Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA18155; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 12:25:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 12:25:06 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608281625.MAA18155@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #446 TELECOM Digest Wed, 28 Aug 96 12:25:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 446 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson MFS/Worldcom Merger (Tad Cook) WorldCom Buying MFS (Greg Monti) Flip Flap at Motorola (Tad Cook) Confusing Cellular Promotions (Linc Madison) US Callers Ripped Off in Calls to 809 NPA (Tad Cook) "Modems - Simultaneous Voice & Data" A TalkCity Segment (Christopher Frey) Manufacturers of Bulk Call Generators (Nirmal Velayudhan) Re: AT&T V-H Coordinates (sanchema@telefonica.com.ar) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: MFS/Worldcom Merger Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:57:02 PDT Builder of MFS Decides to Sell Within an Hour By GAUTAM NAIK The Wall Street Journal It took James Q. Crowe 10 years to transform an obscure outfit called MFS Communications Inc. into a highly regarded upstart in telecommunications. It took him just an hour to agree to sell it to WorldCom Inc. -- for $12.4 billion in stock. The speed of the transaction isn't typical of Mr. Crowe's style: He is described as a deliberative and mild-mannered executive who prefers to ink deals quietly. His easygoing public demeanor during the merger announcement isn't typical, either. Several years ago, the bookish Mr. Crowe was so wary of facing the media and analysts before MFS went public, he hired a public-speaking expert to help him. But Mr. Crowe, 47 years old, has suddenly discovered the spotlight and immense riches. He seems to be enjoying both. Building MFS "was a labor of love, and I can't sell it without having a bittersweet taste," he says. "But it's only a 30-second feeling." Easing the pain: Mr. Crowe's small stake in MFS will now soar in value, increasing his net worth to the $150 million range. He holds about 468,000 MFS shares outright, valued at about $21 million after the company's stock Monday rose $9.94 to $44.81. Better yet, he holds options to buy 1.7 million MFS shares at $6 apiece, which can be exercised in November 1997; that would give him a profit of more than $65 million at Monday's closing price. Mr. Crowe plans to stay on as chief executive of MFS after it becomes a unit of WorldCom, and will also be WorldCom's new chairman. Given his newfound wealth, the question may be how long the man who built MFS into a scrappy powerhouse, providing businesses with local and long-distance phone services and helping force open local monopoly markets, will stick around as No. 2. Mr. Crowe, a man with a strong entrepreneurial bent, may find it difficult to play second fiddle to Bernard J. Ebbers, the media-loving president and chief executive of WorldCom. When the two sat down to discuss a potential merger agreement in Mr. Crowe's Omaha, Neb., house two weeks ago, Mr. Ebbers finalized the main terms of the deal in an hour. "I didn't expect him to be as bold and forceful as he was," says Mr. Crowe. Mr. Crowe says he'll stick around at WorldCom. "I've already got my 10 hours of the spotlight," he says. "I've never had a big need to seek publicity and I don't see any" potential personality clash with Mr. Ebbers. To be sure, the WorldCom deal will enrich a handful of other executives far beyond the scale of Mr. Crowe. Walter Scott, chairman and chief executive officer of the firm that ultimately spun off MFS, owns 9.5 million shares of MFS stock now valued at more than $425 million. Rick Adams, founder and chairman of UUNET Technologies Inc., the Internet-access provider that MFS only recently acquired, owns 7.8 million shares of MFS stock valued at about $350 million. For all its high-tech, fiber-optic-based business, MFS traces its origins to a decidedly low-tech enterprise. It started doing business in 1987, formed by construction firm Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc., a closely held company based in Omaha with interests in several businesses, including construction. The parent firm took MFS public in 1993 and retained a majority stake, later spinning off the rest to shareholders. Mr. Crowe, brought in to design nuclear-power plants, another pursuit of Peter Kiewit, became chief executive of MFS in 1987. It seemed to fulfill a lifelong calling for tinkering with technology. Mr. Crowe was fond of electrical experiments as a teenager and would occasionally blow the wall covers off electrical outlets in his parents' home. As a child of a Marine Corps father, home was "all over the place." He received an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and an M.B.A. He joined Peter Kiewit following a 12-year stint at the old-line