Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id DAA11413; Sun, 13 Apr 1997 03:38:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 03:38:15 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199704130738.DAA11413@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #90 TELECOM Digest Sun, 13 Apr 97 03:37:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 90 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Addresses For Digest (TELECOM Digest Editor) GTE Busy Signals Plague Internet Users (Monty Solomon) Follow-up Thread to BELLSOUTH MCI AIN Agreement (Kelly Daniels) Book Review: "Essential Client/Server Survival Guide" (Rob Slade) Updated Bellcore NPA Info As of 7 April (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split (Bob Goudreau) Re: Fort Mill, SC Telephone Anomalies (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: The Final Cellular Straw (David Parmet) Re: The Final Cellular Straw (Stanley Cline) 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: * subscriptions@telecom-digest.org * 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: 847-727-5427 Fax: 773-539-4630 ** Article submission address: editor@telecom-digest.org ** Our archives are available for your review/research. The URL is: http://telecom-digest.org (WWW/http only!) 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 archives@telecom-digest.org 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 00:10:35 EDT From: editor@telecom-digest.org (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: New Addresses For Digest Although the Digest is still published using facilities at lcs.mit.edu I now have 'telecom-digest.org' for mailing purposes. Please begin addressing your correspondence as follows: For submissions to the Digest: editor@telecom-digest.org For mailing list additions/deletions/changes of address: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org For automated file pulls from the Telecom Archives: archives@telecom-digest.org (use the rules as explained previously for this service) In addition, the Telecom Archives web site URL is now: http://telecom-digest.org The above will reach the 'home page', however you may include the following suffixes: /chat -- to go to the telecom webchat area /TELECOM_Digest_Online -- to read the Digest messages. /search.html -- to use the c.d.t. search engines. and there are other suffixes; the above are the most common. ------------------------------ The existing MIT addresses will continue to function for the time being at least, but using the telecom-digest.org addresses shown above guarentees we will always stay in touch. Patrick Townson ptownson@telecom-digest.org ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 13:55:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: GTE Busy Signals Plague Internet Users Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM LAVANET, INC. GROSVENOR CENTER, MAKAI TOWER, SUITE 1560 733 BISHOP STREET, HONOLULU, HI 96813 VOICE: 808-545-5282 FAX: 808-545-7020 For Release April 10, 1997 GTE Busy Signals Plague Internet Users Local Internet Service Provider Uncovers Hawaiian Tel Capacity Problems Honolulu, April 8, 1997: If you've experienced an unusual number of busy signals lately, you're not alone. And it might not be the party you're calling that's busy, but the phone company itself. It may be your affected call is never getting past the nearest GTE Hawaiian Tel Central Office, or "CO", serving your area. Downtown businesses, Windward Oahu residents, and the estimated 100,000 Internet users on Oahu have been especially hurt by this problem in March and April. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet users were also affected by a recent GTE high-speed circuit failure on April 5th and 6th. Excessive Busy Signals Due to GTE During March and early April the GTE Hawaiian Tel phone system has been generating an unusual number of "network busies", which are heard on the customer side as a fast-paced busy signal or a recorded "All circuits are busy" message. The worst affected areas seem to include the Alakea Central Office which serves all downtown areas, the Punahou Central Office, and the Kaneohe Central Office. This most significantly affected people dialing into or out of the downtown Honolulu area. Since several of Hawaii's largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are located downtown, many users of the Internet have been particularly affected during the past few weeks. Yuka Nagashima, LavaNet Projects Coordinator, has been collecting the data: "Since mid-March, LavaNet has documented over 3000 incidents of our customers getting fast busy signals or "all circuits busy" messages due to GTE. In fact we always had at least 40 free modems and phone lines remaining idle during that time, due to our planning for extra capacity." GTE so far has only privately admitted to a lack of circuits from the Kaneohe central office to the downtown area, causing busy signals for callers between those two areas. However, GTE has refused to publicly acknowledge the lack of performance, and has instead suggested that the network busies and shortage of circuits are the result of students on spring break making additional phone calls, and inadequate resources at local ISPs. LavaNet President Clifton Royston notes that public safety issues are involved: "GTE is a public utility and has a responsibility to protect the public. We have been told that GTE's internal goals are 'P=.01', meaning they currently consider it acceptable for one call in 100 to result in network busies during heavy usage periods. The