Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA06865; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 01:30:38 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 01:30:38 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608130530.BAA06865@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #403 TELECOM Digest Tue, 13 Aug 96 01:30:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 403 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T (NY) Adding Extra Charges to 'Casual' Users (Art Kamlet) Re: AT&T (NY) Adding Extra Charges to 'Casual' Users (Jeremy S. Nichols) Re: How Low Can Loop Voltage Go? (Tom Watson) Re: A Short History of 911 Service (Michael D. Adams) Re: USA Technology is Awfully Backward (Roger Marquis) Re: USA Technology is Awfully Backward (Zev Rubenstein) Re: Why Not Eight-Digit USA Numbers? (Tye McQueen) Re: Why Not Eight-Digit USA Numbers? (Tony Harminc) Re: Cable Companies (Christopher Wolf) Re: "Genuine Nynex Payphone" Limiting Number of Digits (Michael Schuster) Re: SOS - TAPI, Caller ID, and Visual C++ (Chris Sells) Re: Need Help Fast With Voice Mail (Craig Owens) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: AT&T (NY) Adding Extra Charges to 'Casual' Users Date: 12 Aug 1996 12:07:01 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Henry Baker wrote: >> This filing proposes to introduce a Non Subscriber Service Charge. A >> service charge is applicble for Dial Station Calls originated from >> residential lines which are presubscribed to an interexchange carrier >> other than AT&T, or are not presubscribed to any interexchange >> carrier. This charge is in addition to the initial period charges for >> calls within the state of New York. >> Non-Subscriber Service Charge: Per Call: $.80 > Has ATT lost their (its?) mind? If I'm at someone's home and want to > call using ATT, why would ATT want to penalize me for this? I am guessing, but it seems AT&T prefers customers to pick AT&T as its PIC, and so would not have this charge. And AT&T has been withdrawing from billing arrangements with many RBOCs, and likely wishes to avoid paying RBOCs for billing services. Dialing 10(10)288 could cause a billing charge from RBOC to AT&T. Or could cause a bill to be generated to a customer of unknown credit worthiness, and possibly for a single call a month. So AT&T may wish to avoid those customers. And it seems to be working. Their last quarterly report showed decreased small residence subscriber income :^( One more item: If the non AT&T PIC goes out of service, many callers might suddenly try to use AT&T as its fair weather friend, placing a sudden high load on AT&T circuits. Isn't is fair to charge those who are only fair weather friends more? Like a delayed insurance premium. After all, AT&T is sitting there providing "insurance" in case of other PIC failure, but is otherwise not receiving any premium for this service. > Is this also true for 1-800-CALL-ATT? They have been encouraging people to use 800 CALL ATT instead of 10(10)288, and since that probably involves using an AT&T calling card, the calling card use aleady has a charge built in. Besides, they don't have any other charge today for 800 CALL ATT so it seems like the answer to your question is no. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: jsn@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Jeremy S. Nichols) Subject: Re: AT&T (NY) Adding Extra Charges to 'Casual' Users Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 01:27:02 GMT Organization: University of Minnesota hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) wrote: > Has ATT lost their (its?) mind? If I'm at someone's home and want to > call using ATT, why would ATT want to penalize me for this? They aren't penalizing you, they're penalizing the person whose phone you're using. Jeremy S. Nichols, P.E. jsn1@rsvl.unisys.com Minneapolis, MN jsn@maroon.tc.umn.edu ------------------------------ From: tsw@3do.com (Tom Watson) Subject: Re: How Low Can Loop Voltage Go? Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 19:51:39 -0700 Organization: The 3DO Corporation In article , Lawrence Rachman <74066.2004@CompuServe.COM> wrote: > My employer is working on a product that will simulate a telephone > exchange, and the question of what is a reasonable battery voltage for > worldwide applications has come up. In North America, the open loop > voltage is 48 volts nominal (I believe that's what part 68 demands). > In Europe, 62 volts seems to have a strong following. My Panasonic PBX > at home measures approximately 24 volts. > Now, if all you've got is a POTS telephone, none of this is typically > an issue. But nowadays, there are gadgets like fax machines and > answering machines that monitor the open loop voltage to determine if > another extension is off hook, or possibly for other reasons. Obviously, > if one of these gadgets considers >36 volts to be on-hook and <36 to > be off-hook, its going to get seriously confused by my Panasonic PBX. > Does anyone out there have any personal or anecdotal experience with > telephone devices that sense line voltage this way? Just how low can > the open loop voltage go? The ON HOOK voltages