Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA08400; Mon, 26 Aug 1996 01:25:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 01:25:02 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608260525.BAA08400@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #437 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 Aug 96 01:25:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 437 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telcos as Info Providers (Tad Cook) Ohio Probing Ameritech's Overbilling (Tad Cook) Telephone Technicians in Nova Scotia End Strike (Nigel Allen) What Does a Call Cost? (David Clayton) Computer Companies Join ISDN Pricing Fray (Monty Solomon) Integretel, Inc. Strikes Again (Dan Kaufman) Get Two Rings Then Ring at Extension (Lillian Connors) AT&T V-H Coordinates (Drew Larsen) WTB: A Wireless Phone Network (10,000 + Numbers) (nwres203@wolfenet.com) Channel Bank With ACD? (Pete Kruckenberg) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Telcos as Info Providers Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 11:10:19 PDT Some Telephone Companies are Returning to the Days of Providing Information By Jon Van, Chicago Tribune Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Aug. 26--The days when the telephone company provided "information," instead of "directory assistance," may be returning, at least for customers willing to pay. Operators will not only give callers street addresses and ZIP codes as well as phone numbers, but will recommend restaurants, florists and night spots if asked. This chatty new world of telecommunications, spawned by advanced technology and burgeoning competition, is a throwback to the days when telephone operators knew their towns and had more time to help customers in need. It was the era before the term "directory assistance" was introduced to let customers know that they shouldn't bother the phone company for numbers they could look up themselves. Since the breakup of the Bell System more than a decade ago, local phone companies mostly have looked upon directory assistance as a burdensome and money-losing public service. But as deregulation prompts companies to compete for customers, some are rethinking that attitude and starting to look upon inquisitive customers as profit opportunities, instead of lazy nuisances. The current system can test the patience of even mild-mannered consumers. Callers, especially out-of-towners, may not know the area code, the spelling of the community where their desired party is or perhaps even the name of the town. As people move around and new area codes proliferate, trying to obtain information from standard directory assistance can be an exercise in frustration. And many numbers, like those serving fax machines and cellular phones, aren't available from directory assistance at all. As competitors enter the local phone business, even prices for directory assistance calls may cause confusion. Ameritech Corp. now charges 30 cents to businesses and residences using the service and 35 cents to pay-phone users. Some new providers may choose to offer the service at no charge to attract customers, and others may charge but offer premium services. Once competitors join the local fray, Ameritech will be free to apply to have directory assistance deregulated and then could charge any amount it wishes, as it now does for pay-phone service. To be sure, the slam-bam approach to directory assistance won't go away for customers who want to find phone numbers at the lowest possible cost. Indeed, automation soon may make these transactions as quick and convenient as voice mail. But people who want something more and don't mind paying for it will find a lot of choices, industry experts say. Cellular-phone customers are among the first to receive improved services, said Philip Bonello, general manager of Lombard-based Metromail On-line Services, a recent spinoff of R.R. Donnelley and Sons Co. of Chicago. "Cellular service doesn't have the regulations that govern traditional phone service, and its customers aren't as price-sensitive as others," he said. "When someone needs information to do business, he wants it quickly and doesn't mind paying. The companies don't mind giving him the information, either, because the longer he's on the air, the more they make. In cellular, everything takes at least a minute." Because many cell-phone users are driving, they tend to prefer having an operator put their call through rather than worrying about remembering the number and dialing it themselves, said Bonello, whose company has assembled a national database of phone numbers for resale to phone companies, businesses and consumers. "People who get used to being pampered when they use their cell phone don't like it when a traditional directory assistance operator tries to get through their call in less than 20 seconds," he said. Even customers who don't use cellular phones can become frustrated with Spartan directory assistance services, because the proliferation of area codes can make it difficult to dial the proper number to access the right operator. Consider the plight of a caller from Portland trying to locate a friend in Chicago by dialing his friend's area code, plus 555-1212. Metropolitan Chicago, which had only two area codes a year ago -- 312 for the city and 708 for the suburbs -- will have five by this fall. A caller seeking the number of someone known only to live in the Chicago area may be stymied by traditional directory assistance operators who want to know the target's town or, at least, area code. "Confusion over area codes is building a lot of pressure for national directory assistance services," said Steven Johnson, an executive at MCI Communications Corp. Last year MCI launched a service whereby a customer could call 1-800-CALL-INFO and, for a fee, obtain numbers for anyone in the country without knowing the area code. It was popular with customers, Johnson said, but MCI withdrew the service because of complaints that an 800 number shouldn't have any charges associated with it. "We had cleared the product with regulators before launching it," he said, "but when the complaints arose, the Federal Communications Commission suggested we withdraw it, and we did." MCI now offers a similar