Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA00901; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 11:23:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 11:23:13 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608121523.LAA00901@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #401 TELECOM Digest Mon, 12 Aug 96 11:23:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 401 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Republicans Come to Town - The Lights Go Out! (Stephen Satchell) Re: Republicans Come to Town - The Lights Go Out! (Steven Lichter) "Genuine Nynex Payphone" Limiting Number of Touch Tone Digits (D. Burstein) "Wrong numbers" in Britain (Dave Close) Help Needed With Apartment Building Wiring (scorpio1@interport.net) Re: 612/320 and Beyond (John Cropper) Re: 612/320 and Beyond (Rob Wood) Re: Pay Phone 800 Number Charge? (Kyle Rhorer) Re: Satellite TV Services (Larry Irons) Re: Number Crunch (Ron Kritzman) Re: Number Crunch (Clint Gilliland) Re: ISDN D-Channel Data and Internet Voice (John Agosta) Re: How Low Can Loop Voltage Go? (Jean-Francois Mezei) Re: Why Do US Online Phone Directories Only Have Stale Data? (Mike Fox) Re: Caller ID: Names Passed Between LECs? (Art Kamlet) Re: Caller ID: Names Passed Between LECs? (Tony Harminc) Re: Touch Tones in Movies? (Ed Ellers) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 01:45:21 -0700 From: satchell@accutek.com (Stephen Satchell) Subject: Re: Republicans Come to Town - The Lights Go Out! Organization: Satchell Evaluations In article , ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote: > So, the weekend brought another major power outage to the western USA > once again. Millions of people without power -- most important perhaps > their lights and air-conditioning in hundred degree temperatures -- > for several hours. Tsk, tsk ... > As the Republicans were arriving in southern California for their > convention, the power went out. What a great way to greet your visitors, > guys! > Anyone have the true story/facts/excuses made this time around? From San Francisco radio station KCBS during the coverage (I was at ISPone during the fiasco): At the Oregon/California border, the monitors on the Pacific Intertie detected that there was a frequency mismatch, and the breakers operated as they were supposed to. This caused a HUGE load-shedding event in nine states as the local generators could not begin to keep up with demand. The interesting point about this is that the shedding was spotty. For example, the area around Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco (the center itself, and the traffic lights around it) had power, but two blocks away in just about any direction the power was GONE. Even more funny, as area by area would be restored, sometimes the newly-restored area would drop again, sometimes only after minutes. My home in Incline Village (Lake Tahoe) never lost power, based on the fact that my VCR and microwave oven all show the correct time and not "blinking 12s". I don't know if Reno, Virginia City, or Carson City lost power, but I'll find out on Monday when I compare notes at the local restaurant here. Footnote: when I was driving home, I discovered that Vacaville -- on I-80 about 50 miles east of SF -- had lost power *today*. Stephen Satchell, Satchell Evaluations http://www.accutek.com/~satchell ------------------------------ From: slichte@cello.gina.calstate.edu (Steven Lichter) Subject: Re: Republicans Come to Town - The Lights Go Out! Date: 12 Aug 1996 05:34:21 -0700 Organization: GINA and CORE+ Services of The California State University ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) writes: > As the Republicans were arriving in southern California for their > convention, the power went out. What a great way to greet your visitors, > guys! > Anyone have the true story/facts/excuses made this time around? The power outage I'm sure you know effected everyone from Canada to Mexico and as far east as Texas. They are saying it was a fire that caused wires feeding California to short which in turn caused breakers all over the west to shut down and operate on their own, leaving California with not enough power and the northwest with too much. The outage was from a few seconds to several hours with a couple of areas being out over 24 hours. It caused a bit of a problem because I saw where many stop lights went nuts once the power came back on and all the electronic ran gas pumps had to be reset; I was getting gas at the time and was a little annoyed even thought the power came back right away since I had to wait another five minutes for them to reset. My systems at home stayed on since I have a rather large UPS that was made for a Lan, so all was fine here, with the exception of my air conditioner being a little confused for a while. SysOp Apple Elite II and OggNet Hub (909)359-5338 2400/14.4 24 hours, Home of GBBS/LLUCE Support for the Apple II and Macintosh computers. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 05:26:05 EDT From: danny burstein Subject: "Genuine Nynex Payphone" Limiting Number of Touch Tone Digits Maybe someone could explain the rationale behind this one? I can't figure out any. To make this even more ironic I discovered the problem when calling a Nynex number ... Earlier today I paid my (home) Nynex bill at an authorized payment location. (These are "outsourced" by Nynex, which has very, very, few of their own offices, or employees, anymore). After getting my receipt I called Nynex's automated accounting system to let it know I had paid. This involves a 1-800 number, then punching in the billing number, a code, etc. About two thirds of the way through the menu sequences I got a synthesized voice announcement which said something like "no additional digits may be dialed at this time". And sure enough, anytime I hit a touch tone key I heard the tone, then got the same msg. I suspect that the tone I heard was _not_ sent over the link, and that the voice I heard was generated by the payphone itself, but I can't readily verify this. Anyway, I've been scratching my head to come up with a reason why a "genuine Nynex payphone" (i.e., not a cocot) would have any use for such a limit, and can't come up with any that warrant the disruption and annoyance such a "feature" provides. Oh, I'll be sending off a PSC complaint a bit later today, as I can easily see this blocking my access to other voicemail systems as well as my long distance carrier. dannyb@panix.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Hint ... it has something to do with drug dealers using payphones and the other nemesis of society, toll fraud. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Close Subject: "Wrong numbers" in Britain Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 23:01:28 -0700 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California To avoid copyright infringement, I'll merely send along the URL. This article discusses the issue of phone number exhaustion in Britain and the continent. http://www.economist.com/issue/10-08-96/br3.html Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu ------------------------------ From: scorpio1@interport.net Subject: Help Needed With Apartment Building Wiring Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 10:06:42 -0400 Organization: Interport Communications Corp. I have is this question; I'm in NY my telco is NYNEX. Where I live there are two buildings, that share a inside wall, and other things. We have a main line that come from a pole, to one of the building's basement; like 150ft to 200ft, from the pole to the building basement. From there the main line splits in to two, one for each building going like 75ft each apart to each box. These are the old terminal boxes that need a nut wrench to connect the wires. There is so much of a mess in the boxes with a bunch of wires every- where, that when telco comes to repair or connect a new service always they break someone else's line. I told them that if this happen again I not going to let anyone go there and work in the lines; they better fix it from the street. Usually when some line is not working, the first thing they said is that the problem is in the basement. I know for a fact that the problem is not there; the problem is where the other telco men are working on the street someplace else and breaking the lines on there. Later they want to come to the building and try to find an empty pair so they can change the line to other pair. 1) Can I tell NYNEX to put a new box (one 66 block or two 66 blocks ) where the main cable enters the basement; just there instead of the two boxes? I think one place is much better, so all the lines from each building can go to only one place. Can I specify what type of block like cat 4 or 5 or can I buy a 66 block myself, install it there and tell NYNEX to put all the wires in there? 2) Can I make them change the old main line, and put a new from the basement box to the pole or some where else? Can I specify what type and how many wires, I think 100 to 200 pairs is enough, since there is a total of 24 apartments between buildings. 3) Right know the main line that is coming to the buildings sucks. In that line are I think ten exchanges. None of them offers ISDN or some of the other services like CALL ANSWERING, etc. The problem is that the line routes to some place and that place don't support this services, some of the exchanges do, but since they route to that place is not way to get some of the services. Is there anything that I can do about it?. 4) Is there going to be any charge to the building or that is the telco responsibility. Any ideas, or other things that I can ask them. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You raise a lot of questions and I will answer just a few and pass the others along to whoever wants to answer them. First of all, you do not indicate if you are the landlord (or the landlord's representative) or simply a tenant in the building. If you are the latter, there is nothing at all you can do. If you are the landlord's representative, i.e. caretaker for the property, then I would suggest the best thing you might do is speak to a foreman or supervisor at Nynex responsible for outside plant and tell them what you said here. Tell them you believe it is time to install a new demarc and completely organize/identify the wire pairs coming in to the buildings because of the repeated problems with service interupptions and other problems identifying each subscriber's wires. I do not think you can force them to change any of their own equipment/wiring, and it does belong to them until it reaches the terminal box. From that point on throughout the building is sort of a grey area: some telcos define 'demarc' as the point where the wires enter each individual tenant's apartment. In other cases 'demarc' is the spot in the building where all the 'house pair' wires take over from the wires coming in from outside the building. Typically in real old buildings such as yours, most telcos are willing to make a liberal definition of 'demarc' and not hold the landlord/tenants responsible for the costs of replacement/repair, particularly if telco did all the inside wiring as well how ever many decades ago. See if you can speak with someone in authority at Nynex involved in outside plant repairs and maintainence and relate what you said here. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 06:23:05 GMT Subject: Re: 612/320 and Beyond From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) On Aug 08, 1996 23.53.40, '"Rob Wood" ' wrote: > I recently had the opportunity to review a US West flyer relating to > NPA 320 and found out that 612 will be down to its final 54 prefixes > by late August. Hopefully Round 2 will not cut it as close. If 612 keeps adding prefixes at the rate it has the first two quarters of this year, US West should begin another permissive period NO LATER than 4Q96, to be mandatory 4Q97. Given the reduced area, I'd have to recommend an overlay this time around ... > Once the permissive period ends, I count 244 prefixes comfortably > available. Therefore, I would anticipate that at the rate we're > using phone numbers, Round 2 may start late 1997 since relief may be > needed perhaps summer 1998 ... Much sooner, I'm afraid ... AT&T's "big experiment" in local service will be in Chicago (they'll actually be laying their *own* fiber). I'm sure they'll want to test the waters in other nearby markets, and this could intensify number consumption. > The vast majority of 612's NXX's will consist of the Twin Cittes > calling area. All calls between any number in the region are local > calls. Therefore, I expect the debate over the next relief to be a > contentious one, since we would be looking at ten-digit local calls. As I said above, an overlay would probably be the recommendation of anyone with common sense. Unfortunately, the heavy hitters (AT&T, MCI, et al.) won't let it happen without a fight. John Cropper * NiS / NexComm Content is the sole property of the * PO Box 277 originating poster. Please relegate * Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 ALL on-topic responses to this * Inside NJ : 609.637.9434 newsgroup. Unsolicited private mail * Outside NJ: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) is prohibited, and will be referred * Fax : 609.637.9430 unabridged to sender's ISP. * email: psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: Rob Wood Organization: Rob Wood - Minnetonka, MN USA Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 09:01:12 -0500 Subject: Re: 612/320 and Beyond John Cropper responded: > AT&T's "big experiment" in local service will be in Chicago (they'll > actually be laying their *own* fiber). I'm sure they'll want to test the > waters in other nearby markets, and this could intensify number > consumption. >> The vast majority of 612's NXX's will consist of the Twin Cittes >> calling area. All calls between any number in the region are local >> calls. Therefore, I expect the debate over the next relief to be a >> contentious one, since we would be looking at ten-digit local calls ... > As I said above, an overlay would probably be the recommendation of anyone > with common sense. Unfortunately, the heavy hitters (AT&T, MCI, et al.) > won't let it happen without a fight. Given that Minnesota considered an overlay this time, I would be surprised to see an overlay in this case. Mandatory dialing of the NPA for long distance in all cases came in September 1994 - to all parts of Minnesota at the same time, and I doubt that mandatory ten-digit local dialing will sell well outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Hence, I am thinking split instead of overlay. However, I am envisioning a lengthy battle with various municipalities jockeying for position on the matter - CO's do not seem to respect city or county boundaries to a major extent. I anticipate that the dialing scheme will be akin to the Seattle area following the three-way split in Round 2. Rob Wood robwoo19@skypoint.com Minnetonka, MN USA ------------------------------ From: rhorer@phoenix.net (Kyle Rhorer) Subject: Re: Pay Phone 800 Number Charge? Date: 11 Aug 1996 23:55:14 GMT Organization: KB5IMO Wes Leatherock (wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com) wrote: > You must not have visited Texas recently. I did, a month or > month and a half ago, and did not find a single pay phone which did > not charge for calls to 800 numbers. (I also did not find a single > SWBT [RBOC] pay phone, although I noted a few such indicated by > signs at places where I did not need to make a call.) I have lived in Texas my whole life, and have only encountered ONE pay phone that wanted money to complete an 800 call. I'm sure that just like everything else, policies vary from region to region (and Texas *is* a big state), but generally speaking it has been my experience that 800 calls from Texas pay phones are still free. Kyle Rhorer rhorer@phoenix.net http://www.phoenix.net/~rhorer ------------------------------ From: Larry Irons Subject: Re: Satellite TV Services Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 23:07:46 -0600 Organization: Qadas Online Curtis Wheeler wrote: > On another note. While this is not really laid