can (and do) vary all over the place. Modern CO's are usually in the 48 volt range, but if you are on a "line extender" it could go up as high as 72 (even more) volts. Sometimes this is over the trigger voltage of a neon lamp (sometimes used to detect ringing voltage), and can cause false trips. Be sure to put a capicator in series with the ring detector!! As for OFF HOOK voltage, this is a fairly constant thing. The set wants to draw a constant current, and will take the voltage down quite a bit. I have a small PBX at home, and it runs single phones with a 12 volt (open circuit) battery. Now it won't run two phones in parallel, but ti works just fine. The problem is that some equipment that has "busy lights" looks at the tip-ring voltage and if it is "low" it thinks that someone else has a phone off hook. If the battery voltage is low to begin with, the indicator is lit up all the time (yes, it happened to me!!). The threshold for on-hook to off-hook voltages should be somewhere about 10-20 volts (lower is better). I'd experiment by putting a resistor in series with my home set and seing when the central office thinks it is on/off hook. Always an interesting subject. Tom Watson tsw@3do.com (Home: tsw@johana.com) ------------------------------ From: mda-960812b@triskele.com (Michael D Adams) Subject: Re: A Short History of 911 Service Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 01:34:33 GMT Organization: Triskele Counsulting Reply-To: mda-960812b@triskele.com On Sun, 11 Aug 1996 23:31:27 GMT, wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) wrote: >> Almost all postal address (and the addresses on the phone bill) were >> encoded similar to "Rural Route 15 Box 428" referring to the postal >> carrier route and the box number along the route. There was no street >> name nor street address associated with the location of the phone. To >> implement E911 first required that the post office go through the >> entire county and assign street address to rural and semi-rural homes, >> and in a few cases, assign street names where none had existed. This >> process took over a year of time. Then, each resident, had to notify >> their personal or business contacts of new mailing addresses. > I was involved or an observer in many of these addressing > projects in Oklahoma exchanges, and I never heard of the post office > having anything to do with making the assignments. That may depend on the locality. I just recently moved from a town in rural Alabama which formerly had no house numbering standards. Whenever a new building went up inside street delivery area of the post office, or when the post office expanded its street delivery area, the property owner usually "inferred" the new house number from surrounding properties or distance to the nearest numbered property, and then advised the town postmaster, making the number official. This of course led to a few interesting numbering schemes along some roads, as the town grew. On one street in particular, there is a string of houses on similarly sized lots that are numbered: 201, 203, 205, 301, 401, 401.5, 403, 451, 501, 601, 661. Across the street from 661 is 662, and from there it's 664, 700, 668 ... 700 on that street is a new church, and for some reason they didn't want the number "666". :) When the town got E911 service, it was decided to extend that service to include the police jurisdiction zone (special taxing district, officially unincorporated, but receives city police and fire protection and city cable TV), so street addresses had to be assigned. The town government provided the maps, residents provided street names where necessary, and the postmaster provided the actual house numbers. > Local authorities, committees, whatever, decided what they would > do, just as happens in cities. I have seen the same thing in Texas, > too. I witnessed a number of E911 implementations in that part of Alabama (usually a lead story on the local newscast; many slow newsdays down there). In many cases it was the county or town government that assigned street names and house numbers. In a few cases, the utility company assigned them. In a couple of cases, it was the post office's responsibility. In one case rural routes were retained, but the E911 system reported a map coordinate in addition to the mailing address -- the local police, fire, and ambulance agencies were already familiar with the rural routes, and decided that having a map coordinate "just in case" would be sufficient. > Are you sure the postal addresses changed at all? Most of > them are still Route xx, Box xx. That also probably depends on the jurisdiction. In all but one (guess which one :) of the cases I described above, it was announced that the new E911 address was to be the official mailing address, and that the USPS would honor rural route addresses for only a year after the changeover. Also, at my prior job (at an insurance company), I was sometimes drafted to help open mail. I saw an awful lot of "new E911 address" notices coming from Alabama and Georgia. Michael D. Adams Triskele Consulting Baltimore, Maryland ma@triskele.com ------------------------------ From: marquis@roble.com (Roger