Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id SAA26570; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 18:00:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 18:00:08 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608142200.SAA26570@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #408 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 Aug 96 18:00:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 408 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson GE 916 Wireless Phone Jack System (Atri Indiresan) Northern Telecom List Online (Terry Grace) Teen's Calls From Jail Costly to Parents (Tad Cook) Need Calling Card Rates to Mexico (Yosef Rabinowitz) What is Davar? (Tad Cook) Voice-Band Modem Over VHF/UHF? (Roland Welte) Re: Rural Internet Access (John R. Levine) Re: Cellular Tower Agreement (Bill Sohl) Re: Cable Companies (Mike Fox) Re: Speaking About Crashes and Doing Dumb Things (Marc Schaefer) Re: Speaking About Crashes and Doing Dumb Things (Christopher Wolf) Re: KT&T 101XXXX Codes (Dave Stott) Re: Article on Bell Labs in Invention & Technology (Charles Cryderman) Re: Cellular Service! Flat Rate! Scam? (Jim Holmes) Loop is an ISP Only (was Re: Cellular Service! Flat Rate!) (Greg Wiley) Re: InterLATA Connectivity in 609? (Bill Sohl) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: GE 916 Wireless Phone Jack System Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 12:23:40 -0400 From: Atri Indiresan This morning, I had a visit from our housing management regarding phone extensions. Many units in our housing complex do not have phone extensions upstairs, and plans are being made to install these extensions. One candidate is the traditional wiring, and the other is the GE 916 wireless phone jack system. It is rather cheap - retailing at $80 (additional extensions are $50), and claims compatibility with answering machines, cordless phones, modems, fax, RCA DSS Receiver (what does this have to do with the phone system?). The limitations mentioned are that modems are limited to 14.4 Kbps, and it will not work with caller-ID units. What follows is a description of the unit, and how it works, summarized from their literature. The system includes a base unit and an extension unit that plug into a regular two-pin electrical socket. The base unit has two telephone jacks - one to connect it to the wall jack, and the other to the phone. The extension unit has a single jack, to which we can attach any telephone, or related device. How it works: Communication with the base is established using FM frequencies transmitted over the electrical wiring in the home -- this clearly does not use typical cordless technology. At most one extension may be used at a time. For conferencing, the base unit and one extension may be used. There are facilities for transferring between extensions, and if one extension is in use, the others give a busy indication. Security: If a neighbor uses a wireless phone jack, there could be some interference like static or a background noise. Each unit has a security code button. First, press the security button on the base unit, and then, within five seconds on the extension unit, and a light flashes once if a compatible security code can be established. This may be repeated until a compatible code is found. In general, it seems cheaper and more versatile than an ordinary phone jack, with some limitations. The main concerns here are of privacy. I plan to visit my neighbor to see if they can pick up my dial tone using my extension unit plugged in their house. Another wireless jack unit is also being acquired for my neighbor, so we can see if there is any interference. If anyone knows more technical details, and comment on its suitability for extensive use in an apartment complex, please do let me know. Also, are there any other competing products that offer something similar. I will follow up on this based on what I find out, both by my experience/experiments with the system, and perhaps, I'll call GE for more information as well (their web site had nothing useful). Thanks, Atri Indiresan http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~atri ------------------------------ From: netmaster@pmh.on.ca (Terry Grace) Subject: Northern Telecom List Online Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 16:37:36 GMT Organization: Peel Memorial Hospital Reply-To: netmaster@pmh.on.ca After searching high and low for an internet mailing list dealing with Northern Telecom products (specifically the SL1 switch) I finally gave up and created one myself. If anyone's interested, send an e-mail message to LISTMASTER@PMH.ON.CA containing only the following: JOIN NORTEL_LIST@PMH.ON.CA ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Teen's Calls From Jail Costly to Parents Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 09:31:32 PDT Here is a subject we haven't discussed in this forum for some time; exhorbidant pricing on phone calls from jails. As was discussed here before, once a jail contracts with one of these costly "alternate operator services", families of inmates have no other way of talking with them on the phone without paying huge charges. What often drives this is competetive bidding on phone services, where the provider offering the best deal to the municipality gets the contract. Often the highest paying provider is the one that gouges the caller the most. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com Teen's Jail Calls to Parents Prove Costly ST. JOHNS, Ariz. (AP) -- The parents of Justin Ballinger decided to teach the 18-year-old a lesson by letting him go to jail rather than pay his $1,200 fine. The lesson wound up costing them $1,425 in phone calls. Now they're ready to riot. "I think that's a bigger crime than what Justin did," Marsha Ballinger said. "It's ridiculous." Her ex-husband agreed. "It's a scam," said David Ballinger, whose bill included a $125 charge for a 22-minute call. Justin served a week-long sentence for marijuana possession at the Apache County Jail after his parents refused to pay his fine. Like many jails, Apache's collect phone calls are handled by a private phone service that charges much higher rates than larger, well-known phone companies. Zero Plus Dialing of San Antonio got the phone service by paying hefty commissions to the jails, as it does with 100 other jails nationwide despite complaints from its captive audience. "I'm not paying it. Zero," Mr. Ballinger said. "They can take my phone out." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Mr. Ballinger should be assured that his local phone service may *not* be disconnected for failure to pay the bill from Zero Plus Dialing. ZPD can attempt to collect from him and place him with a collection agency if that is their choice, but the local telco is no longer permitted to disconnect on the basis of unpaid charges for other companies contracting to bill through them. There is sort of a mixed bag here: Phone fraud caused by inmates of correctional institutions is a very severe problem. The big three carriers (AT&T, Sprint, and MCI) are really not interested in having business from the 'corrections industry' at all, so bad is the fraud rate. If the prison/jail is to have any phone service at all -- which the Supreme Court has said is required -- then the service is going to come from outfits like ZPD and other con-artists who themselves might benefit from a term of enforced penitence in an instituiton somwhere. Service from AOS outfits like ZPD became profitable only when universal service -- as the established telcos knew it -- was tossed in the trashcan as a relic of the past. If 'transient guest' service as it was handled by AT&T until about 1983 or so was still being practiced, inmates would be treated as 'guests' behind a PBX at the institution and billed by the institution for their calls. The institution would in turn remit to AT&T less an agreed upon commission. But the institution does not want the headaches which would be involved, and neither do the established carriers. So along comes ZPD and a few others who agree to do it, but at a high enough markup that they don't lose anything due to fraud either. Another view of this is that generally correctional institutions and the government look at the Supreme Court and basic human rights and human dignity as obstacles in their path. Whether a person in jail is guilty or not guilty is quite immaterial to them. They really cannot be bothered with 'formalities' like that. The idea is to keep the inmates as demoralized as possible; fighting among themselves; and generally out of touch with the rest of the world. Over the years as the courts have ruled that inmates are to have some modicum of rights, the government has found ways to work around it. None of the prisons/jails like the idea of having to allow prisoners to use telephones. They would much prefer to operate their institutions in the same way they were operated during the early part of this century but the courts won't allow that. So the 'work around' to this terrible thing the court has allowed; i.e. prisoners able to have contact with their families, their attornies, etc., is to make it as restrictive and expensive as possible. "You want to be friends with one of these miserable prisoners? Okay, then we will do what we can to drive a further wedge between you and the prisoner ..." and they select the lousiest and most expensive phone service they can find. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Yosef Rabinowitz Subject: Calling Card Rates to Mexico Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 10:05:37 -0700 Organization: Telephone Bill Reduction Consulting I have a customer who rents office space in a standard business center. The landlord has exclusivity on the phone lines and charges AT&T's standard rates + 20%. Customer does a few thousand minutes to Mexico zones 4 and 7. I cannot give 10XXX service since the landlord has blocked it. I am looking for a calling card platform (pre-paid or otherwise) that has rates to Mexico at 50 cents per minute or less. Email to yosefr@webspan.net ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: What is Davar? Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 11:07:23 PDT In GTE territory east of Seattle, you can dial 411 (which was retired about a quarter century ago as the directory assistance number) and get a computer voice which reads back the number you are calling from. If you dial # before the voice starts, then it reads back the number in the form of a rapid DTMF sequence. I've heard this system is called DAVAR. What is it used for? I can understand how the voice announcement could be useful for pair identification, but exactly how is the DTMF readback of the calling number used? Tad Cook tad@ssc.com Seattle, WA ------------------------------ From: Roland Welte <100070.3321@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Voice-Band Modem over VHF/UHF? Date: 14 Aug 1996 16:38:32 GMT Organization: CRYPTO AG I am looking for information on using voice-band modem technology for transmitting digital data (4800 bps) over VHF/UHF radio links. For instance, could a standard modem (e.g. V.27) be suitable for this kind of application? Any help/pointers/suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Roland ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 12:44 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Rural Internet Access Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > Is there any way people living outside a metropolitan area can get > internet access without having to pay per hour? I live in Trumansburg N.Y., population 1700. Our local independent telephone company resells flat rate dial-up PPP access (from a larger telco in Pennsylvania) for about $19/mo. We also happen to be a local call from Ithaca, which isn't a very big city but since it's home to Cornell University and Ithaca College, there are two independent ISPs, dial-ins for Sprint, Compuserve, IBM, etc., and NYSERNET has multiple T3 Internet feeds into their POP at the downtown phone CO. This admittedly isn't your typical small town. My sister lives in rural Cornwall, Vermont. She gets service from Sovernet's POP in Middlebury, a small town with a small college. Sovernet has dial-ins all over Vermont and seems to be making a go of it. Vermont's a worst case for an ISP, since it's very rural, local calling areas aren't very big, and intra-state toll rates are extremely high. (It can easily cost more to call from Burlington to Brattleboro than from Burlington to France.) Even so, it seems that you don't need a whole lot of customers to make it worthwhile to put in a POP. 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: billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) Subject: Re: Cellular Tower Agreement Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 15:58:40 GMT Organization: BL Enterprises Emily Van Dunk wrote: > Our church has been approached by a major cellular service provider to > place their antenna on our steeple. Our church is located in a rather > densely populated area in Milwaukee, WI (about one mile from a major > interstate). They are offering $7000 a year. After doing some poking > around it seems that this is quite low (most agreements I've heard > about are around $25,000). Can anyone give advice, or references > regarding a fair price ... or any other issues? Any information is > much appreciated. The township I live in gets $25,000 a year from NYNEX to hahe a NYNEX antenna on a township watertank. We're in rural NW New Jersey adjacent to an interstate. That agreement was signed eight years ago. Given inflation, etc. I'd think $7000 in today's market is considerably low. Bill Sohl (K2UNK) billsohl@planet.net Internet & Telecommunications Consultant/Instructor Budd Lake, New Jersey ------------------------------ From: Mike Fox Date: 13 Aug 96 08:46:20 GMT Subject: Re: Cable Companies > 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? The cable companies cannot put this restriction on you. Unfortunately, the only people that can legally put this restriction on you are landlords. Last week, the FCC issued rules that basically said that no state, local, or homeowner's association