performance we've seen looks even worse than that - some of our customers called for hours but couldn't get through, even though we had many free lines. If one of the calls that can't be completed is an emergency call to a hospital or to the police, then GTE could endanger lives by this poor approach to capacity planning. If GTE can not forecast the effects of Internet use on the phone network, then it is irresponsible for GTE to be providing and selling their own Internet service. There also seem to be serious conflicts of interest in GTE selling their own Internet service, while providing the phone service that all other ISPs depend on." GTE Trouble Line Staff Mislead Consumers Many LavaNet customers called 611 (GTE Hawaiian Tel's consumer help and trouble line) during this time. They were given explanations such as: "Your Internet provider doesn't have enough phone lines", "We have never heard of this problem", and "LavaNet has not reported any problems." GTE's 611 staff continued to make such claims despite LavaNet's constant contact and trouble reports to GTE during this period, and even after several conversations with the 611 management and supervisory staff in which GTE engineers informed them of GTE's capacity problems. Kit Grant, LavaNet Sales and Marketing Manager said: "While it is a fact that some ISPs may not have adequate resources for their customers, LavaNet has always maintained a strict modem availability policy as part of our overall responsible growth philosophy. For the last two and a half years we have been in business, our customers have told us that they rarely or never encounter busy signals on our system. In fact, from our daily usage reports, the last time all our modem lines were actually in use was August, 1996. Nothing is more frustrating than to work so hard to give the best possible service, and to be foiled by the phone company. It reflects badly on us, and we feel GTE owes our customers some reparation and owes LavaNet a public apology." Kaneohe Phone System Overloaded The telephone system problems seem to affect some GTE Central Offices more severely. On Windward Oahu, capacity problems have been caused by the reluctance of GTE to add "inter-office trunking" from Kaneohe to downtown, until after the Kaneohe CO is changed from an analog to digital phone switch, scheduled for April 11, 1997. GTE Hawaiian Tel knew that they had inadequate resources in this area, as they had experienced similar problems around Christmas. However, GTE did not add adequate circuits from Kaneohe to the downtown area, or inform their customers to expect problems. GTE engineers stated that they knew problems were likely, and that customers should expect more of the same until mid-April. The result? About 2 months worth of nuisances, busy signals and "all circuit busy" messages for callers from Kaneohe to downtown ... and many unhappy Internet users. GTE Software Errors in Downtown Area The Alakea and Punahou Central Offices posed more of a problem, because GTE would not initially acknowledge any issues other than those for the Kaneohe CO. But capacity problems and at least one known instance of software configuration error resulted in massive problems downtown from March 17th through March 27th. There may also be further problems as yet undiscovered. The software problem at the Alakea CO was found when LavaNet realized that the number and severity of problems could not be accounted for by inadequate trunking alone, the only problem GTE had actually acknowledged. LavaNet put some of its network engineers to work conducting their own tests, dialing in from different areas of the island and asking its customers for detailed reports on busy signals. LavaNet eventually narrowed one problem down to a GTE phone switch programming problem which affected rotaries in the Alakea Central Office - a problem GTE had claimed did not exist, until LavaNet provided conclusive evidence. (Rotaries are systems which allow customer calls to a single phone number to be routed to the first free line of many phone lines. They are commonly used by businesses which maintain large pools of customer service phone lines or sales phone lines, and by Internet Service Providers.) GTE has also said there were "tandem switch" routing problems on at least one day in March, causing further false busy signals. By the time the software error at the Alakea CO had been diagnosed, over a week had passed, inconveniencing GTE customers, LavaNet customers, and many other ISPs and businesses located downtown. Not only Internet calls were affected - ordinary calls entering or leaving the downtown area, and even within the downtown area, had unusual rates of network busies. GTE Fiber Optic Circuit Causes Internet Outages A separate GTE high-speed circuit failure also appears to be responsible for the Internet outage which affected many Hawaii ISPs and America Online users over the last weekend, April 5-6. The failed circuit had operated properly for years, and the similar circuit used by GTE's own Internet service was unaffected. GTE has as yet provided no explanation for this problem. ------------------------------ From: Kelly Daniels Subject: Follow-up Thread to BELLSOUTH MCI AIN Agreement Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 17:03:09 -0700 Organization: GST Telecom Reply-To: telco@teleport.com I agree, I watched BellSouth Build this product in 1994, with no takers. All of the other RBOCs were in dismay that BellSouth would do this. Finally, No Third-Party vendors trusted BellSouth simply because they did not trust an RBOC. This is a case where