your best recommendations?  Is there a mainstream product out 
there
which is the industry leader?

Our requirements are:

* must be highly reliable
* ability to support concurrent voice mail and audiotext applications
* excellent technical support
* user-friendly interface
* ability to access a proprietary database (using ASCII command strings
  over an RS232 port) based upon voice response events
* price is not a major factor but is a consideration
* what's more important is that we want to avoid products that are 
likely to
  be orphaned either through poor support or business problems

The selected package will be part of an OEM offering in conjunction
with a Mitel system, hence the requirement for excellent technical
support.

Please respond via post and e-mail.


Thanks!

Wynn Quon    Mitel Corp. 
             
------------------------------



Hi,

     We have two T-1's coming in from two different LD carriers.  They
both come from the same NJ Bell CO (609-784).  Is there a way to have
one of them come from different CO's on different lines so that if
there is a problem between the CO and us, we can still have service
through a different CO?  Our customers have been saved from an outage
on one of our LD carriers before because they could call a different
800 number to access us over a different carrier, but if the CO or the
line coming from the CO has a problem.  Any comments appreciated.


D Matthew Ford    DMatthewF@aol.com

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



Tarleton State University has a Periphonics model VPS 7000 voice
response unit for sale.  Please contact me for more information.  TSU
is in Stephenville Texas.


Thanks,

James L. Wiley
Tarleton State University
Steohenville TX  76402
wiley@Tarleton.edu
817.968.9397

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



The FCC has issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC 95-419)
regarding "The Fair and Efficient Use of Toll Free Numbers".
 
Comments in this proceeding are due November 1, 1995, and reply comments
are due November 15, 1995. 
 
 
Judith Oppenheimer, President 
Interactive CallBrand(TM):  Strategic Leadership, Competitive 
Intelligence 
Producer@pipeline.com.    Ph: +1 800 The Expert.    Fax: +1 212 684-
2714. 
ICB publishes inTELigence, the newsletter that separates fact from 
fiction.
 Call or email for a sample issue, and subscription information. 

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



It dawned on me the other day that, of all the acronym lists and
telecom term glossaries and LATA maps and telco test numbers available
in the Telecom Archives and in other places on the net, there is
nothing regarding circuit IDs.

I have noticed that different telcos follow different formats
depending on things like the bandwidth of a circuit, the physical
location on one end or the other (or both), the LATA in which it
resides, etc.  Others are just a blob of numbers after some
predictable string of letters and/or numbers.

Has anyone compiled a list of these, and if so, where might I find
this?


Randy

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

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #429
******************************

                                                                                    