rule can be enforced that interferes with TV or satellite reception. This overrode all those homeowner's covenants and local laws that restrict satellite dishes. However, they specifically said that landlords could make this restriction (which makes sense because it IS their own property). I bet your landlord got a kickback or a deal for signing that agreement with the cable company. Makes them kinda like a cable COCOT ... Later, Mike ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 13:52:16 +0200 From: schaefer@vulcan.alphanet.ch (Marc SCHAEFER) Subject: Speaking About Crashes and Doing Dumb Things > suggestions. First, change the permissions on all of the files you > have which are "permanent" by using "chmod -w .*". This will take > write permission away from you and if you try to delete a file it will > prompt you with a message about "over-riding" the lack of write Far better is to remove the w from the directory: UNIX deletion depends on the right to modify the containing directory. First example: overridable-delete (dangerous if you have the habit of answering y to whatever you see) schaefer:/usr/var/tmp2/t1> ls schaefer:/usr/var/tmp2/t1> touch a schaefer:/usr/var/tmp2/t1> chmod 444 a schaefer:/usr/var/tmp2/t1> rm a rm: a: 444 mode. Remove (y/n)? y Better security with: schaefer:/usr/var/tmp2/t1> touch a schaefer:/usr/var/tmp2/t1> chmod -w . schaefer:/usr/var/tmp2/t1> rm a UX:rm: ERROR: a not removed: Permission denied. schaefer:/usr/var/tmp2/t1> Some UNIX systems like HP/UX offer a temporary trashcan where your deleted files go. This is also easy to implement with a small sh script. Then you can add a purge command, executed manually, or on too old files in this temporary trashcan directory. The SunOS filemanager for example implements a manual trashcan. > permission. Second, make a copy of all of your dot files and other > scripts in another directory and on your hard disk. I would say start by doing cd important_place tar cvf - . | gzip -9 > $HOME/backup.tar.gz Can be extracted with gzip -d < $HOME/backup.tar.gz | tar oxvf - If you don't have gzip, use compress without the -9 argument. Some operating systems use the z option of tar instead, but this one should work. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 09:53:41 CDT From: Christopher Wolf Subject: Re: Speaking About Crashes and Doing Dumb Things On Thu, 8 Aug 1996, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Last Sunday night I got on line about 10:00 p.m. here to do some work > on the Digest and I had a bright idea about a new script I wanted to > try out. Well the script flubbed, which was not anything unusual for > scripts that I write or try to hack on, but the main annoyance was > it left me with a directory full of about a hundred .h, .c. and .o > files to clean out when I decided to quit the experiment. > Now, I try to be smart with potentially disasterous commands like > 'rm' and I personally have 'rm' aliased to 'rm -i' meaning to not > erase a file without asking for confirmation. The problem is, if > you have a whole directory full of garbage files to get rid of > then if you go to that directory and do 'rm *' it will stop over > and over again, asking about each file. The command 'rm -f' will > NOT overrride 'rm -i' on this machine at least, although 'rm -f' > will work in a script running in the background with its own shell > regardless of what arguments I happen to have attached to 'rm' > for my use in the foreground. > So far so good. Instead of having to answer 'y' a 120 times for > every garbage file in the garbage directory I am abolishing, I > decided just this one time I would unalias 'rm' instead. So I > did 'unalias rm' then I did 'rm *' -- but the trouble is I had > ** forgotten to change directories to the one I wanted **. Pat, I use the idea of a trashcan when I activate remove. I alias rm to be the following script, which actually moves files to a hidden directory called .trashcan in my home directory and removes directories and symbolic links. Doesn't handle the more complex forms of rm, but it works fine. BTW: I also run a crontab job to clean out the directory every morning.... 20 4 * * 1-5 (/bin/rm /home/cwolf/.trashcan/* /home/cwolf/.trashcan/.??* > /dev/null ) If you use tcsh or csh like I do, you can then use \rm when you want to override the alias. A backward slash before a command means to ignore any aliases for it. #!