engineering firm Morrison Knudsen Corp. Once at MFS, he took a tip from a Chicago company and proposed building a fiber-optic network in major U.S. cities that could offer local phone service in competition with the Bells. His employer eventually agreed to put up $500 million for the project. Since MFS went public, it has raised about $3.6 billion in stock and debt offerings. In the past four years, MFS has done for local-service competition what MCI Communications Corp. originally did to break AT&T Corp.'s monopoly in long distance. Under Mr. Crowe, MFS pressured federal regulators to set up new rules so that upstarts could tap in directly to the Bells' phone networks, rather than having to build all the links themselves. Various proposals, such as allowing local customers to switch carriers and keep their original phone numbers, were pioneered by MFS. Mr. Crowe's influence was also evident in the landmark telecom legislation that forces the Bells to meet a list of requirements for opening up their local monopolies before being allowed into the long-distance business. Mr. Crowe's other big decision, cheered on Wall Street, was to place a bet on the future potential of the Internet by buying UUNet for roughly $2 billion in MFS stock. Technology still pervades Mr. Crowe's personal life. He has installed $250,000 in high-tech gadgetry in his large Omaha house -- formerly the estate of the Swanson family of frozen-food fame -- all rigged to a central computer. About 20 TV monitors placed around the house act as "command centers," and infrared systems control the house's temperature, security alarms and telephones. The system often fails, but Mr. Crowe offers no apologies. "I'm a firm believer that the CEO of any organization can't understand a technology if he doesn't use it," says Mr. Crowe. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 00:11:35 -0400 From: cc004056@interramp.com (Greg Monti) Subject: WorldCom buying MFS An article entitled "Merger Poses a Bold Challenge to Bells", was published in _The Wall Street Journal_, August 27, 1996. A summary with some comments: WorldCom, the U.S. long distance carrier that resulted from the merger of several smaller carriers (IDB, Metromedia, WilTel), has announced a new acquisition: Metropolitan Fiber Systems, also known as MFS Intelenet. The acquisition will cost WorldCom $12 billion to buy a company with only $5 billion in annual revenue (presumably before expenses). The synergies between these two companies, however, are a fabulous match. WorldCom is a long distance company. MFS operates local dial-up telephone services in competition with the Bells, local data circuits and fiber rings and it recently bought UUnet, an internet service provider. Both Worldcom and MFS are 'national' companies offering service in most major population centers. This will give us a single company offering local, long distance, data and internet services under one roof -- WITHOUT the line-of-business restrictions and '14-point checkoff lists' under which the Baby Bells must labor to get into the long distance business. To give you an idea of company sizes, the article shows that a combined WorldCom-MFS had 1995 revenues of $1.3 billion and net income of $500 million. By comparison, Sprint had revenues of $3.5 billion and net income of $300 million. MCI had 1995 revenues of $4.6 billion and net income of $300 million. So, in terms of profit alone, WorldCom-MFS was bigger than MCI or Sprint. If either company cancels the merger, it owes the other company $350 million in cash plus up to $300 million in telecom services. This makes it unlikely that either company will back out of the deal. WorldCom is based in Jackson, Mississippi. MFS is based in Omaha, Nebraska. Meantime, the other 'almost-national' local competitive carrier, Teleport Communications Group (TCG), a consortium of cable operators, has signed an agreement with AT&T to carry AT&T traffic to residence customer premises. One rumor: AT&T might buy TCG in order to parallel WorldCom's move. AT&T is already an internet provider. Of the remaining big long distance carriers, MCI already owns and operates it own local telephone network (MCImetro). Sprint owns local phone companies in some areas but most of them are smaller cities (with some big exeptions like Las Vegas and parts of Chicago). Both (I think) already provide internet services. Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA gmonti@interramp.