Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA04316; Fri, 28 Mar 1997 02:57:10 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 02:57:10 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199703280757.CAA04316@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #77 TELECOM Digest Fri, 28 Mar 97 02:57:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 77 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson A "Firewall" to Keep Out Telecom Regulation (Jack Decker) Pacific Bell Demands MCI Stop its False Advertising (Mike King) Area Code Change Tips? (norgefar@aol.com) Book Review: "Family Internet Companion" by Mautner/Sturm (Rob Slade) Book Review: "New Community Networks" by Schuler (Rob Slade) BellSouth Prepares Launch of Separate Payphone Subsidiary (Mike King) Double Spam: Honest Business People Hurt (Martin McCormick) Telephone Scam (Dewi Daniels) 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 hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@massis.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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:37:33 -0500 From: Jack Decker Subject: A "Firewall" to Keep Out Telecom Regulation Here's something I found in an e-mail newsletter (source info at bottom): A "FIREWALL" TO KEEP OUT TELECOM REGULATION Disappointed that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has not done more to spur competition in that industry, some free-market economists are proposing to erect a "firewall" around advanced services, with regulators forbidden to touch anything within it. They say the act did not accomplish full-scale deregulation, and after more than a year, consumers have seen few benefits. Although free to enter each others' businesses, cable and telephone companies have retreated from plans to do so. The 1996 act gave the Federal Communications Commission the power to encourage competition by "forbearing" from enforcing regulations that appear to inhibit progress. Under the firewall plan: * Completely deregulated services would include all forms of Internet access, advanced television services, business data networking, electronic commerce services and other non-traditional services in which existing service providers do not have any overwhelming power as a government-created monopoly in the past. * The provision of services by any provider would be completely deregulated and not subject to price controls of any kind. * Advanced services would be exempt from any future universal-service and interconnection requirements. * Where services are provided over a wireless infrastructure, providers would have the flexibility to use the spectrum however they pleased. Proponents argue that such a plan would create a strong profit incentive which would lure investment and, in the long run, generate more and more telecommunications traffic -- making the final push toward total deregulation that much easier. Source: Lawrence Gasman and Solveig Bernstein (both of the Cato Institute), "A 'Firewall' to Protect Telecom,"Wall Street Journal, March 27, 1997. For Alfred E. Kahn's analysis of "How To Treat The Costs Of Shared Voice And Video Networks In A Post-Regulatory Age" go to http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-264es.html (Extracted from "Policy Digest", National Center For Policy Analysis, Dallas, Texas, http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa) ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Pacific Bell Demands MCI Stop its False Advertising Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 12:07:36 PST ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 08:46:49 -0800 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: Pacific Bell Demands MCI Stop its False Advertising FOR MORE INFORMATION: Lou Saviano 415 394-3744 Pacific Bell Demands MCI Stop its False Advertising Ads Accuse Local Phone Companies of Overcharging SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell today urged the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to order a halt to a controversial ad campaign by MCI which falsely claims that local phone companies are overcharging customers through "access charges" and urges customers to call the local company and demand refunds. In a complaint filed with the CPUC, Pacific Bell said that MCI's ads falsely state that Pacific Bell is charging more than permitted by law for access fees and that it is charging the access fees directly to consumers. Pacific Bell stated that the MCI ads are absolutely untrue. Pacific Bell's access charges are set by law and are among the lowest in the nation. "These ads are part of a continuing campaign by MCI to try to discredit Pacific Bell in the eyes of its customers," said Lee Bauman, Pacific Bell vice president for local competition. "Pacific Bell has cut its access charges again and again over the last several years, so MCI and other long distance companies pay us half the national average. Instead of paying access charges amounting to 40 percent of the price of a long distance call, as its ad says, MCI pays Pacific Bell less than 20 percent." "MCI's ad is flat-out wrong in Pacific Bell's area, and MCI knows it," Bauman said. Moreover, MCI charges California callers the same price as customers in other states pay, and pockets the extra 20 percent, he said. "For MCI to suggest in its ads that we are 'milking' customers as if they were cows when, in fact, MCI is paying Pacific Bell half the national average in access charges is simply false, and the falsehood is compounded by the fact that MCI is not passing on Pacific Bell's lower access charges to MCI's customers," Bauman said. "If anyone owes you a refund, it's MCI," Bauman said. "If MCI truly believes it has been 'overcharged,' it should file a formal complaint, with the evidence to back it up, rather than simply launch a deceptive advertising blitz backed by no evidence," Bauman said. "In short, MCI should put up or shut up." Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications corporation with headquarters in San Francisco. -------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lying and distorting reality is nothing new for MCI. Their founder Jack McGowan was one of the biggest liars around in the early days of the company, back in the early and middle 1970's. I filed a complaint with the FCC against MCI regarding the falsehoods they were spreading with regard to 'Execunet', their first long distance plan now over twenty years ago. They were busy telling all the telecom admins at large companies how Execunet would save them 'twenty or thirty percent' over what they were paying (at that time) 'Ma Bell' for long distance service. Indeed, they were charging less per minute on long distance, but they failed to mention that (in those days) to reach their network you had to dial a local seven digit number which caused the local part of the phone bill to skyrocket as thousands of employees at large companies were instructed by their telecom departments on the 'new dialing procedures' (i.e. use MCI) for long distance calls. If the long distance number you were calling was busy or did not answer, you still paid for a one minute call to the local switch number of MCI. If you had to try five or six times to reach a long distance number you paid for five or six local calls in the process. In cases like Illinois Bell, where local 'message units' were simply tallied and shown as a total on the bill, large companies saw a three or fourfold increase in such local message units at three to five cents each. Of course the bill from telco never said 'this large increase in the number of local message units on your bill is due to the (possibly) several hundred times per day you are now dialing the MCI switch'. Employers just assumed their employees must be making 'a lot more personal calls' if they noticed it at all. MCI reps were trained to parrot that line also to the corporate telecom admins who called with suspicions. MCI was counting on the fact that while long distance calls are 'coin rated' (that is they appear in column after column after column with the number called and the money required for each) the local message units were just lumped as a total so that instead of the telecom admin seeing on the company's phone bill a notation that sixty thousand message units at five cents each were accrued during the month prior and this month there are eighty thousand message units used. That never seemed to phase anyone, but the fact that they could look at the long distance portion of the bill and see it was less than before really impressed the dumbos in the executive suites. My complaint to the FCC, which the Commission required MCI to answer, was that the entire phone bill still had to be paid. Less to MCI but more to the local telco. So who exactly was saving 'twenty or thirty percent'? I also said that under the traditional arrangement (as it was in the sixties and seventies) when one dialed a long distance number, they essentially got a free ride to the nearest AT&T toll switcher; or at least the cost of the local portion was factored in to the overall cost of the call. Not that AT&T was by any means angelic and totally honest with people, but at least we got to pay one fairly reasonable phone bill, and there was no kidding around reducing one set of costs and 'smuggling' the cost back in on the local side of the bill hidden away where only a very astute telecom manager would see it. The FCC ordered MCI to begin including in their advertising a refer- ence -- admittedly in small print -- that 'local call charges to the MCI Point of Presence will be applied by the telco' ... MCI thought that was really rotten of me and complained that it was not their fault they did not have equal access. No, it was not their fault, but the point is they did not have it, and they were not very honest in explaining who was footing the bill for using their 'less expensive' service. MCI got as far as they did in the early days by appealing to the group of people who thought they could 'get one over on Ma Bell' (what a laugh!) and much of their early success was due to the increasing hostility AT&T was facing in those years. Anyway, if you ever see any of those real old ads for Execunet and the tiny little line of print at the bottom making the disclaimer about how 'you do not really save that much by the time you pay off your larger than usual local bill but we would like you to think our service is really saving you money' (they had their own sanitized way of phrasing it of course) that was because of me and a few others who wrote the FCC asking exactly who was kidding whom. PAT] ------------------------------ From: norgefar@aol.com Subject: Area Code Change Tips? Date: 27 Mar 1997 17:37:38 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Would welcome any suggestions on things a Corporation should look for when its exchange(s) are involved in an area code change. Besides the obvious communications to vendors, customers, employees, we have identified the following: A. ISDN numbers using the old area code will cease to work on the DATE that the LEC changes its software for ISDN. near that date, we must reprogram modems to change the # and the SPID to the new area code. B. We will send out broadcast faxes to our own fax machines at other sites telling them to change speed dial keys, etc. I have asked our fax vendors if there is any maintenance support program they have access to that could reprogram these automatically. C. We will change our unix based call accounting system to change the area code. D. We are aware that all cellular phones have a two year period to change to the new area code (phone must be physically turned in and re-programmed). Pagers also have a two year period, but do not require a physical change (although some models might -- just none we are using). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 13:02:08 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Family Internet Companion" by Mautner/Sturm BKFMINCM.RVW 961126 "Family Internet Companion", Christopher J. Mautner/Chris Noonan Sturm, 1997, 0-13-569500-7, U$34.95/C$48.93 %A Christopher J. Mautner chrism@classroom.net %A Chris Noonan Sturm cnsturm@classroom.org %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1997 %G 0-13-569500-7 %I Prentice Hall %O U$34.95/C$48.93 +1-201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %O 800-638-1639 fax 717-393-5752 success@wentworth.com connect@wentworth.com %P 330 %S Classroom Connect %T "Family Internet Companion" The first time I read through the book it appeared to be rather pathetic. The "baby talk" style of the early chapters is not likely to appeal to either children or parents. At the same time, the explanations provided in the initial sections are almost wholly lacking in informational value, and sometimes simplistic to the point of being wrong. On second reading, however, I realized that later parts of the book contain much more that is of value. Nothing startling, and nothing that you couldn't find in one of the better Internet guides (rather less, in fact), but a decent introduction to the net nonetheless. On balance, this guide is probably worth looking at for families getting onto the net. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKFMINCM.RVW 961126 roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 14:32:56 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "New Community Networks" by Schuler BKNCOMNT.RVW 961212 "New Community Networks", Douglas Schuler, 1996, 0-201-59553-2, U$26.85 %A Douglas Schuler douglas@scn.org %C 1 Jacob Way, Reading, MA 01867-9984 %D 1996 %G 0-201-59553-2 %I Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. %O U$26.85 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 bkexpress@aw.com %P 528 %T "New Community Networks: Wired for Change" Schuler's overview of community networks, "freenets" (the "Free-Net" spelling is a registered service mark), and information systems has very good coverage of press and media effects and activities, but is less insightful in other areas. The chapters are primarily anecdotal reports of varied projects conducted on local nets. There is some analysis included, but overall it is lacking in depth. There is some mention of negative impacts but little critiquing, and no discussion at all of such topics as the "hidden" types of censorship behind Internet filtering software and Usenet newsgroup selection. The material is not technically challenging. There is, however, a different type of jargon used in the book, and one which can be even less penetrable to the reader. Terms such as "third place" start to occur early in the book with definitions, if there are any, only given later. The lack of entries in the index doesn't help. Nor do the definitions, which don't provide much enlightenment regarding the meanings of the terms in the context of the book, or the significance of the foregoing discussions. This volume does have one overwhelming advantage when placed against the piles of "cyberspace" books currently flooding the market: a thorough grounding in reality. Although I am very critical of its weak areas, all of the content comes from real systems in real settings. While those setting out to implement a community network may find that the books paints the world through a slightly rose coloured monitor, it does, nonetheless, show what can and is being done. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKNCOMNT.RVW 961212 roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Prepares Launch of Separate Payphone Subsidiary Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 20:37:31 PST ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 14:25:21 -0500 (EST) From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth Prepares Launch of Separate Payphone Subsidiary BellSouth Prepares Launch of Separate Payphone Subsidiary HOMEWOOD, ALA. -- BellSouth Public Communications, Inc. is poised to spring into the highly competitive payphone services market April 1 as a separate BellSouth subsidiary, with expectations of capitalizing on newfound regulatory freedoms and BellSouth's rich tradition of service to meet the needs of its customers. BellSouth Public Communications, Inc. is being launched as a corporate entity independent of BellSouth's regulated telephone operations. It will rise from the starting blocks as the nation's largest stand-alone provider of payphone services, operating over 172,000 payphones and serving more than 53,000 payphone location providers in nine Southeastern states. "This is the start of a new and exciting era for BellSouth in the payphone services market," said James B. "Jim" Hawkins, president of BellSouth Public Communications, Inc. "We've created a separate subsidiary for our payphone operations because it best meets the needs of a marketplace that's become more and more competitive. We feel it reflects the focus, resolve and flexibility that will characterize all of BellSouth's approach to serving customers in a highly competitive area of the telecommunications industry. "We look upon it as an opportunity to upgrade our operations, strengthen our technology and expand our service offerings to adapt to the heightened demands of payphone customers in our region. This is good news for our customers, our shareholders, and our employees." Hawkins said that because of regulatory changes set in motion by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, BellSouth needed an organizational structure for its payphone unit that allows a greater degree of flexibility and freedom to meet competitive demands. "A separate subsidiary enables BellSouth Public Communications to enjoy the same business opportunities as other payphone service providers throughout our region," Hawkins said. "Because of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, we now fall under the same rules, regulations and state