BellSouth has taken the step to end sales prevention of ONA, to open up some very usefull triggers. Last week in negotiations with another RBOC, they said forget it, even though they spell out he mediation point in the Intelligent Network Forum, as was done in the Information Industry Liaison Forum. When we develop AIN applications, we design them way past 0.1 and 0.2 (although they use just those triggers). BellSouth is refreshing and it is a shame it will take their offering many years to be trusted. Kelly ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 11:45:27 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Essential Client/Server Survival Guide" BKESCSSG.RVW 961203 "Essential Client/Server Survival Guide", Robert Orfali/Dan Harkey/Jeri Edwards, 1994, 0-442-01941-6 %A Robert Orfali %A Dan Harkey %A Jeri Edwards %C 115 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10003 %D 1994 %G 0-442-01941-6 %I Van Nostrand Reinhold (VNR) %O +1-800-842-3636 +1-212-254-3232 fax: +1-212-254-9499 aburt-murray@vnr.com %P 527 %T "Essential Client/Server Survival Guide" A book with "client/server" in the title cannot possibly be fun. A book with cartoon Martians on the cover (and acting as guides throughout the book), well ... remember "Bob"? Combine these two features, and you magically get a book that provides a solid, comprehensible, and complete overview of that enormous field previously known as distributed computing. Well, not magically. The authorial team is to be commended for their ability and discipline in pulling off the task: making sure all aspects are explained equally well, and ensuring that the lighthearted touches support the material rather than getting in the way. The book covers basic concepts, operating systems, middleware, database, transactions, groupware, objects, and management. Due to the age of the work, some technologies have dropped in importance, but overall it has aged remarkably well. The conceit about teaching the technology to Martians is inessential to the intent of the book. The Jokes and cartoons do, though, contribute to the text, enhancing both readability and comprehension. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKESCSSG.RVW 961203 roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca link to virus, book info at http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/techrev/rms.html Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 12:46:18 -0500 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Updated Bellcore NPA Info As of 7 April Bellcore's NANPA webpages have new info. From "New Area Code" (http://www.bellcore.com/NANP/newarea.html): o Mississippi's current NPA 601 will split off the Gulfcoast area LATA into new NPA 228, permissive dialing on 15-Sept-1997, mandatory dialing on 14-Sept-1998. Test number(s) still TBA. o Tennessee's new NPA 931 spliting from existing NPA 615 has finally been (officially) announced, permissive dialing on 15-Sept-1997, mandatory dialing on 19-Jan-1998. Test number(s) still TBA. o South Carolina's new NPA 843 for the coastal area, spliting from existing NPA 803 has finally been (officially) announced, permissive dialing on 22-March-1998, mandatory dialing on 27-Sept-1998. Test number(s) still TBA. o Quebec's new NPA 450 for the area outside of the Montreal Urban Community Territory, splitting from existing NPA 514 has been (officially) re-announced. Bell Canada has announced this NPA split for a few months now, after Bellcore had 'removed' the information on this split shortly after announcing it (the first time) back in January. Everything else on their webpage remains the same ... There are still several new NPA's whose codes have been announced, along with a brief description of their geography, but dates and/or test number(s) are still TBA (340 US Virgin Islands, 785 Kansas, 530 California, 734 Michigan, 784 St.Vincent & the Grenadines, 978 and 781 for Massachusetts, 925 California). And the link to the split of Los Angeles CA's 213 into 323 has still not been re-established. And there are also some new NPA's (including the next toll-free SAC 877) which have been announced elsewhere, but not yet indicated on Bellcore NANPA's webpage. Nor is there _any_ indication that Utah is going to have an area code split this Summer. There are the following (new) PL's (Planning Letters), at US$10.00 each, indicating some existing NPA's which are in a 'jeopardy' situation, as well as a PL indicating the assignment of special three-digit service codes 311 & 711. One of Bellcore's URL's for a list of the most recent (1997) Planning Letters is http://www.bellcore.com/NANP/97ils.html. PL-NANP-039, dated 11-Mar-1997, NPA 215 (PA) is in a jeopardy situation (PL is only two pages long) PL-NANP-041, dated 24-Feb-1997, NPA 717 (PA) needs _extraordinary_ conservation procedures (PL is only two pages long) PL-NANP-043, dated 25-Feb-1997, Assignment of Service Codes 311 and 711 (similar information on the use of these three-digit 'short' codes can be downloaded for free from the FCC's website) PL-NANP-046, dated 12-Mar-1997, NPA 403 (AB) is in a jeopardy situation (PL is only two pages long) PL-NANP-048, dated 1-Mar-1997, NPA 770 (GA) is in a jeopardy situation (PL is only two pages long) PL-NANP-049, NPA 614 (OH) is in a jeopardy situation PL-NANP-050, NPA 972 (TX) is in a jeopardy situation MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 09:27:28 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split Richard G. Cox in Wales misspoke, > It is not their choice -- overlays have been prohibited by (I believe) > the FCC, until the