Marquis) Subject: Re: USA Technology is Awfully Backward Date: 13 Aug 1996 04:32:46 GMT Organization: Roble Systems (http://www.roble.com) Anthony (HXM3@PSUVM.PSU.EDU) wrote: > simply impossible in USA because companies like the big three simply > would not bother to put billions of dollars in upgrading their out > dated technology. Sad for Americans. It is unfortunate but at least we have the most reliable telephone system in the world, if not the most sophisticated. > And I wonder when would the US Congress approve some extra money > so USA can adapt the international metric system and catch up with the > rest of the world? Why Americans still use the length of the feet of a > British King who died thousands of years ago to measure the length of > every thing? The reason we're no longer making progress towards the metric system is because Ronald Regan canceled the metric program. Anyone know of an interest group behind this one? Roger Marquis ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 18:42:02 GMT From: zev@attmail.com (Zev Rubenstein) Subject: Re: USA Technology is Awfully Backward Anthony wrote: > And I wonder when would the US Congress approve some extra money > so USA can adapt the international metric system and catch up with the > rest of the world? Why Americans still use the length of the feet of a > British King who died thousands of years ago to measure the length of > every thing? Under the presidency of Jimmy Carter, a law was passed to convert the US to the Metric system over ten years. During that time the auto manufacturers began putting km/h along with mph on speedometers and the now-ubiquitous two-liter soda bottles appeared. We were on the way. Unfortunately, when President Reagan was elected, one of his first acts was to put an end to metrication. That is why we are still behind the rest of the world. Many companies applauded what Reagan did (just as they applauded his evisceration of the EPA and other so-called pro-business acts that took place under his administration). Unfort- unately, as US industries have gone increasingly global, the cost of manufacturing to two standards hampers their competitiveness. I don't know what, if any, initiatives exist today to speed up metrication. The last time I complained about Reagan's killing metrication II was told that one item that Reagan signed before leaving office was to move government procurement to a metric-based standard. The logic used was that since the US government is such a large purchaser of nearly everything it would pull the rest of the US toward a defacto metrication. Well, it hasn't happened, has it. Zev Rubenstein Nationwide Telecommunications Resources ------------------------------ From: tye@metronet.com (Tye McQueen) Subject: Re: Why Not Eight-Digit USA Numbers? Date: 12 Aug 1996 16:32:37 -0500 Organization: Texas Metronet, Inc (login info (214/488-2590 - 817/571-0400)) James E Bellaire wrote: > Of course in the United States we do have the FCC, which has shown > interest in protecting phone numbers as property of the user. singular@oort.ap.sissa.it (Poll Dubh) writes: > But not area codes, it would seem, or else overlays would be the rule. No, here the _courts_ are to blame. They have decided that old area codes are "pretty" and forcing potential future competitors or cell phone providers to use (mostly) new "ugly" area codes would be an unfair competitive advantage. It really upsets me that the courts think it is more important to protect potential future competitors from some perceived disadvantage by instead forcing thousands of businesses to incur real costs associated with changing their phone number. And that doesn't even count the harder-to-quantify costs of the residents and of those who call these businesses and residents. Tye McQueen tye@metronet.com || tye@thingy.usu.edu http://www.metronet.com/~tye/ (scripts, links, nothing fancy) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How about in downtown Chicago, where a mere half-dozen or so *very large* companies gobbled so many numbers that Ameritech is starting area 773? They would have had to start it anyway, but my point is that handful of very large corporations absolutely refused to consider having downtown Chicago get the new code so the rest of the 2.9 million residents and business places could stay 312. Instead, the majority of the city is being forced to change area codes to 773 in order that a few businesses downtown can keep 312 instead. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 15:52:44 EDT From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: Why Not Eight-Digit USA Numbers? mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk (Richard Cox) wrote: > Er, no. Psychologists confirm that eight digits is the maximum number > of digits that can be reliably remembered and dialled by the average > user. Introduction of ten-digit numbers (which is effectively what the > result of splitting an Wz1 NPA means) will lead to greater incidence > of misdialling. Citation, please! I've dealt with eight-digit numbers in Paris, and I have great trouble remembering them long enough to copy from one place to another. But I have little or no trouble with NANP ten-digit numbers. I'm sure this is because I mentally partition the area code from the easy-to-remember seven-digit number. In Paris, I mentally pull the leading digit (usually 4) off the front, and then remember (say) 42 34 56 78 as 4 234-5678. Much much easier for my brain to deal with. In Toronto I do much the same thing -- except that instead of a leading 4 it's a leading 416 or 905. > So a change by the US to eight-digit local dialling, eliminating all > overlays and NPA splits, would actually reduce the proportion of calls > that end up reaching a wrong number. I very much doubt it. I think the "eight is easier than ten" claim misapplies the research. Three plus three plus four is easier, IMO. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 15:11:34 CDT From: Christopher Wolf Subject: Re: Cable Companies 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. On a (only) slightly related note, is it legal for a cable company to tell subscribers in it's area that they cannot get one of those small dishes to pick up satellite broadcasts? Says they interfere with their satellite dish's pickup. The cable company that supplies to my apartment complex (in Texas) made them sign a form stating they will not allow anyone to use the satellite dishes -- that we have to buy from them to get cable. This seems fishy to me. Anyone have some facts? Short Story: Two people in this small complex got the dishes, and when I saw them I asked the people in the office about getting one. They said they would ask us to remove them, and told us the story about the agreement with the cable company. A few days later, the two dishes disappeared. I checked out our lease (standard lease) and since it in no way mentions cable connections or things handing on our balcony, I went back and asked them again. I let it die after the only thing I could get them to say (after pointing out the lease) was "we'll ask you to take it down". Funny enough, the two dishes in the complex re-appeared a few days later, so I assume they had the same idea I had. (Note: cable is $35 for ABC/NBC/CBS, FOX/NICK/CNN, every shopping channel, Mexican oriented channel, and religious channel known to man, while five miles away with a "real" cable company its $20 for twice as much -- which is why nobody wants to pay for it.) Then again, to get phone service from them also requires you use their long distance service, and if you dial 1-800-CALL-ATT on their payphones, you get put through to their operators. Wolf ------------------------------ From: schuster@panix.com (Michael Schuster) Subject: Re: "Genuine Nynex Payphone" Limiting Number of Touch Tone Digits Date: 12 Aug 1996 14:46:51 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In article , danny burstein wrote: > 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. This happened to me, while using a NYNEX pay phone to check my NYNEX voice mail. There's a certian irony there. Mike Schuster schuster@panix.com | 70346.1745@CompuServe.COM schuster@shell.portal.com | schuster@mem.po.com ------------------------------ From: csells@teleport.com (Chris Sells) Subject: Re: SOS - TAPI, Caller ID, and Visual C++ Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 19:34:36 GMT Organization: Sells Brothers Actually, it turns out there's more to using a USR Sportster Voice with Unimodem/V then I had thought (I just installed one myself). For a full report, go to http://www.teleport.com/~csells/sportv.html. Chris Sells Windows Software Consulting and Development http://www.teleport.com/~csells ------------------------------ From: ctooffcon@aol.com (CTO OFFCON) Subject: Re: Need Help Fast With Voice Mail Date: 12 Aug 1996 16:00:22 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: ctooffcon@aol.com (CTO OFFCON) TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to John M Elliott (stellcom@ ix.netcom.com): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Have you considered the use of a single > 800 number which terminates in an answering service? Each pet's tags > would say something like, "Animal is registered with a pet identification > service. Please call 800-xxx-xxxx and notify the operator that pet # xxxx > has been rescued." Each person who purchases your product would be > automatically enrolled with their name/number on file at the answering > service, or perhaps with your office. When the rescuer of the animal > called the answering service, the service would in turn notify your > office or the animal's guardian/caretaker. Pat -- you must have been talking with one of our customers! This is exactly how we have established numerous such programs. It's quick, cost-effective, relatively simple to update, and (fairly) painless! Craig Owens -- Office Concepts Phone 800-604-9839 Email OffConGR@aol.com Office Concepts provides complete business support services including live telephone answering and voice mail services, and customized telemessaging solutions. ------------------------------ 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. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. 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 #403 ******************************