service using a 900 prefix, which is always associated with extra fees, and AT&T Corp. has a 900 national directory assistance number as well. But many companies and hotels, as well as several private residences, have blocks on their phones so that 900 calls cannot be made from them, Johnson said. "Somehow the regulatory issues have to be worked out so that people can call an easily accessible number to get extended directory assistance," Johnson said. "There's a lot of market demand for it, so it's bound to happen." At least one company plans to launch such a service this year, said Kelly Daniels, president of Telco Planning Inc., a consultancy based in Portland, Ore. That company will offer phone numbers throughout North America to people who call 1-800-555-1234, he said. The callers must listen to an advertisement to obtain their number and will be offered the option of having their call put through for a fee, Daniels said. The service provider, which hasn't yet identified itself, hopes the advertiser-supported part of the service will satisfy regulators and that most customers will opt for call completion to generate revenue, at 25 cents to complete a call and 10 cents a minute to carry it. "What we've found is that when call completion is offered as an option, most people take it," said Daniels, who acknowledged that some businesses have balked when charges for existing call completion services caused their phone bills to balloon. "You can argue that it saves a company money when its employees don't have to get a number, hang up and then dial it," he said, "but a company may not agree when its monthly directory assistance charges go from $300 to $3,000." Call completion really is just the first step in what industry people call concierge phone service, which may even go beyond the old small town phone company version of information service from the operator. "Some cellular companies are already offering a service where I call and say I need a florist," said Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research Corp., a telecommunications consultancy in Livingston, N.J. "The operator gets your location, does a map overlay on her computer and gives you three choices of florists nearby. If you like, they'll place the order for you." These operators most likely are sitting in a call center in Phoenix or Salt Lake City and have no more knowledge of local flower shops than the caller, Rosenberg said, but they work from computers that search national databases to provide the information. As these services develop, details of how they will be paid for are still being considered, but promoters say much of the costs could be borne by businesses receiving referrals, as well as additional fees paid by customers. Metromail has been working on a project to construct a database for such a service for five years, Bonello said, and it has been exceedingly difficult to blend information from different phone companies with other sources, such as driver's license databases and postal change-of-address information. "We take information that we get from local phone companies, clean it up and actually sell it back to local phone companies in some cases," he said. Metromail sells the information widely in various forms and has products that enable consumers to look up phone numbers on the Internet. It hopes to expand the information base to include things like e-mail addresses, fax numbers and other information not now generally assembled. Recent orders by the FCC intended to promote competition should make it easier for firms to assemble national phone number databases and keep them up-to-date, said MCI's Johnson. "Within two years, national directory assistance databases will be common," he said. At the same time the industry is gearing up for expanded information services, it also is seeking to trim further the costs of plain vanilla directory assistance. Some companies are now using voice recognition technology that asks a caller to give the city and party whose number is sought, said Cathleen Shamieh, director of operator services for Bellcore, a telecommunications-technology consulting center based in Morristown, N.J., that is owned by the regional Bell operating companies. Today, the automated system presents the name and hometown to a human operator who then takes over to look up the number, Shamieh said. Eventually, the automated system will ask the caller what's wanted, look it up, give the answer and ask the caller if everything's OK or if a human is needed, she said. "Voice recognition to do that isn't quite there yet, but it's close," she said. ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Ohio Probing Ameritech's Overbilling Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 11:57:50 PDT Ohio to Probe Ameritech's Overbilling and Failure to Tell Customers By David Adams, Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Aug. 23--More than 3,000 Ameritech customers were overcharged $9,525 after making 3,166 telephone calls between June 29 and the first week of August, the telephone company said yesterday. But the number of Ameritech customers affected by the computer-caused overbilling could be considerably higher: The company is unable to identify local calls that were inadvertently switched over to a long-distance provider, spokeswoman Anne Bloomberg said. Ameritech said yesterday, unlike the day before, that it will actively try to find overbilled customers and ensure they get a refund. The company previously had said that it wanted customers to determine whether they had been overbilled and to inform the company. The problem -- caused by software glitches connected to the June 29 addition of the new 330 area code -- affected calls made into 216 area code prefixes 342, 650, 653, 655, which are in Hudson; 657 in Peninsula; 659 in Richfield; and 330 area code prefixes 225 in Brunswick and 483 in Valley City. The software glitch caused calls normally considered free local calls either to be charged as toll calls, or to be switched over to long-distance carriers and billed as long-distance calls. Ameritech experienced a similar computer-related problem earlier this year in Chicago that led the company to refund almost $900,000 to 450,000 customers. Bloomberg emphasized that the