year 2000, ro ensure fair local-loop competition. False. Overlays exist and are legal; Maryland and Western Pennsylvania are getting them this year. *Service-specific* overlays, wherein only wireless users are moved to an overlay, are prohibited by the FCC; only NYC has one (917), which predates this prohibition. Canada has no such prohibition. > The same has happened in the UK -- overlays were initially proposed, > but firmly rejected by users. We are now doing what the US should be > doing, namely allocating 8-digit local number schemes (with shorter > area codes) to our larger metropolitan areas such as London, Cardiff, > Belfast etc. The US can't do that. The UK has always had a *variable-length* number plan. Even individual towns have had mixed-length digits, though this has so far as I know mostly changed in recent years. The North American Numbering Plan is absolutely and totally dependent on a 3-3-4 structure. It is not only ingrained in the switches (CO and PBX) and in the billing software, but in millions of computer applications around the continent which have "telephone number" fields in them. Phone numbers MUST be EXACTLY ten digits long or astonishing amounts of software will break; this probably makes "year 2000" look like a cakewalk. And I won't mention outboard toll restrictors, etc. Since the current scheme is going to exhaust one of these decades, the industry is looking at alternatives, but they will take over a decade's notice to implement. In the meantime we are likely to see overlays all over the place. > Overlays mean that the customers of the incumbent telco will dial each > other with seven digits, but have to dial a full national number for > calls to customers served by new operators -- thus giving the invalid > impression that such calls are non-local. Many overlay plans require 10-digit or 11-digit dialing for ALL local calls, to provide parity between overlay and non-overlay numbers. I don't personally agree with that approach but it's what MD and PA will do. But in the US, being 10 digits does NOT mean "non-local". Some places use "1+" to mean non-local, while others have no dialing indicator of locality. NO place in the US uses 10-digit (without 1) for toll calls. Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 11:06:31 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split richard@mandarin.com (Richard D.G. Cox) wrote: > It is not their choice -- overlays have been prohibited by (I believe) > the FCC, until the year 2000, ro ensure fair local-loop competition. Er, no they haven't; didn't you hear about the upcoming overlays in Maryland and western Pennsylvania? I believe that the FCC restriction applies only to "discriminatory" overlay plans, such as the setup used in the NANP's first overlay (917 in New York City), which was limited to cellphones, pagers, etc. That NPA has been grandfathered in, but no more of these are supposed to be created in the US (though they are still possible in Canada). Perhaps you are thinking of the California PUC's decision to forgo overlays for now, until local number portability is available. > The same has happened in the UK -- overlays were initially proposed, > but firmly rejected by users. We are now doing what the US should be > doing, namely allocating 8-digit local number schemes (with shorter > area codes) to our larger metropolitan areas such as London, Cardiff, > Belfast etc. 8-digit local numbers are indeed what large UK metropolitan areas should be doing, but most definitely *not* what the NANP should do in the short or medium term. The subject of the massive costs of retiring all the hardware and software that "knows" about 3/3/4 numbers has been discussed extensively in the past here in the Digest; suffice it to say that longer numbers will take many years of advance planning to roll out in the NANP. > Overlays mean that the customers of the incumbent telco will dial each > other with seven digits, but have to dial a full national number for > calls to customers served by new operators -- thus giving the invalid > impression that such calls are non-local. This is certainly wrong. In fact, except for the 917 exception noted above (which doesn't contain any POTS lines), I haven't heard of a single upcoming overlay scheme that *doesn't* involve dropping support for 7-digit dialing of local calls (even within the same NPA) in favor of 10D dialing. This definitely levels the playing field. > It is time that the US decided to bite the bullet and accept that the > present number format, which has served them well for many years, has > now passed its sell-by date. The format demanded by today's network > is 1-XY ZNNN xxxx (where Y#0/1). This can be handled by all switches > out of area without structural changes (only the routes need to be set > up as 1-XYZ, separately for all valid values of Z). Local switches > would of course need to be programmed for the eight digit schemes. I can't see how this would work. What is your transition plan for getting from the present NXX-NXX-XXXX to your proposed NN-NXXX-XXXX format? It would take a one-time "splash-cut" for all of the NANP (which, BTW, consists of more than the US), since you leave no possibility for a permissive dialing (parallel running) phase -- consider the ambiguity between 1-334-234-5678 and 1-33-4234-5678, for instance. Remember, the NANP now has dozens of NPAs in which the second digit is an "N" digit (2..9), so your "Y" proviso doesn't open up any new untapped numbering space. Your new plan also limits the number of NANP area codes to only 64, meaning that existing codes would have