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And UUNET is in an interesting position right now, aren't they ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Flip Flap at Motorola Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 15:01:37 PDT Inventors, Heed Tale of Flip-Phone Flap Via AP By QUENTIN HARDY The Wall Street Journal Garry Haltof thinks electronics giant Motorola Inc. has flipped out. Mr. Haltof of Rochester, N.Y., was dreaming of riches two years ago. He had created a cellular-telephone holder he called the "Flip Clip," and Motorola, the world's biggest cellular-phone maker, was talking to him about possible deals. Now Motorola not only says it developed the product but also is trying to squash Mr. Haltof's trademark on the name, claiming that when it comes to cell phones, Motorola owns the word "flip." The flip flap could take years to straighten out. Mr. Haltof, who gave up his work as a design consultant and took out a home-equity loan to pursue his Flip Clip vision, calls the situation tragic. "I'm going to be driven out of business and it's not right," he says. His story is a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs contemplating deals with big companies. According to Mr. Haltof, Motorola's accessories division was initially keen on the Flip Clip. The plastic cradle is designed to hold the cellular handsets with flip-down mouthpieces advertised as "flip phones" -- particularly the kind made by Motorola -- inside a car. But last year, Motorola asserted that engineers elsewhere in the company had already drawn up a similar phone cradle, Mr. Haltof says. "Their general patent counsel called me after I'd showed (the product) around," says Mr. Haltof, who claims that talks had just culminated in Motorola requesting a price for 100,000 Flip Clips. "'Don't talk to us anymore,' (the lawyer) said, `we think we may have invented your product."' Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Ill., declines to comment on the specifics of what it sees as a potential patent dispute but notes that it gets hundreds of product ideas from outside contractors every year. Each company must agree in writing that Motorola doesn't necessarily think the idea is original and won't necessarily buy it. Mr. Haltof, too, signed the agreement. Indeed, Motorola has tens of thousands of engineers with notebooks full of drawings for products they've dreamed up. Product managers, such as the ones Mr. Haltof contacted, don't know a fraction of what is in those books or whether an engineer's doodle might eventually be a product. Soon after Motorola spurned him, Mr. Haltof applied for the trademark "Flip Clip" for the product, which once appeared in this newspaper's "Form and Function" column. Motorola contested Mr. Haltof's application, asserting that the word "flip" is closely tied to Motorola's flip phones. Mr. Haltof's company, Haltof Product Design Inc., has exactly one employee -- him. Motorola has 142,000. But the corporate Goliath has one big disadvantage compared with Mr. Haltof. Motorola earlier this year lost its own trademark application for "flip phone." The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office determined in April that the word was in common usage among several cell-phone makers, such as Sweden's AB LM Ericsson, which makes a similar phone. Motorola is appealing the decision. Meanwhile, the trademark office did clear "Flip Clip" for Mr. Haltof, apparently deciding that this was a unique term. Motorola filed in opposition to that trademark decision, and Mr. Haltof's lawyer is now battling it out with Motorola's lawyers. Motorola maintains that Mr. Haltof's trademark is invalid because the Flip Clip gets its identity from Motorola's marketing of flip phones. "The term `flip' is identified with products from Motorola," says Jonathan Meyer, corporate counsel for Motorola. Mr. Meyer worries about the power of a trademarked Flip Clip -- even though Mr. Haltof says he has made "less than $100,000" in two years of selling the Flip Clip, a fraction of the $10.7 billion Motorola's cell-phone division made last year alone. "Theoretically, he could allege that our use of `flip phone' is too similar to flip clip, and we should stop" using the term, Mr. Meyer says. He calls the trademark objection "primarily a defensive move on our part." Elsewhere, Motorola is on the offensive. It has trademarked Flip Clip in Canada and Mexico, ahead of Mr. Haltof. "I don't recall all of the logic behind that" measure, Mr. Meyer says. Nevertheless, Mr. Meyer promises, "we would not seek to prevent (Mr. Haltof) from using `flip clip' on his product" in foreign markets. Motorola's flip campaign goes beyond Mr. Haltof. It has recently sent letters to Ericsson and other cellular-phone makers, claiming its rights to "flip" for phones. "They're wrong," says Donald Mondul, Ericsson's general patent counsel. "It is a generic term for a feature employed in many phones. We told them to come back when they have a trademark." Mr. Mondul thinks the letters, the "Flip Clip" objection and the foreign trademarks are all part of an effort by Motorola to gain rights to "flip" under common law, which has some of the force of a trademark. He and others think Motorola is trying to avert what happened to companies like