Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA04592; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 15:09:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 15:09:22 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608151909.PAA04592@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #412 TELECOM Digest Thu, 15 Aug 96 15:09:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 412 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Caller ID: Names Passed Between LECs? (Jeffrey Rhodes) Re: Voice-Band Modem over VHF/UHF? (Eric Chan) Re: Dedicated Rates to the West Indies (Keith W. Brown) Re: Area Code Stalemate (Paul Wilson) Re: Article on Bell Labs in Invention & Technology (Ronda Hauben) Re: CPUC Orders Splits for 415, 916 Area Codes (David W. Crawford) Re: Modem Access Fees (Eric Florack) Re: Cellular Payphones (Robert Raymond) Re: Cellular Payphones (swwv53a@prodigy.com) Re: When Was Direct Distance Dialing Cut In? (Art Kamlet) Re: Why Do US Online Phone Directories Only Have Stale Data? (Ron Newman) Re: AT&T (NY) Adding Extra Charges to 'Casual' Users (Ed Fortmiller) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 00:28:57 -0700 From: Jeffrey Rhodes Subject: Re: Caller ID: Names Passed Between LECs? 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?) The carrier that wants to deliver names owns STPs. If a call is end-to- end on my network then only my STPs will perform one final translation to find the Name Database (read LIDB) for Caller ID delivery within my network. Some LECs have worked out the GTT translations for calling number conversion to LIDB SS7 point code between their networks. If one LEC starts a call, it can go to an IEC then back to a LEC. The calling LEC STP delivers the CPN to the IXC STP which delivers (as of 6/96) the CPN to the called LEC STP. Now the backwards (yes, I mean backwards this time) STP global title translation, that uses the delivered CPN's calling number as an address, would be sent from the called LEC EO's STP, which may perform an intermediate GTT (all it needs is three to six digits to know that it isn't theirs), requesting final GTT at the calling LEC's STP, which presumably is keeping track of their own network and knows where the LIDB database is for that calling number. > - I know GTT is based on ten digits for 800 numbers (and I assume > 888 numbers too.) Not really, the 800 and 888 are kind of redundant so they really are only seven digit GTTs. They used to be four digit until 800 number portability came along. > 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? Every call will eventually require a ten digit GTT in a portability numbering plan, even for numbers that have never been ported. Or you could do "Remote Call Forwarding" and tie up part of your network to port a subscriber to your competitor, duh? That's a double whammy, the customer says goodbye and you still have to provide resources without any revenue. Calling Name Delivery will require two ten digit GTTs to work in a portability numbering plan. First, you have to send the dialed number to a lookup database that returns another alias for the ported number, to deliver the call to the ported switch. (If that database knew how to do IS-41 and GSM mobility signaling it would be really nice ;-)... Then the terminating trigger for the delivered unrestricted calling number might be a ported number too, so this will require a ten digit GTT lookup, too. If I port my number I expect that number to continue appearing on caller id displays, right? I mean, that's why I decided to port my number in the first place, so it wouldn't change anything, right? > Who will own those STPs? Well, if you want customers you need a network, STPs are useful for routing intelligent messages for fancy services like Caller ID which includes Calling Number and Network Name. I like to think these are services that benefit both callers and calleds. > Who will update those STPs? The North American Cellular Network is a working example of connected SS7 STPs by many different cellular A-band IS-41 roaming networks. Each network has a person assigned to consult a private web-site for all the updates which must be in place by a given date. PCS-1900 non-GSM systems can also use this network for intersystem roaming. I'm not sure how the LNP translations will be synced, seems like another opportunity to slam. > When will this happen? Who's gonna know? Jeffrey Rhodes at jeffrey.rhodes@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ From: chaneric@hknet.com (Eric Chan) Subject: Re: Voice-Band Modem over VHF/UHF? Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 03:48:13 GMT Organization: Westel International Reply-To: echan@wimsey.com Roland Welte <100070.3321@CompuServe.COM> wrote: > I am looking for information on using voice-band modem technology for > transmitting digital data (4800 bps) over VHF/UHF radio links. For > instance, could a standard modem (e.g. V.27) be suitable for this kind > of application? > Any help/pointers/suggestions will be greatly appreciated. There are two important considerations when using radio links: modulation and error correction. Modulation is more related to the radio hardware. Most radios will have preemphasis and deemphasis circuit in the audio input/outputs. There are also splatter filters to meet FCC spectral mask requirments. These will distort the normal voice band modem signal too much particularly for phase modulated modems. Typical low speed radio modems will use simple FSK or have direct connection to the radio modulator if higher speed is used with MSK or PSK. The other is the fading and multi-path characters of the radio channel. This will create errors that is not expected nor corrected for in wireline modems. Most radio modems will have some form of packetization and error detection / correction. The good ones will even have different correction algorithms for different frequency bands as the fading characters are different. Like most who have tried using voice band modems with cellular phones, if you are lucky and make sure that the in/out levels are adjusted properly, it will probably work at 4800 baud but not more. Make sure you use modem with error correction or error correction in software. The best choice is to buy modem made for radio. There are a few manufacturers like Repco, Maxon, Ritton and Dataradio. Most of them sell the modem with their own radios. Eric ------------------------------ From: Keith W. Brown Subject: Re: Dedicated Rates to the West Indies Date: 15 Aug 1996 05:01:02 GMT Organization: CallCom International Antilles Engineering wrote in article : > The only segment of the telecom industry that I have grown to loath is > in dealings with aggregators and brokers. Many promises, much hype > and very little delivery. Try this site: http://www.webcom.com/~longdist/dldfaq.html . Here you will find a list of Carrier's and Reseller's that you may contact directly in your search for the lowest T-1 rates to the West Indies. Good Luck! Keith W. Brown URL: http://www.callcom.com E-mail: newsinfo@callcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 04:48:03 -0700 From: Paul Wilson Subject: Re: Area Code Stalemate John Cropper (psyber@usa.pipeline.com) wrote: > OVERLAYING a new code means people on the same block, even in the > same home, will end up with different area codes, and local calls for > the first time will require dialing an area code -- or ten numbers for > every call. "If you go with a split, you can stay with seven-digit > dialing," AT&T spokesman Dan Lawler said yesterday. "Surveys we've > conducted show (customers) prefer that method." "Down the road, It's strange AT&Ts "study" supports their position while my experience shows just the opposite preference. In the matter of the 214/972 split in Texas the majority of my neighbors and most of the speakers at the PUC public hearings supported the overlay solution. The major support for the split came from AT&T, MCI, the cable companies, etc. - just the folks who felt they would be disadvantaged in the impending competitive local market. Ten digit dialing (forget about the concept of "area" codes) is inevitable. The state commissions will have to stop caving in to the "anti-competitive" argument eventually. I just wish the Texas PUC could have had the fortitude to do it this time! Paul Wilson Rowlett, Texas ------------------------------ From: rh120@namaste.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Re: Article on Bell Labs in Invention & Technology Date: 15 Aug 1996 06:28:10 GMT Organization: Columbia University Charles Cryderman (ccryderman@ccm.frontiercorp.com) wrote: > rh120@namaste.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) wrote: >> Companies need to watch their bottom line and thus they can't and >> don't put the needed investment into the long term research that >> produces important scientific advances like the transistor and the >> other significant scientific developments made possible by Bell Labs. > Now if you really want to talk about invention, lets go to WAR. There > were more invention during the Civil War then any other time in > history (followed by WWII.) The need to be more efficient killers > (without sacrificing oneself) will always help motivate invention. But Bell Labs wasn't a war! So to compare it to such is to change the issue that I was writing about. Bell Labs was an important research institution that needed to be cherished, and AT&T needed to be supported, not broken up to support some corporate entities that cared only for their own bottom line, rather than for the social fabric of the society they were part of. Ronda rh120@columbia.edu ------------------------------ From: dc@panix3.panix.com (David W. Crawford) Subject: Re: CPUC Orders Splits for 415, 916 Area Codes Date: 15 Aug 1996 04:28:43 -0400 Organization: Woo Studios Ltd. Mike King writes: > CPUC Orders Splits for 415, 916 Area Codes > Both area codes are running out of new prefixes which are the first > three digits of the seven-digit number. The 415 area code may run out of > new prefixes by October 1977; 916 may run out by April 1998. There are ^^^^ No doubt this should be October 1997. David W. Crawford Los Gatos, CA. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I was just checking to see if you were awake and actually reading the Digest, David. :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 06:30:30 PDT From: Eric_Florack@mc.xerox.com (Florack,Eric) Subject: Re: Modem Access Fees Tim Gorman spoke with Bob Wulkowicz re Modem Access Fees in #410, and caused some windmill tilting on my part: >> Maybe I took it badly, but I read Mr. Robeson's post as a pompous >> dismissal of us as the technologically and managerially unwashed. > I don't know if he meant it that way but it is true that with no real > understanding of traffic patterns, density, and provisioning > requirements it is difficult to judge whether fees established for > service are reasonable or not. "Common sense" is not typically a very > good judge. Hmmmm. Common sense isn't what drives telcos? Look out Dilbert. Here comes Telco. >> And if I choose to use Caller ID, I buy personal access to yet that >> same packet for four or five dollars a month. The sales departments of >> the telcos spend large amounts of ratepayer's money to convince us of >> the importance of those features and their revenue generation is >> significant. > Providing that caller id to you required the telco to invest in new > software in every central office switch to handle the feature, not a > cheap thingIt also required them to invest in the analog modem > equipment in every central office necessary to send that caller id > down your phone line, again not a cheap proposition. You ARE paying > for much more than some access to a "phantom" data packet. A common sense examination of this is in order: Let's assume that every CO has 10,000 customers, just to keep the figure nice and round. Let's say half of them take the LEC up on it's offer of CID. Lessee ... $5/mo it what was quoted here, and its a nice figure. So ... 5000*$5=$25000 per month or, of income, or 12*$25,000= $300,000/yr on CID alone. Over a quarter million on CID profits per year alone, on a per-switch basis! Can you confirm that CID cost telco more than that to install? If not, the initial investment is in reality paid off in less than a year. That leaves aside the multiple data-use issues. Speaking of the modem use issues, you say: > As competition comes you will have the option to move to a lower cost > provider. You will also find that you don't get something for nothing. > Much as has been found out in the long distance market today, the low > cost, niche competitors may provide lower costs for specific things but > they either don't provide 24x7 full service, they don't provide the same > levels of call blockage, etc. Fact is that as competition comes, Telcos are going to find that they no longer have the capacity problems they once did. People will be leaving in droves for cable modems to run everything ... including voice traffic ... and the telcos know it ... which is why Jack Brooks is not exactly considered the best friend of the telco, these days. The fact is that all this complaining about modems sucking up capacity is utter nonsense, on several levels. The telco would be involved no matter what the traffic on the wire is, no matter what format it is. Matter of fact, I suggest that capacity problems would be far WORSE, if not for the modem. Modems convey information far faster than voice, after all. And the information would need to be transmitted in /some/ form. Or are you suggesting we'd all be using the USPS? This is naught but the Telcos trying to obtain more money for providing what is essentially the same service; an audio channel of 300-3000cps on a point to point connection. The bitching and the clamoring for additional price increases, based on what is /in/ those limits; IE; the type of data being put on that audio channel, will end up driving the data traffic off the telcos. It's true. data traffic will leave for cheaper, less regulated pastures. Cable being only one such option. But what the telcos have not planned on, in my opinion, what they'll be caught flat-footed by, is the amount of voice traffic that leaves with it. Internet voice calls are, I think a harbinger of something the telcos don't want to talk about much; the fact that the people, the customers, are getting nearly as technical as the telcos ... at least enough that they're able to get around technical and legal roadblocks set up by people whose only interest is maintaining a hammerlock on the nation's communications. I'm sorry, but I find it hard indeed to work up any sympathy for telco's cries of 'foul'. ------------------------------ From: Robert Subject: Re: Cellular Payphones Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:27:30 -0700 Organization: Mobility Canada Romesh C.D. Singh wrote: > I am looking for a list or contacts with manufacturers/distributors of > cellular payphones. Can anyone help? You can contact Absolu Technologies in Quebec City ... they are specialze in this service area code 418 ... sorry don`t have the number. Robert ------------------------------ From: SWWV53A@prodigy.com Subject: Re: Cellular Payphones Date: 15 Aug 1996 01:06:42 GMT Organization: Prodigy Services Company 1-800-PRODIGY I think a company called Telular makes cellular pay phones for use on boats and places far from a wireline payphone. Their stock symbol is WRLS and is on Nasdaq. I think they are undervalued and should be bought. ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: When Was Direct Distance Dialing Cut In? Date: 15 Aug 1996 11:00:13 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Mark J. Cuccia wrote: > plus the 2L-5N. The NY City suburbs of Nassau County (Long Island) > was dialed from Englewood NJ as 516 plus the 2L-5N. The NY City > suburbs of Westchester & Rockland Counties (including parts of Orange > and Putnam counties) was dialed as 914 plus the 2L-5N. Well, maybe it was "called" 2L-5N, but how you said it to the operator sure made a difference. In New York, my number was CLoverdale 2-5862. But my fiance's number in Detroit was LIncoln-77938. The latter following the 2L-5N. When I called the operator to get a call placed to NY or Detroit I found myself using the parsing of the place being called, until one day. That day I was in NY and asked the opertator for a number in Detroit, "LIncoln (pause) 77938) and the NY operator said That's not a legal number, please state the number correctly. I hadn't caught on yet, so I again said, more slowly, Lincoln (pause) 77938, and she got mad and said she could not connect me. I caught on, being a New Yorker and all that, and corrected to LIncoln 7 (pause) 7938 and she said, that's a number she could try. One more note: In the movies, they used KLondike 5 (XXXX) for 555-XXXX numbers, even back then, though they still had Murray Hill 7, and BUtterfield 8 (I think with Elizabeth Taylor). (Not to mention PEnnsylvania 6 - 5000). Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And what was that movie they made about vampires where the phone number was TRansylvania 2 - 5000? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rnewman@cybercom.net (Ron Newman) Subject: Re: Why Do US Online Phone Directories Only Have Stale Data? Date: 14 Aug 1996 00:12:48 -0400 Organization: Cyber Access Internet Communications, Inc. In article , Mike Fox wrote: > 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?). I have had the same listed phone number for almost twelve years, and I'm not in Switchboard. Wasn't there before this supposed "August 1996 update", and still not there right now. I don't know where Switchboard is getting its Boston-area listings, but it sure isn't from NYNEX. Ron Newman rnewman@cybercom.net Web: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/home.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Count your blessings. I mean, were you writing to complain or writing to express your thanks? :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: egf@ultranet.com (Ed Fortmiller) Subject: Re: AT&T (NY) Adding Extra Charges to 'Casual' Users Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 08:29:06 -0400 Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. In article , vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) wrote: >> From an AT&T small print advertisement in the {NY Daily News}, >> Wednesday 7-Aug-1996, p. 67. >> Title: Service charge for AT&T Communications of New York, Inc. >> AT&T Communications of New York, Inc., has filed a tariff with the NYS >> Public Service Commission to become effective August 23, 1996. > AT&T has already implemented this charge on INTERSTATE calls for > several months now. It was originally $.40, but that didn't last > long. MCI quickly followed suit, and has its own $.80 surcharge. > Sprint (still) has none. WorldCom and its subsidiary WilTel have also > been charging a $.35 per call surcharge to casual callers for several > months now. Is this true in ALL states or just New York? Ed Fortmiller | Hudson MA | egf@ultranet.com [TELECOM Dgiest Editor's Note: Since the New York PSC as of yet has no authority outside that state, I assume it only applies there. But I have seen a similar notice in the Chicago papers regarding AT&T in this state. It really seems incredible to me the way AT&T lately seems to have gone out of its way to alienate its long time allies (the local telcos) and its customers. Anyone else think so? PAT] ------------------------------ 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. 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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 #412 ******************************