Received: by bu-cs.BU.EDU (5.58/4.7) id AA11228; Thu, 12 Jan 89 01:42:40 EST Message-Id: <8901120642.AA11228@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 89 1:24:16 EST From: The Moderator Reply-To: TELECOM@bu-cs.BU.EDU Subject: TELECOM Digest V9 #12 To: TELECOM@bu-cs.bu.edu TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Jan 89 1:24:16 EST Volume 9 : Issue 12 Today's Topics: Switched 56 Info Switched 56 Update Telemarketing Hardware Time marches on... Re: Time marches on... Re: A Tiny Tim [Moderator's Note: This is *part 2* of the digest for Thursday 12 Jan. I am still processing some mail a couple days old. All letters will appear, given a couple more days. Patrick Townson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth_R_Jongsma@cup.portal.com To: telecom-request@xx.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Switched 56 Info Date: Tue, 10-Jan-89 10:06:14 PST I apparently have misled the net with my comment that Switched 56 service was readily available from most RBOCs and all you needed to do was call your RBOC. I based that comment on articles I had read in Teleconnect, Data Communications, etc., but not having used it personally. Open mouth, Insert Foot, Close Mouth. After receiving several request for more information, I decided to call my RBOC (Mich Bell) and ask about it. Their rep claimed that it had not been tarrifed in Michigan yet and was only available as a negotiated service. She didn't think it would be tarrifed for at least a year. I then called AT&T. They advertise the service as Digital Dataphone Service, with speeds up to 56K BPS. Now, one would think that it would be easy to get info from them, especially when one has an AT&T Marketing office in ones city, an AT&T Point of Presence in ones city, and a brand new 1989 phone book. Sigh. Local Offices - Data Services: "We don't know what you are talking about." Long Distance Services: "You're talking about a leased line, right?" Finally, someone took my name and said they would have someone else call me. I can hardly wait. I shall continue to persue this, perhaps calling some of the DSU/CSU vendors. However, if anyone else has any first hand knowledge, please speak up. Based on the inquiries I received, there is a lot of net interest in this product. ------------------------------ From: Kenneth_R_Jongsma@cup.portal.com To: telecom-request@xx.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Switched 56 Update Date: Tue, 10-Jan-89 15:43:42 PST Well, as it turns out, I wasn't as wrong as I thought I was. (Open Mouth, Remove Foot, Close Mouth) I received a call late today from my company's AT&T rep. She actually knew quite a bit about Switched 56 service. I shall attempt to paraphrase what she told me. Note: This is not an endorsement for AT&T. I assume MCI or Sprint can provide similar services. The biggest problem with my previous posting (in comp.dcom.modems), was saying to contact your RBOC for details on Switched 56. I tried that and found out that they know little about it and in many cases it may not be tariffed for local service yet. Call your account rep at your prefered Interexchange Carrier. If you use AT&T and don't know your rep, you can call 1-800-222-0400 and ask them to look up your rep's name for you. Switched 56 is available through most of country. Whether or not you can use it depends on how close you are to AT&T's Point of Presence (POP) and if your RBOC has the facilities (read: #5ESS, DMS-100, etc) in your area and the area you want to call. AT&T acts as a single point of contact for the entire circuit. Even though the tail ends of the circuit will be handled by the RBOC, you still call AT&T for installation, support, maintenance and billing. Rates are very contingent on what AT&T has to do to get the RBOC to install the circuit, so she wouldn't get me any ballpark prices. She was very willing to price specific circuits though. So... I stand by my original recommendation in that if you need small amounts (1-3 hours?)of large bandwidth a day, it may be very advantagous to consider pricing this option. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jan 89 17:07:54 +1100 (Wed) To: comp-dcom-telecom%munnari.oz@munnari.oz Path: otc!peterh From: peterh@otc.oz (Peter Holdaway) Subject: Telemarketing Hardware (was: Remote Method To Switch Incoming Lines) In article pdg@chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Guthrie) writes: > >By the way, if anybody is interested I have a Unix device driver for >Dialogic boards (in beta test). >Also, dialogic has a nice new board that lets you bring a T-Span >into a PC. You can then link it with another board they sell to do >the conferencing, A/D APCM conversion etc. Useful now for big >telemarketing people, but will be great for gateways if they >eventually provide ISDN PRI user side support. >-- >Paul Guthrie >chinet!nsacray!paul What sort of Unix and what sort of bus are we talking about here ? This sounds like the sort of thing I'm after so I'll contact Dialogic directly. Does anyone