problem in Northeast Ohio is much smaller. "Believe me, we think that this (problem) is not acceptable, and I'm not trying to say that (the number of customers affected) is a small amount, because it isn't," she said. "We really regret this and are sorry for it." Overbilled customers whom Ameritech can identify will be notified and probably will be given credit on their bills, Bloomberg said. Before a Beacon Journal story yesterday, Ameritech had said it did not intend to notify any of its 1.85 million customers in Northeast Ohio about the possibility that they had been overbilled. In response to the Beacon Journal story, both the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and the Ohio Consumers' Counsel will launch, probably today, inquiries into how the overbilling occurred, and the agencies may review Ameritech's decision not to tell its customers. Very few state regulations deal with overbilling or notification on billing matters, spokesmen for both taxpayer-funded state agencies said yesterday. As a result, little or no formal regulatory action is expected. But the episode does little to enhance Ameritech's image for customer service. Ameritech was fined $270,000 last year by state regulators because of failure to maintain minimum service standards, and the company paid a $45,000 fine the year before for similar problems. Last month, the PUCO fined Ameritech $1,000, following a $5,000 fine the previous month, for failing to meet service standards, according to Dick Kimmins, PUCO spokesman. Service problems, including the current overbilling incident, are expected to be the central issue for Ohio's local telephone companies as the state opens up markets for competition. By this time next year, other competing local telephone companies are expected to enter Ameritech's territory. Until now, the state's 42 local telephone companies have enjoyed roped-off service areas in which customers were unable to get service from any other company. Regulatory action will be replaced to some extent by competitive forces, said Kimmins and Consumers' Counsel Robert Tongren. "The marketplace can indeed be a very harsh and swift judge of service standards and billing problems," Kimmins said. He added that the PUCO will continue to monitor minimum standards for customers service. The PUCO staff is rewriting those minimum standards for a newly competitive telephone environment, and a rough draft is expected in November. "You can have all the rules you want; the question is: What's the company's attitude for your customers?" asked Tongren. "Are they number one? If not, that company is going to lose them to a competitor." Tongren said competition will let customers' fingers do the walking. "We want to let customers, with just one phone call, get another local telephone company," he said. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 20:21:16 EDT Subject: Telephone Technicians in Nova Scotia End Strike Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada From: ndallen@io.org (Nigel Allen) Here is a press release from Maritime Telegraph and Telephone Company Limited. I found the press release on the Canada NewsWire web site at http://www.newswire.ca/ I don't work for Canada NewsWire or Maritime Tel & Tel. MT&T TECHNICAL WORKERS' STRIKE ENDS AUGUST 23 HALIFAX, Aug. 24 - Maritime Telegraph and Telephone Company Limited announced today that its 950 technical workers, represented by the Atlantic Communications and Technical Workers' Union, have voted to accept the Company's latest contract offer, ending a strike that began July 3rd, 1996. Seventy percent of the union membership voted in favour of the agreement. The technical workers will return to work beginning Sunday, August 25. MT&T is now in the process of adjusting its operations to more normal working conditions. Over the next number of weeks the Company will be working to reduce the existing backlog of orders for service as well as respond to new service orders. MT&T thanks customers for their patience and understanding during the past two months and also in the weeks ahead. For further information: Pearleen Mofford, (902) 487-5284 forwarded to TELECOM Digest by Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario ndallen@io.org http://www.io.org/~ndallen/ ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: What Does a Call Cost? Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 22:53:20 GMT Hello Pat and everyone, I have observed a increasing quantity of correspondence in the Digest regarding the issue of no longer being able to determine what sort of call type is being made by analysing the dialed digits. This will also be a significant problem here in Australia, as we are changing from state based Area Codes to much broader regional Area Codes, (as an example, one Area Code will cover an area which is approx. 2/3 the area of the mainland USA). Since this problem looks likely to be become common around the globe dialing plan changes and number portability etc., perhaps the relevant standards organisation should be creating a technical solution to the problem, such as the following: * You dial the number as normal, * Before the first ring, modem tones are transmitted down you phone line with information regarding the call cost etc. which is displayed on a device which may be similar to the CID boxes that are used in North America. * You may then have to confirm that you want the call to proceed, or if it going to cost you more than you are prepared to pay, you may want to end it. Since the infrastructure required may be similar to the existing CID incoming equipment, it may be reasonably easy to implement at the phone end, the only difficult part may be getting the local exchange to pass this information in the required format, (especially for older equipment). The whole point of this would be to have the information of what a call is going to cost available to the consumer before the call is made, not after the event when the bill arrives. Another benefit would be the opportunity to record this data for your own bill reconcilation. This sort of information is partially available on ISDN circuits in Australia as data provided the end of a call in the "Advice of Charge" field, but there is no real reason why it cannot be made before a call is connected, (apart from the cost of making it happen). So, now I pass this idea to all of the TELECOM Digest readers out there, what do you reckon people?. P.S. If this turns out to be one of those original, practical, and very profitable ideas, would whoever eventually develops it, (and makes an enormous profit from it), remember where it came from and send me some royalties? :-) - with a portion going to the TELECOM Digest of course! Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 00:33:42 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Computer Companies Join ISDN Pricing Fray Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpt from Edupage, 13 August 1996 COMPUTER COMPANIES JOIN ISDN PRICING FRAY Computer companies are joining consumer activists in urging the telephone companies to speed up deployment of ISDN (integrated services digital network) services by lowering prices. In California, Pacific Bell is under attack by a group that includes Intel Corp., the California ISDN Users Group, the California Cable Television Association, Jetstream Communications, Inc., FlowPoint, and Siemens Rolm Communications, Inc. The controversy reflects what is happening in other states, with the phone company saying its ISDN rates must reflect the cost of introducing the service, which it claims are high, and expressing concern that low flat-rate charges will encourage customers to tie up lines 24 hours a day. Intel has complained to the Public Utilities Commission that "an entire industry is poised to deliver mass-market ISDN products. Unreasonable ISDN pricing, as proposed by Pacific Bell ... may preclude the development of a mass-market ISDN industry, and will certainly retard its growth." Uneven pricing by telcos is also an issue -- Bell Atlantic's proposed flat rate charge for the District of Columbia is $249 a month, while in Tennessee, BellSouth charges $25 to $29 a month. A Bell Atlantic spokesman says , "It's very simplistic for computer companies to point fingers at us if their sales are not increasing. These are wonderful companies, but we don't tell them how to run their businesses. It's not appropriate for them to tell us how to run ours." (BNA Daily Report for Executives 8 Aug 96 C1) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 22:38:03 +0000 From: Dan Kaufman Reply-To: dan@dkgraphics.com Organization: Dan Kaufman Graphics Subject: Integretel, Inc. Strikes Again ... I just got a bill from Bell Atlantic, my local telephone service. There was a $45 charge from Intgretel, Inc. for a "COMCARD" debit card. Then I remember some guy calling late at night telling me I qualified for a debit card and I would get $45 worth of calling on it. I fell for it. It's Sunday night, and I've just retrieved my snail-mail from the mailbox after a nice weekend away. My first phone call on Monday morning will be to 1-800 736-7500, Integretel's toll-free number. This boy ain't payin' nobody for no debit card. ------------------------------ From: lconnors@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Lillian Connors) Subject: Get Two Rings Then Ring at Extension Date: 25 Aug 1996 15:49:02 -0400 Organization: The Ohio State University My caller-id won't store data if an extension phone is answered before the second ring. Can I get a commercial gadget for POTS line that listens for ringing, then outputs (or passes thru) ringing to the extension after second ring? Comments about such gadgets? Can some fax machines be reprogrammed to do this (as well as to detect incoming fax, and switch non-fax calls to extension)? Comments or reviews about such fax machines? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Can't you reach a mutual understanding with whomever is likely to answer your extension phones to allow at least one complete ring and a couple seconds of silence to pass before taking the phone off hook and responding? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Drew Larsen Subject: AT&T V-H Coordinates Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 01:36:21 +0000 Organization: ObjectWave Corporation Reply-To: dlarsen@objectwave.com Ok folks, scratch your heads and see if you can remeber how to translate a point on the earth measured in latitude/longitude to the commonly used V&H system used in the telecom industry. Any ideas? Thanks, Drew Larsen ObjectWave Corporation dlarsen@objectwave.com ------------------------------ From: nwres203@wolfenet.com Subject: WTB: A Wireless Phone Network (10,000 + Numbers) Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 08:32:01 GMT Organization: Wolfe Internet Access, L.L.C. Hi all, I am representing a Russian company that wants to buy a wireless phone system to serve a small town. They want it to have about 10,000 number capacity, with an option of adding more later. The network will require no connection to outside. So I was looking for manufacturers of such systems, and haven't found any. Does anyone know of such companies? If you do, please tell me, I will really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. ------------------------------ From: pete@inquo.net (System Administrator) Subject: Channel Bank With ACD? Date: 25 Aug 1996 19:57:48 GMT Organization: inQuo Internet (801) 530-7160 I'm looking for a cheap/simple/easy way to bring in a voice T1 to a modem bank, and do some basic hunting or LRU (least-recently-used) ACD features. Right now, US West charges $4/line/mo for busy hunting, or $6/line/mo for busy/no-answer hunting, and they don't offer an LRU type of hunt. I already have to buy a channel bank to break out the T1 into analog lines to go to the modem bank, and I though there might be some more intelligent channel banks that could do busy/busy-no-answer/LRU hunting. I know that these types of features are available on modem racks like the USR Total Control, but as an ISP, I can't afford equipment like that and still remain competitive and solvent. An intelligent channel bank like this, if the price is right, could let me still use low-cost modems but avoid some problems common to a non-intelligent modem pool. Your insight and avoid is appreciated. Pete Kruckenberg pete@inquo.net ------------------------------ 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 #437 ******************************