Germany's Bayer AG, which long ago lost the rights to the word "aspirin" by letting the term, which it owned, drift into public use. Mr. Haltof says Motorola has offered him $5,000 for the rights to the term "Flip Clip." (The company won't comment.) Not enough, he says. "I've already spent $30,000 developing this," he says. "If they added two zeros (to the offer), we'd be talking." The worst part of it all, Mr. Haltof says, is that he feels his dealings with the company were "by the numbers." The small print on the Flip Clip's instructions even reads, in both English and Spanish, "Flip Phone and Motorola are trademarks of Motorola Inc." Motorola was applying for the trademark at the time, Mr. Haltof explains. "I was being polite," Mr. Haltof says. "Of course, I printed that long before Motorola came after me." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have one question for Mr. Haltof. Has Motorola demanded that you quit smoking cigarettes in your home, your office and the car you drive around in? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Confusing Cellular Promotions Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 23:05:34 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications The two local cellular carriers are having a bit of a promotions war at the moment, and the situation is more than a little confusing, not helped at all by sales droids who don't know up from down. From what I gathered talking to one of the sales folks, one of the cellular phones seems to offer me over-the-horizon radar for detecting incoming Soviet missiles, or something like that. I didn't ask him what the roaming charges were for that service. CELLULAR ONE is offering a special "10th Anniversary Summer Price Plunge," with their "Digital Flex" plan priced at $19.99/month. Airtime rates start at $0.42/(0.20) per minute peak/(off-peak), dropping to 0.27/(0.16) if you exceed 420 minutes of per-minute-paid airtime. You also have two optional package plans for off-peak airtime: 300 minutes/month for $7.99 or unlimited for $15. Lastly, if you exceed 900 minutes/month outside of the package plans, the $19.99/month fee is waived. The local coverage area extends from Cloverdale (Sonoma County) to King City (Monterey County) and inland as far as Fairfield and Livermore. Roaming is $0.38/minute within California (plus Reno/Lake Tahoe), $0.75/minute elsewhere in the U.S. You can also get a GSM card for international roaming. If you don't want to shell out for a dual-mode digital/analogue phone, you can also sign up for their analogue-only plans, starting at $19.99/month, but with higher airtime rates and no unlimited off-peak package available. GTE MOBILNET is offering a competing plan, advertised for $19.95, with their 300 minutes off-peak package priced at only $5.99. However, there is a significant catch: this rate is for their analogue "zone saver" plan, which has a much smaller local area. If I base the phone in San Francisco, then I would be roaming when I'm in Oakland or Marin County or San Jose, or anywhere else outside S.F. and San Mateo County. This feature was a significant disappointment, considering that GTE MobilNet's local calling area on their regular plan extends all the way from the Oregon border, into the Sierras, and south past Santa Barbara (not including Sacramento or Los Angeles, but nearly half of California by land area). Since the service is analogue-only, you can get a much cheaper phone than the digital dual-mode phones required for the CellularOne Digital Flex plan. Roaming charges were $0.39/minute for other zones within the local area, and $0.78/minute elsewhere. One of the questions I couldn't get a coherent answer to, though, was how roaming is billed with long distance charges. For example, suppose I am in Albuquerque and use my cellphone as a roamer, making two outbound calls -- one to San Francisco and the other to Albuquerque. Will I pay long distance charges on one, the other, or both calls? The salesman I spoke to from CellularOne seemed quite certain that I would pay long distance on the call to Albuquerque, but not on the call back home to San Francisco, even though the San Francisco call is the one that uses real long distance facilities; except for authentication and billing, no part of my call within Albuquerque will touch any long distance lines. The other question I couldn't get a coherent answer to is whether the digital service is in a completely different frequency band from the traditional analogue service, and what the transmission characteristics of the two are. I know that the sound quality of a digital call that is breaking up is very different from the sound of an analogue call breaking up, but does one signal fare better with hilly terrain or downtown buildings or basements or other impediments? Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: US Callers Ripped Off in Calls to 809 NPA Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 23:28:22 PDT U.S. Consumers Ripped Off in Calls to (809) Area Code By Stephanie Stoughton, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Aug. 28--Local job seekers who answered help-wanted advertisements for "mystery shoppers" or "mystery movie watchers" may get a shock when they open their telephone bills next month. There are no jobs, says Bob Gill, director of Norfolk's consumer affairs office. The ads are part of a scheme to get people to make long-distance calls at "outrageous" international rates. Locally, the scam has worked like this: When job seekers call the long-distance number listed on help-wanted ads, a recorded voice instructs them to call another number, which in turn can lead to a third call. The last two calls, which have 809 area codes, might look like regular long-distance numbers within the United States. But they're really phone calls to the Dominican Republic. The Virginian-Pilot ran several "mystery shoppers" and "mystery movie watcher" advertisements this month. The newspaper said it has pulled the ads. So far, Norfolk's consumer affairs office has received several complaints, including one this week from a Newport News resident who complained of a $28 phone charge. But office director Gill thinks complaints over the "mystery" ads will pick up once locals discover they were wronged. "It's going to be at least 30 days before people get their phone bills," Gill said. "And when they do, they're going to be shocked out of their gizzard." Hampton Roads wasn't the only area hit, Gill said. He said residents in several states, including California and Arkansas, also have been stung by the scam. Companies often use 809 numbers as pay-per-calls to get around U.S. regulations requiring them to warn consumers of charges, according to the National Consumers League in Washington. Under the rules, callers also must be allowed to hang up before the charges kick in. These businesses make money by generating a lot of calls, the consumer group said. In return, they get rebates from their foreign telephone companies, the league said. The Federal Trade Commission has brought charges against similar operations, agency spokeswoman Bonnie Jansen said. She would not say whether the FTC is investigating the people behind the "mystery" ads. Even if federal authorities are investigating, they often have difficulty tracking down fly-by-night operations in the telecommunications industry. "That's the big problem with phone scams," said Linda Candler, spokeswoman for the local Better Business Bureau. "They're here today and gone tomorrow. By the time investigators get to where they are, they're long gone." ------------------------------ From: chris@cybernautics.com (Christopher Frey) Subject: "Modems - Simultaneous Voice & Data" A TalkCity Segment Date: 27 Aug 1996 16:34:24 GMT Organization: Cybernautics, Inc. This Wednesday (8/28) at 6 PM PT, join Jeff Orr for TalkCity's (http://www.talkcity.com) segment on modems, "What's New? Simultaneous Voice & Data." The segment is sponsored by Diamond Multimedia (http://www.diamondmm.com), makers of the Supra line of modems. Bring your questions and comments. Everyone is welcome! For more details visit TalkCity or Diamond Multimedia's web site. Christopher Frey Cybernautics, Inc. Chris@cybernautics.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 10:17:01 -0700 From: nirmal Subject: Manufacturers of Bulk Call Generators Hi Pat: I'm looking for a list of manufacturers of Bulk Call Generators. Does anyone out there have such a list compiled, or know of any offhand? Any help appreciated. Thanks and regards, Nirmal Velayudhan +1 619 651 1484 (V) Qualcomm Incorporated +1 619 658 2113 (F) 6455 Lusk Blvd. Q-356-I San Diego, CA 92121 nirmalv@qualcomm.com (E) ------------------------------ From: sanchema@telefonica.com.ar Subject: Re: AT&T V-H Coordinates Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 09:38:00 PDT Drew Larsen wrote: > 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. Well, I do not really know this "commonly used system", but we use a formula to calculate the distance between two places identified by their location in latitude and longitude (for radio links): D[km.]=ATAN(Sqr.Root(ABS(1-X^2))/X) Where: X=SIN(LatB)*SIN(LatA)+COS(LatB)*COS(LatA)*COS(ABS(LonB-LonA) All angles in radians taking into account the hemisphere (for the relative value of the angles) and considering that A is in a western position related to B. I do not know if this simple formula could be relevant to the topic, but perhaps it can get closer to it. Regards. ------------------------------ 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'. 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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 #446 ******************************