/usr/local/bin/tcsh -f foreach i ($*) if (-d $i) then echo Removing directory $i /bin/rmdir $i else if (-l $i) then echo Unlinking symbolic link $i /bin/rm $i else if (-f $i) then if (`/bin/ls -l $i | /bin/cut -c23-31` > "500000") then set SIZE=`/bin/ls -l $i | /bin/cut -c23-31` echo -n "NUKING $i of size $SIZE. " /bin/rm $i echo "BOOM! No Backup." else echo Removing file $i to temporary trashcan. /bin/mv $i ~/.trashcan endif endif end ------------------------------ From: dstott@uswest.com Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 10:46:07 MDT Subject: KT&T 101XXXX Codes In Telecom Digest #390, ronnie.grant@mogur.com (Ronnie Grant) writes: > A while back someone mentioned that interexchange carrier > KT&T, based in Fort Worth, Texas, had subsidiaries named > "I don't know," "It doesn't matter," and "Whoever," so > customers making operator-dialed calls would get hit with > their rates. For anyone who is interested, I have the > 101XXXX codes for KT&T and its subsidiaries. I noticed the same thing in the FCC's 1995 report on CIC/CAC assignments. At the time, U S WEST was attempting to procure the assignment of a second CIC for handling our own intraLATA traffic in Minnesota. We were told we couldn't have a second CIC, but KT&T got those four. Go figure. MOHO, Dave Stott ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Aug 96 15:55:17 EST From: Charles Cryderman Subject: Re: Article on Bell Labs in Invention & Technology rh120@namaste.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) wrote: much snipped > Companies need to watch their bottom line and thus they can't and > don't put the needed investment into the long term research that > produces important scientific advances like the transistor and the > other significant scientific developments made possible by Bell Labs. Now if you really want to talk about invention, lets go to WAR. There were more invention during the Civil War then any other time in history (followed by WWII.) The need to be more efficient killers (without sacrificing oneself) will always help motivate invention. Chip Cryderman [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh yes, indeed, and war does wonders for the economy also. Nothing like a good, protracted war with lots of American troops involved to stimulate the economy. Those of us who lived through Vietnam know how there was always lots of money to spend. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 09:47:13 -0400 From: holmesj@disney.crd.ge.com (Jim Holmes) Subject: Re: Cellular Service! Flat Rate! Scam? Pat et all, This is what I get on loop.com from whois: Domain Name: LOOP.COM Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact, Billing Contact: Wiley, Greg (GW138) greg@LOOP.COM (213) 465-1311 Record last updated on 28-Nov-95. Record created on 23-Feb-95. Domain servers in listed order: JANIS.LOOP.COM 204.179.169.2 AUTH00.NS.UU.NET 198.6.1.65 AUTH01.NS.UU.NET 198.6.1.81 Their web page says they are an LA ISP. I'll let you know what I find out about Azimuth and Western. One can always hope it's for real :-) Jim Holmes | holmesj@crd.ge.com IMS/UNIX Client Services | One Research Circle/KW-C255B GE Corp. Research & Development Center | Schenectady, NY 12345 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 12:39:28 -0700 From: Greg Wiley Subject: Loop is an ISP Only Dear Mr. Townson: Garry Spire, a subscriber to your TELECOM digest passed along an item of interest to me. In the digest, you suggest researching Western Cellular Services and also The Loop (loop.com). I operate The Loop Internet Switch Company, a Los Angeles-based internet service provider. Azimuth@loop.com is one of our access subscribers and has no other relationship with The Loop. I hope this clears up at least some of the mystery. Feel free to contact me if I can be of additional help. Regards, Greg Wiley Chief Operating Officer The Loop Internet Switch Co, LLC [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, I figured he was just one of your subsciribers among many. Thanks for the note of clarification. PAT] ------------------------------ From: billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) Subject: Re: InterLATA Connectivity in 609? Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 15:52:43 GMT Organization: BL Enterprises Andrew White wrote: > Hello, fellow telecom enthusiasts. > I am working on a project that requires that I run a T1 circuit > between the two LATAs in South Jersey, the Atlantic LATA and the > Delaware LATA. These two LATAs comprise the 609 area code. Are you sure that you are dealing with an inter-lata situation? The 609 area code is ONE (1) lata and any two sites in the 609 area code can be served by Bell Atlantic also. When the LATAs were created in 1984m NJ was split into two. One was the 201 area and the other was the 609. Since then the 201 has split into 201 and 908. Bill Sohl (K2UNK) billsohl@planet.net Internet & Telecommunications Consultant/Instructor Budd Lake, New Jersey ------------------------------ 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 #408 ******************************