else know of, or can comment on experience with, currently available hardware to perform these sort of telemarketing functions. DTMF I/O A/D APCM conversion Conferencing Switching T1/CEPT Mux I would prefer to plug these boards into a Sun VME or PC(386i) bus, but I could probably live with a MeS-DOS environment. Peter Holdaway UUCP: {uunet,mcvax}!otc.oz!peterh ------------------------------ From: Mark Brader To: bu-cs.bu.edu!telecom@lsuc Subject: Time marches on... Date: Mon, 9 Jan 89 19:25:34 EST Patrick Townson writes: > ... people with touch tone phones are still a > *minority* in the United States, let alone other countries. ... > Yet we look at an 'antique' rotary dial phone and say how quaint ... This, I think, has to do with television and the movies. If you watch a show from the era when "dialing" meant just that, you'll notice that they usually cut away after 2 or 3 digits have been dialed. There's just too much dead time waiting for the character to dial 7 digits (or so), unless the director is trying for (a) extra realism, (b) extra tension, or (c) comic effect. The widespread availability of Touch Tone phones meant that this little distortion could be done away with, and now Touch Tone is almost all that you see. And if you don't see one on TV or in the movies any more, it must be an antique, right? I still remember the scene in ACE IN THE HOLE (1951, a.k.a. THE BIG CARNIVAL) where reporter Kirk Douglas is phoning his editor. He asks the long distance operator for a New York number, say "New York 73204". And then he gives the number he's calling from: "Escadrilo 2"! When I first saw this scene it sounded wonderfully periodish. Then in 1983 I went to New Zealand. The user interface to the phone system there is generally very like the British one, except of course for the dials which are numbered the other way around. Well, my wife and I were with a friend (Robert Biddle) in Te Anau (a beautiful spot), and he placed a call to a hotel in Milford Sound (a still more beautiful spot ... but I digress). He was transferring the charge, so he couldn't direct-dial the call. After it, he reported to us: Robert: I'd like to make a transferred-charge call to Milford Sound. Please charge it to Spencerville 269. Operator: That's Spencerville 269, and you're calling Milford Sound 6. Robert: How did you know that?! Operator: It's the only telephone in Milford Sound. Robert: !! Operator: Except for the box outside the post office, and I didn't think you'd be calling that. As we drove THE road to Milford Sound the next day, we noticed poles alongside with exactly 2 wires on them. Robert noted, "That must be for THE telephone". Antique? What's antique? Mark Brader "That's what progress is for. Progress SoftQuad Inc., Toronto is for creating new forms of aggravation." utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- Keith Jackson ------------------------------ To: comp-dcom-telecom@rutgers.edu From: nelson@kodak.com (bruce nelson) Subject: Re: Time marches on... Date: 10 Jan 89 04:36:29 GMT >From the 1953 Binghamton, NY phone book (you never know when you have to look up someone's 1953 phone number :-) 1. Obtain the number from the directory. For example 7-3245. 2. Remove the receiver and listen for the dial tone, - a steady humming sound. 3. Then place your finger in the hole in the dial over the figure "7" and turn the dial around until your finger strikes the stop. 4. Raise your finger and without touching the dial allow it to return to its original position. 5. Then dial the figures "3","2","4" and "5". Listen for the RINGING SIGNAL, an intermittent burring sound which indicates that the called telephone is being rug. If the called telephone is busy you will hear instead the BUSY SIGNAL, a rapid buzz-buzz-buzz quicker and louder than the ringing sugnal. If the party you are calling does not answer after several attempts, call "88" and ask whether the number has been changed or disconnected. Simple, isn't it? Bruce D. Nelson | UUCP: ...!rutgers!rochester!kodak!hawkeye!nelson Eastman Kodak Company | Voice: 716-726-7890 901 Elmgrove Road | Rochester, NY 14653-5219 | ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 89 09:47:50 PST (Monday) Subject: Re: A Tiny Tim From: schwartz.osbunorth@xerox.com To: comp-dcom-telecom@decwrl.dec.com Still more on "... hooking an automobile accident to a computer ..." The January 8 edition of the San Jose Mercury News (Section F, pages 1, 7) had an article entitled "Disabled find jobs on-line." The article lists the following local agencies "that can help the disabled obtain computer training." 1. The Bridge Project: Sunnyvale (408) 736-9041 2. Project Hired: Sunnyvale (408) 730-0880 3. The California Department of Rehabilitation: San Jose (408) 277-1350 4. The CIL-Computer Training Center: Berkeley (415) 849-2911 (voice or TTY) 5. Disabled Programmers Inc.: San Jose (408) 629-3700 The article has more information on each of these organizations. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest *********************