Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA10799; Fri, 23 Aug 1996 08:23:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 08:23:34 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608231223.IAA10799@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #432 TELECOM Digest Fri, 23 Aug 96 08:23:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 432 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: IP: Bells Allege Internet Growth Clogging Network (Gordon Jacobson) Re: San Jose State University and PacBell Internet Services (C. Wheeler) Re: 800 Number Routing Question (Linc Madison) Re: 800 Number Routing Question (John R. Levine) Re: Timed Local Internet Calls (Lars Poulsen) Re: Alex Mandl Hangs it Up (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Atlanta 911 and COCOTs: The Bomb Call Transcript (James E. Bellaire) Re: Why Not Eight-Digit USA Numbers? (Charles Buckley) Re: Transfer Powerpoint to VHS (Ed Ellers) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 05:24:32 -0400 From: Gordon Jacobson Subject: Re: IP: Bells Allege Internet Growth Clogging Network > Studies sponsored by several RHCs suggest that rapid growth of > Internet calls for usage-sensitive pricing for Internet service > providers (ISPs). And U S West (USW) urged FCC to consider burden > imposed by Internet on phone network when reforming access charges to > forestall what telcos claim would be disaster. > Four Bell companies -- Bell Atlantic (BA), Nynex, Pacific > Telesis (PT) and USW -- said in studies that rapid Internet growth is > forcing LECs to pay for costly network improvements while not > providing means to recover those costs from ISPs, which pay flat fee > for lines and don't pay access charges. America's Carriers > Telecommunication Assn. (ACTA) submitted BA's study last week in > petition asking FCC to regulate Internet telephony (CD Aug 19 p2). I have been saying for years now that given the bandwidth onslaught, the Telecos and Carriers are faced with obsolescence over the next two decades. Their "cash cow" -- intelligently switched services -- has a finite life and the end is in sight (Telcos and Carriers must think in longer time frames than you or I, as the very existence of their "Widow, Orphan and Pensioner" bondholders and stockholders determines to a great extent how their long term decisions are made). Now that they are finally beginning to recognize the reality of their position, there is this mad scramble to find a replacement/put off the inevitable. Bellcore recently completed a comprehensive study on the topic of the effect of ISP traffic on average call length and the financial ramifications to the Telcos of the increase. Last month, in a preliminary review of the as yet unreleased study, one commentator in the alt.dcom.telecom newsgroup reported that Bellcore estimates the cost per region of increasing the number of ports on CO switches to compensate for the average call length increase is in the $30 million range. I find this minuscule number hard to believe and have ordered a copy of the report for further "first hand" analysis. If true, however, the brouhaha that the above 4 RBOCs are fostering is no more than a tempest in a teapot. The report is due to be released in September. Given that all business service is usage based, ISP's unmetered traffic essentially originates in the calling patterns of residential users who either have "no charge" local calling or "flat rate" local calls (ie no per minute charges). In the case of NYNEX in NY for example, a residential local call costs about 10 cents (day rate). While the Telcos make a point in that the average call length has increased, not much sympathy should be wasted on them. The increase in the "average call time" brought with it a vast increase in the number of residential subscribers putting in 2nd lines and a corresponding increase in the revenue stream from "flat rate" usage charges. (Just for informational purposes, my average monthly residential bill jumped from $36 per month to $86 per month, not including any increase attributable to the added number of lines.) Moreover, is it just my imagination, or aren't AT&T, MCI, Sprint (just this week), PacBell, BA/NYNEX, Ameritech and many other Telcos and Carriers all in the business of providing dial-up Internet access themselves? Where's the beef? More news at 11! Regards, GAJ Home Page: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~gaj1/home.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: After you have reviewed it more closely please get back to us with an analysis/rebuttal, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Curtis Wheeler Subject: Re: San Jose State University and PacBell Internet Services Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 16:17:34 -0700 Organization: Just Me and My Own Opinions (A Standard Disclaimer) Reply-To: cwheeler@ccnet.com Mike King wrote: > San Jose State University, Pacific Bell Internet Services Team Up To > Offer Students And Faculty New Dial Up Internet Access Service > SAN JOSE - The university that has launched the careers of many of > Silicon Valley's brightest engineers, scientists, computer and > high-technology experts is turning to Pacific Bell Internet Services > to make it easier for the campus community to access the online world > of the Internet. > San Jose State University, the West Coast's oldest public institution > of higher education, selected the San Francisco-based Internet > services company to provide the new dial up access service for the > school's 29,000 students, faculty and staff. > Under a joint marketing and distribution agreement, Pacific Bell > Internet Services will offer university users who live and work in the > greater Bay Area special discount pricing, which includes unlimited > local dial up Internet access at speeds up to 28.8 Kbps (kilobits per > second). A standard, one-time setup fee for each user is also being > waived as part of the deal. > "The demand for Internet access is expanding so dramatically that we > need to find ways to give our students easier, cost effective and > routine access to the 'Net' to enhance their education," said > University President Robert L. Caret. Students and faculty will be > able to use the service to access online course materials, the library > and other university services from their homes. [snipped] I find it amusing that I can read two articles in this newsgroup, that are right next to each other, that make it APPEAR that Pac Bell is talking out of both sides of it's mouth. I just read "Bells Allege Internet Growth Clogging Network" where Pac Bell's parent, Pac Tel, joins with three other bells to complain that they are losing money due to the exploding internet use. Then they start giving their own internet service away for free. They complain about people "nail up" calls to ISP's on a second line -- because they push advertising for second lines that allow their customers to do just that. I have a second line (though not for long since my new wireless connection seems to be working so well) and not 90 days after I had it installed, they sent me direct mail trying to convince me to get a third! And they are losing money? I am not usually one to bash big business, but this makes Pac Bell look pretty silly ... or is it just me? Curtis KD6ELA / GROL / PP-ASEL [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So you liked the way those two items were placed in juxtaposition in the same issue of the Digest? I thought by doing that a few people might catch on. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: 800 Number Routing Question Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 01:24:23 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications In article , johnper@bigbird. rosemount.com (John Perkins) wrote: > Recently I transferred an 800 number from AT&T to PNG ... > I had calls carried (correctly) by AT&T in > early July. Then I switched to PNG and had calls carried (correctly) > by PNG in late July. However, in early August I find I have a *some* > calls carried by PNG and some by AT&T, even on the same days, while I > did not expect to have any more calls carried by AT&T. > Can someone please explain to me how this could possibly happen? I > was under the impression that 800 numbers were routed according to a > single national database. It appears that there is more than one > database out there and they are not necessarily in sync. Consider yourself fortunate. I have an 800 number that is served by PNG. They connected the number a little over a year ago. However, no one bothered to inform me of the 800 number they had given me. I just got a bill, which had only an account number (HSGCxxxxxx) and no mention of the 800 number for which they were billing. After six calls to their "customer service" department (which usually landed in an overflowed voice mailbox, even calling during business hours), I finally reached a person who was able to tell me my 800 number. Everything was fine for a few weeks, but then someone else signed up for an 800 number from PNG Telecommunications, so they just took my number and gave it to the new subscriber. I was, to say the least, a little surprised to dial my own 800 number and speak to a housewife in South Dakota. It took another five calls to their customer service to get that one sorted out, not least because when they gave me back my number they first connected it to my work number, since I had given them that number as a way to reach me during business hours. In the months that followed, they assigned my 800 number to two more new subscribers, although they didn't bother to redirect the actual service. Thus, I started getting those customers' calls. Since one of them was in Pennsylvania, some of these calls were at unpleasantly early hours of the morning here in California. My PNG 800 number has been working flawlessly since mid-January, but they have certainly demonstrated a level of technical incompetence and lack of customer service that I find astounding. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 23:10 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: 800 Number Routing Question Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. [On a single 800 number, some calls go via old carrier, some via new carrier.] > Can someone please explain to me how this could possibly happen? I > was under the impression that 800 numbers were routed according to a > single national database. It appears that there is more than one > database out there and they are not necessarily in sync. There is a single database in principle, but in practice there are many mirrored copies all over the country. (Just imagine the bottleneck of every 800 call had to visit the same database.) It does indeed sound like some of the mirrors aren't up to date. I know that a new 800/888 number can be turned up in an hour or so, but I don't know how long it takes to propagate changes to an existing number. I'd talk to your new carrier, since it's clearly in their interest to get things working so they get all of your traffic. They'll probably have to work with DSMI, who maintains the 800 database, to straighten things out. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Timed Local Internet Calls Date: 22 Aug 1996 18:37:21 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article jack@novagate.com (Jack Decker) writes: > So, let's say that you pay $15 a month for a residential phone line > for your modem. Your ISP also pays for a modem line, but at business > rates, let's say $25 per line (I am of course basing this on typical > U.S. rates, YMMV). Now if you and the ISP are both in the same > exchange, there should be no reason the telco can't simply hardwire > two pairs together at the central office and give you a dedicated > circuit to the ISP for far LESS than the $40 a month that the two of > you are paying for line charges AND the use of the CO switch. Indeed, GTE has been quite willing to do that; in my case, they let us connect two businesses with a dry pair for $30/month. But since this requires a dedicated modem (and a dedicated port on the access server) for you to use at the ISP, the ISP will probably charge you a premium rate. On the other hand, I suppose the ISP could connect these incoming wires to a PBX in order to aggregate them ... wait, I think we just re-invented one of the models for local telephone competition. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: Alex Mandl Hangs it Up Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 23:41:17 -0700 Organization: Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer & Quinn John Cropper wrote: > Who could blame him? ACC offered a $20 *million* signing bonus, plus > 18% of all future growth of ACC's market value (currently at $200 > million; if he grows ACC's market value to only $1 billion, that's > $144 *million* in his pocket). The benefit isn't all on Mandl's side. The deal guarantees that when ACC goes public next year all Wall Street will want a piece of it, and the price will go up accordingly. How many IPOs have a former AT&T president involved, for what it's worth? In fact, the market value of ACC's parent has gone up more than $20M just since the hiring. This was a classic case of both parties scratching each others' backs. Michael D. Sullivan, Bethesda, Maryland, USA mds@access.digex.net / avogadro@well.com / 74160.1134@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 22:47 EST From: James E Bellaire Subject: Re: Atlanta 911 and COCOTs: The Bomb Call Transcript What was missing from the transcript published in TD430 was the laughter of the 911 operators. I heard it on the local news versions of the tapes. I understand that during public events such as the Olympic Games and political conventions people love to stir up the police by calling in bomb threats, and that the majority of these threats are false, but that is no reason for the 911 operators to take any threat lightly. The other half of the problem was a system that would not serve the users. Their system continually refused to take Centennial Park as an address, therefore *no one* could be dispatched because the computer would not pass data. Evidently the phone at the Days Inn was in the database, so police could have known where the call was coming from immediately, but the dispatch was held up by a lack of a street address for the target. I wonder if someone claimed to have seen 'an accident on Route 13 about a mile east of town' if that could have been entered, without a dispatcher being required to find an address for something one mile east of town. It looks like both the carefree operators and the demanding system are to blame for delaying response. I am glad that someone found the bomb and tried to move people away. James E. Bellaire bellaire@tk.com Webpage Available 23.5 Hrs a Day!!! http://www.holli.com/~bellaire/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But the guy who found the bomb (Jewell) was then smeared and falsely accused by the FBI of being the person who planted it and making the phone call. And never once has the FBI said that Jewell was the wrong guy and apologized to him in any way or made any corrective announcements to the media. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 22:30:40 -0700 From: Charles Buckley Subject: Re: Why Not Eight-Digit USA Numbers? Tony Harminc wrote: > 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. Hmm. I've been busy, and haven't had time to read this group for a while. I look in just now, and Gee! I remember a discussion like this from seven years ago. The memory and digit grouping thing is an example of what the psychologists call "chunking." The mind chunk a bunch of marks on the paper into one semantic token, which then proceeds to float around in your brain indivisibly. Dimes'll get you dollars that many of the psychological studies in question make the same mistake that I've seen many contributors to this list make (hi, Bob!), namely to assume straight away that a chunk corresponds to a single digit. As Mr Harminc's comment above shows, it's simply not true. He (and most of us) chunk off an area code, or a central office prefix, into one easy to remember concept. The neat thing about the French phone numbering scheme is that it has a fundamental understanding of this principle built in from the beginning. The chunks there are groups of two digits, and this is uniform throughout. Not only are subscriber numbers four groups of two, but emergency codes, extra-area-code prefixes, even the shortened numbers that one uses to access the to international trunk lines, the Minitel services, everything is coded in digits grouped by two's. If it weren't for the need to call to countries which do not follow this scheme (and the curious exception of Paris' area code), French telephones could have 100 keys instead of ten, and you'd only have to push four of them to connect to a subscriber (well, five if calling the provinces). Is having a basic "vocabulary" of 100 elements too much for the human brain? There are lots of Chinese in the world who evidently don't think so, but maybe they were just brought up prejudiced. The French chunking scheme is certainly more transportable than the regional variations that we come up with here, where the chunck are regionally dependent. They work fine for people who call frequently in a region with three or four area codes, and make most of their calls between, say, eight to ten CO's, each of which constitutes a chink Take these people away from their milieu, and they have to climb the learning curve again, inventing new chunks as they go. It's like a telephone number tower of Babel. If people could be convinced to retrain themselves (and this is always the hardest thing), uniform two-digit chunks seem a better way to cope with numbering expansion. Now let me run and put on my lead suit for all the NIH and NIMBY flames. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Transfer Powerpoint to VHS Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 19:12:27 -0400 Organization: Mikrotec Internet Services, Inc. (MISNet) blair@instep.bc.ca wrote: > Does anybody know how I can transfer a timed PowerPoint presentation > (version 7.0 running on Windows 95 on a PC) to VHS video? Resolution > should be 1024x768. First of all, you aren't going to get 1024x768 resolution this way. You can't even get full 640x480 resolution (meaning fully readable small-size text) on VHS -- the system doesn't have the bandwidth. There are some scan converter units available, such as Digital Vision's TelevEyes Pro, that can convert a VGA output to NTSC for recording on a normal VCR. (This is the same technique that allows 625-line PAL or SECAM video from other countries to be converted to NTSC, or vice versa.) These are generally acceptable for presentation use, but if your presentation has to be displayed at 1024x768 you may not be able to make the conversion. Unfortunately these converters tend to be rather expensive because of the frame buffers needed to read in the incoming VGA RGB signals and output at the scan rate used for normal NTSC. There are lower-priced "converters" around like the original TelevEyes or Advanced Digital Systems' VideoKey, but these require the VGA board itself to change to the video scan rate of 15.734 kHz; many video cards can't do this in all modes, and even if they can you may not be able to get a Windows driver to handle the job. TelevEyes Pro and other true scan converters need no special hardware or software (other than the box) to work. ------------------------------ 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 #432 ******************************