to be grouped together into new supercodes, crossing state, provincial, and (ironically, given the recent breakup of NPA 809) Caribbean boundaries. This would be an administrative nightmare. The North American Numbering Committee does recognize the need for number expansion in the coming decades, and several proposals are indeed under study. But most of them involve adding digits to the current 10D number format, not rearranging the 10D number space into a less flexible configuration that actually provides *fewer* numbers than are available now, as you would have us do! > The same approach taken to 800 numbers -- put them all on 88 ZNNN xxxx > -- would obviate all the problems you are having with replicating the > 800 vanity numbers on 888 and 877, and so extinguishing the supply too > soon. I cannot understand how this scheme would be any less vulnerable to the replication waste problem than the current 8xx plan is. Companies that are inclined to reserve 888-abc-defg and 877-abc-defg in order to "protect" their existing 800-abc-defg number would seem just as likely to want to grab all of the 88-Zabc-defg numbers they could get. Jerks will be jerks in either case. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 09:17:50 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: Fort Mill, SC Telephone Anomalies The Jim & Tammy case vs. Fort Mill Tel was one example of cases where a property owner chooses telephone service from telcos who expected their monopoly power to be unchallenged. I do remember it from the trade press at the time. Heritage USA was mostly in SC, certificated to Fort Mill Tel, but crossed over into NC, certificated to Southern Bell. The big hotel was in SC but they wanted Bell South, so they put the demarc on the NC side of the line and ran the wire across their own property. Fort Mill cried in their near-beer, but lost: The chosen point of demarc was Bell South's, and the property owner (Jim & Tammy at the time) had the right to do whatever they wanted within their property. Another case occurred in Texas, where a company in GTE territory wanted Southwetstern Bell service. So they stuck up a microwave radio link to a demarc in nearby SBC territory to supply trunks to their PBX, cutting out GTE. The same principle applied: GTE lost, since the demarc was in SBC territory and the fact that they used radio to serve their own buildings elsewhere was none of GTE's business. You have to think of the awful implications if this were not true ... Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 ------------------------------ From: David Parmet Subject: Re: The Final Cellular Straw Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 09:31:09 -0400 Organization: Stanton Crenshaw Communications Reply-To: david@stanton-crenshaw.com John Higdon wrote: > As we all know, the aging cellular network in this country (using > AMPS) has absolutely no security built into it. Cloning is a way of > life. In the past year, cellular equipment providers have produced a > system that they hailed as a breakthrough in fraud detection/prevention: > RF fingerprinting. [horror story: all too familiar, omitted] We've been using Nextel phones. Not that it was a consideration but they use a 64 bit encryption key that makes cloning nearly impossible. As a result, we don't have to use codes or pins. Much less paranoia all around. david@stanton-crenshaw.com David Parmet Stanton Crenshaw Communications 79 Fifth Avenue 17th Floor New York, NY 10003 phone: 212-727-3300 fax: 212-727-8697 ------------------------------ From: roamer1@RemoveThis.pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: The Final Cellular Straw Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 04:20:15 GMT Organization: An antonym for Chaos Reply-To: roamer1@RemoveThis.pobox.com On Mon, 7 Apr 1997 13:10:35 -0700, John Higdon wrote: [snip] > never got through. Why? It turns out (verified by GTE Mobilnet's > control center) that my handheld was rejected by the fingerprint > detector which was expecting to see the car transceiver. GTE, eh? Figures, given their history of late: In Chattanooga, GTE FORCED the use of PINs on customers roaming in certain areas, including one where Chattanooga customers roam *VERY* FREQUENTLY -- Atlanta. I OPENLY complained about that, claiming that BellSouth would gain more customers Needless to say, GTE isn't very friendly when it comes to controlling fraud. Now, BellSouth Mobility/Chatt not only offers lower roaming rates for Atlanta, but doesn't require PINs either! BellSouth Mobility, OTOH, REFUSES to issue PINs for Chattanooga customers -- even upon request. (But BellSouth STILL doesn't recognize the fact that certain areas are local to Chattanooga or Atlanta, and openly says so. So for me, that would be going from the frying pan to another frying pan. :) ) Another cellular tidbit: In its Georgia LEC service areas, TDS Telecom, the mostly-parent company of "US Hell" [US Cellular], resells BellSouth Mobility -- despite the squabbles between USCC and BellSouth in Tennessee over Knoxville/Chattanooga/Copper-Basin! Further, I've been told that in areas where USCC is a cellular carrier [Knoxville and the Carolinas mainly] that BellSouth uses the services of USCC and *NOT* GTE -- or 3600. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! Unofficial MindSpring Fan ** mailto:scline@mindspring.com mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://www.pobox.com/~roamer1/ From: line changed so I get NO SPAM! See http://www.vix.com/spam/ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #90 *****************************