out in black and > white, you don't necessarily have the right to do what you wish with > radio signals coming into your back yard. At least this is the > argument I would use if I was representing the government in court. The > way I look at it, when the communications act of 1934 was adopted, and > the FCC was created, the radio spectrum in the U.S. was, for practical > purposes, comdemned by the government under what may be called it's > imminent domain. Just like they can condemn your house and force you > to move so they can put in a freeway. Essentially the regulated > "airwaves" have an easment in your back yard. The government took > over because it was obvious that technologies were going to require > that the spectrum be managed and regulated if it was going to do the > public any good. > Could you imagine what it would be like today if there was no management > of radio spectrum and everyone just did as they please? When the federal govenrment condemns property, they must compensate the individual for its fair market value. That's written in the Bill of Rights. If the Federal government seized all radio frequencies for their own use, did they take something without due process and without due compensation. In other words, have they compensated my ancestors, myself, and my descendants for the control of the airwaves. Obviously, prior to the FCC, the airwaves were unregulated and free to be used by anyone without payment. Today, the government auctions off the frequency bands to the highest bidder. Where is my royalty? Now that's a case that I await. Larry Irons irons@qadas.com Lakewood, Colorado [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No more smart talk like that from you if you please. If you keep making suggestions like that, you will get listed as one of those 'extreme right' type people the government is trying so hard to get rid of right now. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ron Kritzman Subject: Re: Number Crunch Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 09:15:22 GMT Organization: Kritzman Communications Lauren Weinstein wrote: > First, it is far too easy for entities to reserve huge blocks of > numbers for services before they are needed, eating up large segments > of the numbering space. My many years in the beeper business confirm this. If you want the telcos to connect you as a telco rather than as an end user, you get whole prefixes and take T spans (or higher) from the tandems. When you're running 30,000 calls per hour through your paging switch, you can hardly sit there as an end user hanging off of whatever CO is local to your office building. However, when you hit subscriber 50,001 you need 10,000 more numbers. As early as 1980 someone suggested going back to "overdial" paging to avoid a future number crunch. (Overdial is where instead of each pager having a phone number the caller dials an access number to get into the paging system, then punches in the pager number.) The phone companies, he said, could set up a special three digit access code instead of a seven digit number. This would allow the callers to dial three digits, then the pager number. Hey ... wait a minute ... that sounds like an overlay areacode for wireless. DOH! Ron ------------------------------ From: clintcrg@aol.com (Clint CRG) Subject: Re: Number Crunch Date: 11 Aug 1996 14:10:30 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: clintcrg@aol.com (Clint CRG) There are costs to reserving numbers. Pacific Tel charges us $45 per 100 numbers for our DID blocks. There is a $1500 charge if we release the numbers before two years. You can't tie up large blocks of numbers without some cost. This prevents frivolus hoarding. Clint Gilliland TCI/BR Communications Sunnyvale, CA ------------------------------ From: jagosta@interaccess.com (John Agosta) Subject: Re: ISDN D-Channel Data and Internet Voice Date: 11 Aug 1996 16:01:05 GMT Organization: Agosta and Associates In article , azur@netcom.com says: > Does anyone know which states have tariffed D-channel service, and how > they are priced? Ameritech has D channel packet service available, and you can access thier WEB page for pricing and other specifics. However, I don't think you'll be able to use the Dx.25 service for voice calls, internet or not. ja ------------------------------ From: Jean-Francois Mezei Subject: Re: How Low Can Loop Voltage Go? Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 00:31:12 +0000 Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@videotron.ca I have an accoustic coupler which provides an RJ11 so that a normal modem thinks it is plugged into a phone line when in fact, it is accoustically plugged into a telephone handset. The accoustic coupler works on a 9vdc battery. If the idle line voltage is anywhere between 30 and 80 volts, how does this affect a modem when the voltage provided by the accoustic coupler wouldn't be much higher than 9vdc? Is the high voltage required because of the very long lines between the CO and the telephone? ------------------------------ From: Mike Fox Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 08:33:12 GMT Subject: Re: Why Do US Online Phone Directories Only Have Stale Data? >> Some of my friends moved *months* ago, as well as some businesses I deal >> with. Their new addresses don't show yet in online directories. > I moved 19 months ago. One of the directories (switchboard.com) still > lists the old