jurisdictions as these competitors. The payphone business is extremely competitive, especially in the Southeast, where there are more than 3,000 different certified payphone service providers. Operating on the same level playing field as our competitors will allow BellSouth to offer even greater value to a broader range of customers." Along these lines, Hawkins said, certain tariffed payphone services offered in the past by BellSouth are being "deregulated," and are being replaced by market-priced services. "The FCC requires that all public and semi-public payphone services be deregulated. As a result, payphone service prices in this new fully competitive, deregulated environment will more accurately reflect the actual costs we incur in providing these servi ces. "The manner in which we price and provision these new services is an example of the key business decisions we have to make in order to compete in this new environment." Single-Source Management of Payphone Services Hawkins said his company is still awaiting FCC approval on BellSouth's Comparably Efficient Interconnection (CEI) plan. This plan, filed last November, assures that BellSouth Telecommunications, as a telephone company, will provide telephone line services on a non-discriminatory basis to BellSouth Public Communications and all other independent payphone service providers. After the FCC approves BellSouth's CEI plan, BellSouth Public Communications will be able to provide single-source management of local and long distance services from its payphones. The plan was filed pursuant to the FCC's Payphone Report and Order of September 20, 1996, and the Commission's Order on Reconsideration of November 8, 1996. With FCC approval of this plan, BellSouth will be able to provide value-added service to its payphone location providers by being able to negotiate and contract for long distance services on their behalf. "This green light from the FCC will add yet another dimension to our plans for single-source management of payphone services," Hawkins said. "We'll be able to select and contract for reliable, reasonably priced long distance service from qualified long distance carriers. We share the FCC's concern that end-user customers receive the benefit of fair and reasonable long distance rates when they use payphones." BellSouth Public Communications, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of BBS Holdings, Inc., which itself is a wholly owned subsidiary of BellSouth Telecommunications. It is headquartered in Homewood, Ala., a suburb of Birmingham, and employs more than 785 people throughout BellSouth's nine-state region. For More Information: David A. Storey BSPC Media Relations (205) 943-2532 ---------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Martin McCormick Subject: Double Spam: Honest Business People Hurt Date: 26 Mar 1997 18:00:59 GMT Organization: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater OK I had an interesting experience yesterday when I found a fresh slice of Spam in my mailbox. It started out like: From: luckystrike@usa.net Subject: WHO ARE YOUR ANCESTORS? ******************************************************************** Do you know WHO your ancestors are and WHAT they did? I made some remarks about the spammer's ancestors under my breath and sent a copy of the ad to postmaster@usa.net, knowing that it probably was a forgery. There was a toll-free number near the bottom of the ad so I called it, ready to extract blood if I got a live person or take other measures if it turned out to be VoiceMail jail. A woman answered the telephone and said something I never really understood. I asked if this was the correct number for the people doing genealogies? She said something else which was garballed, but it sounded affirmative so I asked if they were the people putting unsolicited advertising on the Internet? She then clearly said that she would let me speak to the people who knew what was going on. After a couple of minutes wait, a lady came on and I asked her the same question. She then began to explain and apologize. She said that their company had signed up with a firm called Emailusa whose representatives stated that the advertising would only be sent to people who had requested it. The lady was very curious as to why everybody was so angry until I explained about how this company had simply mailbombed the whole Internet with no regard at all as to the interests of the recipients. She said that they had gotten lots of calls and her description made me think that most of the callers were ballistic, at best. When I explained to her how this mass-mailing company probably worked, she put me on a speaker phone so that others in the room could listen. This little company had basically been scammed and had paid for the privilege. They were not even aware of what Usenet was and had simply thought the Internet was a good way to gain new customers. The people were as gentle and contrite as one could ever ask and I believe them because she and a man who was also in the room answered every question I asked without any hesitation at all. I honestly think they just got taken. The lady told me that they had previously dealt with another company who did deliver on their promise and they simply thought that Emailusa was the same type of company. We chatted for a couple of minutes and I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for what they were probably having to deal with. Emailusa, on the other hand, has learned how to put a hook on both ends of the line and attach the midpoint of that line to a weed whacker. If you visit their web site, there is no provision for input of any kind. They know what they are doing. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK 36.7N97.4W OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group [TELECOM Digest Editor: This is why attention needs to be given to the *true* spammer -- in most cases organizations like that of Spamford Wallace and the one you cite. We've had documentation before of innocent business people who were new to the Internet -- essentially knowing nothing about it at all -- trusting someone to help them advertise and introduce thier business only to get many hostile replies in return because of the way it was handled. I am not saying there are not a lot of free lance spammers out there; guys who just do it with thier business opportunities and Make Money Fast schemes. They need to be ostracized also, but let's try and take it easy on the small companies who are just finding out about us who entrust charlatans to help them. You are probably right. The people feel horrible about 'the trouble they caused' (which of course they did not cause at all) and we now have just one more group of people with a bad taste in their mouths about their few encounters with the net. Speaking of bad tastes in the mouth: Did anyone else get as infuriated as I about the media's (still ongoing at this hour) treatment and coverage of the San Diego mass suicide affair? Every other sentence by the commentators has been on 'the internet and the web page' which those people operated. As one phrased it on ABC News, 'they believed that by committing suicide they would go to live on another planet and this is all explained on their Web Page ...' Yeah right. This is always followed of course by the local internet expert showing how to log in and read the page those fools put together. Six or eight months ago I said I seriously questioned the wisdom of putting the TELECOM Digest and Archives in web format. But FTP at lcs.mit.edu was (still is) jammed up beyond redemption plus which Bill Pfieffer badgered me continually to do it. So I decided to bite the bullet and go with the flow and now every other story in the media is on how trashy the web is. The news in the {Chicago Sun Times} yesterday (before the mass suicides took over the whole front page) was on the topic of 'prostitution and the net' and how police are making arrests after responding to web page notices and chat room conversations. Of course the web pages of the pedophiles and Nazis get a regular review by the newspapers also. Perhaps you think me very arrogant, but I am sick and tired of telling people I have what *I think* (and that is all I care about any more) is a useful and dignified resource for the net on the World Wide Web only to have people look at me sort of askance and ask if I 'get into' hacking, pedophilia and credit card fraud. Now this bunch of fools with their trip to outer space after they commit suicide 'and it is all explained on the web' takes the cake as far as I am concerned. I am going to seriously consider taking my page down and go back to FTP only like it always was in the past. I understand I have been added to the blocking software that one company puts out anyway on account of the word 'sex' being in a message they saw. Speaking of Bill Pfieffer: his mother passed a couple days ago. Apparently she never did recover from the injuries suffered in the fire they had a few months ago. If you care to correspond with him write to wdp@airwaves.com. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dewi@cableol.co.uk (Dewi Daniels) Subject: Telephone Scam Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 18:41:33 GMT Dear Pat, I posted the following message to the RISKS Digest two weeks ago, and I've received a number of replies that recommend I should post the same query to the TELECOM Digest. If you think it would be appropriate, could you please post my message to the Digest? Yours sincerely, Dewi Daniels Guildford, England --------------------------------------- We had a nasty shock a couple of days ago, when we received our monthly phone bill from our cable telephone operator, CableTel. The last two days of the billing period, there had been a number of calls to the same number in Guyana, totalling UKP 75, more than doubling our phone bill. On each day, there had been three calls in succession, making a total of six calls. We placed a bar on premium rate and international calls as soon as we received the bill. I'm concerned these calls may have continued to be made during the week that elapsed before we received the bill, so we could be liable for another UKP 250 or more. We got in touch with CableTel, who claim that these calls had originated as premium rate calls to an 'entertainment' line, and that their records showed these calls must have been made from our house. Now, we're sure that nobody made these calls from our house. I was in the USA at the time, and my wife was at work. A married couple, old friends of ours, were staying with us. At the time of the calls, the husband was at home, studying for his Open University degree, and the wife was at work. We had no workmen or other visitors in the house those days. It's not clear yet whether CableTel are going to hold us liable for these charges. It is clear that they suspect our friends. I can't say I blame them for coming to that conclusion, but we have every reason to believe that our friends are perfectly trustworthy, and are sure that the explanation must lie elsewhere. As a software safety engineer, and a regular reader of the RISKS Digest, I'm well aware there may be any number of ways in which these calls could have been charged to our account. I find CableTel's claims that their computer records 'prove' the calls were made from our house to be rather less than satisfying. I don't have any detailed knowledge of telephony or telephone billing systems. I do, however, respect the technical knowledge of my fellow subscribers to this list. Does anyone have any theories as to how these calls could have been charged to our account, or has anyone heard of any similar cases? I'd be very grateful indeed for any suggestions as to how we should proceed in presenting our case to CableTel. Dewi Daniels Guildford, England ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #77 *****************************