number, even though at least one (perhaps two) new > editions of the phone book have appeared since then. Of course they > can't find a new number for me, which may be why they keep the old > one. Or they may have lost interest. I moved from a listed number to another listed number in the same city in February, 1995. New phone books with the correct information have been out for six months. But Switchboard is still not up to date, even though their homepage says they were refreshed in August, 1996 (maybe the refresh is ongoing?). Infospace (http://206.129.166.101/people.html) does give my old address, the date it was last updated, and a notation that "this is the last known address before a note of change of address was received." I wonder where they got the fact that my address changed, but didn't get the new information? I wonder what source they are using. wyp.net was shut down because they were using a commercial phone disc for their data; the phone disc maker found out about it and sued. I would imagine that other pages like this that are using phone discs are pretty short-lived. I don't think these web listing services are any good. I have yet to find one that has my correct information, and I moved 18 months ago! I'm not impressed with the completeness or usefulness of these directories. Later, Mike ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Caller ID: Names Passed Between LECs? Date: 11 Aug 1996 11:54:11 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Jeffrey Rhodes wrote: > This is where the magic takes place. The delivered CPN can be used to > locate the calling CO. It would be very intensive to have every CO > "know" the SS7 point code of every NPA-NXX, in order to send the TCAP > query message. This is where Global Title Translation at the STPs is > used. The CO only needs to know the SS7 address of its supporting STP > and only the STPs need to keep track of the NPA-NXX SS7 point > codes. A few questions (This is fascinating.) - Who owns the STP? (LEC? Bellcore? IEC?) - I know GTT is based on ten digits for 800 numbers (and I assume 888 numbers too.) With Local Number Portability (the ability of a subscriber to keep his local telephone number when he changes to another local carrier, e.g., from Ameritech to Warner) will GTT have to be ten digits for every NPA? - Who will own those STPs? Who will update those STPs? When will this happen? Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Aug 96 18:06:53 EDT From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: Caller ID: Names Passed Between LECs? Jeffrey Rhodes wrote: >> When the IAM arrives at the CO that serves the called number, that CO >> returns an Address Complete message (ACM) back through the built-up >> string of CO's, and the circuits are actually connected together >> "backwards" from the called CO to the calling CO as the ACM message is >> passed back to the calling CO. > This opens the talk path in the forward direction so that the caller > can "hear" the audible ringing generated from the called CO. The > called CO is able to keep the audible ringing separate from the power > ringing that the called phone receives. These do not necessarily > occur simultaneously. This is what I would call the backward direction -- that is from the called to the calling end. >> When the call is answered an Answer message (ANM) is returned. > This opens the talk path in the backwards direction and marks every > billing record at every office used in the call as "answered". Surely *this* is the forward direction. Your terminology conflicts with all other usage I've read. >> Calls to busy numbers don't return an ACM. Instead, they return a >> Release Complete message which includes a Cause Code of Subscriber >> Busy. All trunks are released, and the originating CO gives the >> caller a busy signal. > Correct. Contrary to popular opinion, trunks are unusable for billable > calls during the period of time between IAM and REL when the called > number is "busy" or "out of service". The SS7 signals are quite a bit > faster than the MultiFrequency signaling methods that they replace, so > there is about a 7% trunk efficiency gain as a result of faster "busy > handling". Surely the efficiency arises not from faster signalling, but because MF signalling has no provision for releasing trunks on busy, or generating calling-end busy signals in the first place. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Touch Tones in Movies? Date: Sun, 11 Aug 96 22:16:51 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lionel Ancelet writes: > I see a great potential market for a VCR that would pause recording during > advertising, using CC2 signals! Then the networks would just change their procedures. This happened in Japan a while back, when Mitsubishi introduced a VCR that would automatically pause during commercials, *if* the program had bilingual audio (as do many U.S. shows and movies shown in Japan). This worked because Japanese TV stations shut off the "bilingual" pilot signal during commercials, since those don't have bilingual audio. Of course, when these VCRs appeared the TV stations started leaving the encoder in bilingual mode during commercial breaks (unless a commercial was in stereo). ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. 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Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #401 ******************************