Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA01845; Wed, 16 Apr 1997 09:08:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 09:08:37 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199704161308.JAA01845@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #93 TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Apr 97 09:08:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 93 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Three Digit CICs to be Phased Out (Dave Stott) 900 Billing by ITA and Other Third Party Organizations (tom clifton) PA PUC Reopens 412 Relief (John Cropper) Florida Reopens 904 Relief Docket (John Cropper) Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split (Garrett Wollman) Pay Phone Charges Now 25c in Massachusetts? Yes or No? (David Albert) Mitnick to be Sentenced June 16 (Tad Cook) 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!) 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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: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 20:30:54 -0500 From: Dave Stott Subject: Three Digit CICs to be Phased Out FCC Adopts Transition Plan For Carrier Identification Codes The Federal Communications Commission has released an order (Common Carrier Docket No. 97-16) that sets Jan. 1, 1998 as the date to end the transition from three to four digit carrier identification codes (CICs). That date also is when the transition from five to seven digit carrier access codes (CACs) will end. "A greater number of CICs must be made available for assignment and the transition must end as soon as practical," the FCC said in its order. "A transition is necessary to avoid a flash-cut conversion, which would be contrary to the public interest." CICs are numeric codes that enable local exchange carriers, as interexchange access services providers, to identify access customers in order to bill and route traffic to them. The FCC said that CICs facilitate competition by enabling consumers to use the services of any number of carriers at any telephone, both by presubscription and by dial around. A carrier's CIC is the unique suffix of its CAC, which is the number that a customer uses to dial around. The FCC said that the demand for CICs has grown because the number of carriers requesting CICs has increased and because carriers are using CICs for a variety of purposes. Currently, both three and four digit CICs and five and seven digit CACs may be used, but by Jan. 1, 1998, only the four digit CICs and corresponding seven digit CACs may be used. The FCC said its actions "serve the overall pro-compe- titive purposes" of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as well as balance the competing interests of callers, carriers, and equipment owners. ------------------------------ Subject: 900 Billing by ITA and Other Third Party Organizations From: t_clifton@juno.com (Tom Clifton) Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 10:19:56 EDT Several years ago while with another employer we had a continuous battle with several of those billing companies. The problem was severe - $5k a month billed to DID numbers that could not possibly generate calls. This was compounded by the fact that we had over 100 offices, each with between 100 and 1000 DID numbers at each. We resolved the problem by speaking to a supervisor or manager at the "questions" phone number on the bottom of the phone bill and advised them that the calls were not generated by employees, that they would not be paid, and that we were sending them a written notification of the above along with a list of phone numbers that we would not pay for. We only send out lists of phone numbers for offices with known problems. I hated doing so as it seemed like I was giving proprietary information away to organizations with questionable ethics, but it was better than bleeding to death. Also - we did a massive sweep of POTS numbers and trunks to insure that they all had blocking against collect, third party and 900 calls. It was interesting how many we found that were open even though the records showed that they had been ordered with these features. Last but not least, a comprehensive look at PBX restriction tables yielded some interesting surprises. Seems that a couple of our techs were permitting themselves some "test calls" with roving class of service override codes. A little employee education corrected calls from lobby phones that appeared to be bullet proof. The good side of it is that Southwestern Bell was very supportive of our efforts, and applied the restrictions at no cost. I do not know if this is still the case or not. IT may also be related to the fact that I dealt through a National Accounts rep, and had all numbers requiring changes on one piece of paper. Working with GTE and US West was not quite as easy, but in the end we were able to virtually eliminate the 900 problem. It wasn't free, it wasn't easy but it had to be done. Tom Clifton St. Louis, MO. ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: PA PUC Reopens 412 Relief Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 05:36:48 -0400 Organization: lincs.net Reply-To: jcropper@NOSPAM.lincs.net With less than two weeks to implementation (which might now have to be delayed), the PA PUC has struck down Bell Atlantic's request to maintain seven-digit home NPA dialing in the proposed 412/724 overlay, effectively reopening the issue. The PAPUC stated that while such a plan might be 'convenient', a seven-digit dialing plan within an overlay would be 'impractical', and create customer confusion, while restricting resource usage. BA had originally filed a motion in favor of 7D HNPA dialing within the overlay area in response to negative customer sentiment with regards to 10-digit dialing. Now, the whole matter goes back to square one, with a metro Pittsburgh split versus ten-digit dialing general purpose overlay. Hearing schedule will be announced as soon as it becomes available. John Cropper, Webmaster voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 Legacy IS, Networking & Comm. Solutions 609.637.9434 P.O. Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 Unsolicited commercial e-mail is subject mailto:jcropper@lincs.net to a fee as outlined in the agreement at http://www.lincs.net/ http://www.lincs.net/spamoff.htm ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Florida Reopens 904 Relief Docket Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 05:38:41 -0400 Organization: lincs.net Reply-To: jcropper@NOSPAM.lincs.net ORDER REOPENING RECORD BY THE COMMISSION: On September 20, 1996, BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc., (BellSouth) filed a petition with this Commission seeking approval of a plan to provide relief from the expected exhaustion of numbers available for assignment in the 904 NPA code. The 904 NPA code includes the Pensacola, Panama City, Tallahassee, Jacksonville and Daytona Beach LATAs, as well as a part of the Orlando LATA. In Order No. PSC-97-0138-FOF-TL, issued February 10, 1997, we decided that the most appropriate way to avoid the expected exhaustion of the 904 NPA code was a geographic split following LATA lines, assigning a new NPA code to the Jacksonville LATA and a second new NPA code to the Daytona Beach and 904 portion of the Orlando LATAs, with the Tallahassee, Panama City and Pensacola LATAs retaining the 904 NPA code. We ordered that permissive dialing begin by June 30, 1997, and mandatory dialing, by June 30, 1998. On February 21, 1997, ALLTEL Florida, Inc., (ALLTEL) and Northeast Florida Telephone Company, Inc., (Northeast) filed a joint motion for reconsideration of Order No. PSC-97-0138-FOF-TL and a request for oral argument on the motion. ALLTEL and Northeast attached two letters to their motion. The first letter is dated February 12, 1997, from Ronald R. Conners, Bellcore, Director, NANP Administration, to R. Stan Washer, NPA Code Administrator, BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc. The second letter is dated February 17, 1997, from Alan C. Hasselwander, Chairman, NANC, to Chairman Johnson. Both letters addressed our decision in Order No. PSC-97-0138- FOF-TL to use two new area codes to provide 904 area code relief. ALLTEL and Northeast asked that we consider the letters as new evidence in our reconsideration decision. On February 28, 1997, St Joseph Telecommunications, Inc., (St. Joseph) and Quincy Telephone Company, Inc., (Quincy) filed a joint response in opposition to the motion, as did AT&T on March 10, 1997. The respondents all objected to consideration of the letters in our reconsideration deliberations on the grounds that the letter to Chairman Johnson was an ex-parte communication, and neither letter was part of the record in the proceeding. On February 25, 1997, the City of Jacksonville (Jacksonville) filed a petition in support of ALLTEL's and Northeast's joint motion and a motion for leave to participate in their motion. Jacksonville also filed a request for oral argument. On March 4, 1997, St. Joseph, Quincy, Gulf Telecommunications, Inc., (Gulf) and Florala Telecommunications, Inc., (Florala) jointly filed a response objecting to Jacksonville's motion. Since the motion for reconsideration was filed, staff received copies of other letters from the NANC, Bellcore, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) concerning our approval of a relief plan requiring two new area codes. At the hearing in this case we heard testimony regarding the establishment of two new area codes to provide relief for the imminent exhaustion of the 904 area code. BellSouth witness Baeza was asked whether he was aware of any instance where the numbering plan administrator had rejected a state commission plan to provide area code relief. He replied that the administrator would review the plan to determine consistency with the industry guidelines and that he was aware that the administrator had rejected industry relief plans. He could not, however, think of a time when the administrator had rejected a plan approved by a state commission. The same issue arose at the January 21, 1997, agenda conference when we made our decision to require two new area codes. We discussed whether Bellcore would release the codes, whether the NANC would object, and whether we should defer our decision until we heard definitively whether the administrator would release the codes. We decided not to defer our decision, reasoning that the decision should be made, and then the administrator and the NANC could respond. The letters from Bellcore, the NANC, and the FCC, written after the record had closed and we had made our decision, represent responses of those entities to our decision. They address the questions that arose at the hearing and at the agenda conference but could not be answered at the time. We believe that the letters may provide new evidence that may be material to our reconsideration decision. Accordingly, we find it appropriate to reopen the evidentiary record in this proceeding for the limited purpose of considering the letters from the NANC, Bellcore, and the FCC concerning our decision in Order No. PSC-97-0138-FOF-TL. We shall defer our reconsideration decision until the letters can be properly addressed. We will provide parties of record the opportunity to conduct limited discovery related to the letters. We will conduct a limited hearing on April 16, 1997, to receive evidence and to provide opportunity for argument on the letters. At the conclusion of the hearing, we will make a bench decision on the motion for reconsideration. Based on the foregoing, it is, therefore, ORDERED by the Florida Public Service Commission that the evidentiary record in this proceeding shall be reopened to the extent described in the body of this Order. It is further ORDERED that the Commission will hold a limited hearing on April 16, 1997, for the purposes stated in the body of this Order. By ORDER of the Florida Public Service Commission, this 14th day of April, 1997. BLANCA S. BAYÓ, Director Division of Records and Reporting by:/s/ Kay Flynn Chief, Bureau of Records This is a facsimile copy. A signed copy of the order may be obtained by calling 1-904-413-6770. (In a separate issue, the PA PUC has re-opened the 412/724 relief plan...I detect the hints of Dallas, Houston, and the foolishness of the Texas PUC in BOTH re-openings... :-<) John Cropper, Webmaster voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 Legacy IS, Networking & Comm. Solutions 609.637.9434 P.O. Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 Unsolicited commercial e-mail is subject mailto:jcropper@lincs.net to a fee as outlined in the agreement at http://www.lincs.net/ http://www.lincs.net/spamoff.htm ------------------------------ From: wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split Date: 15 Apr 1997 10:20:54 -0400 Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Stephen Sprunk wrote: > The main reason is that there are 250,000,000 (give or take) Americans > out there that flat-out refuse to dial 10 digits to call their > neighbors , their kids' schools, their grocery stores, _the other line > in their house_, etc. I would like to know what the origin of this persistent load of nonsense is ... the same (completely specious) issue came up in the 617 and 508 relief discussions last year. There is absolutely no connection whatsoever between area code overlays and mandatory 10-digit dialing! Only when one's area code differs from the called number is 10D or 1+10D (depending on the jurisdiction) necessary. Furthermore, as previous TCD contributors have noted, there will /always/ be a supply of individual numbers for residences and small businesses in the ``old'' code, so it is very unlikely that even new residences would receive a new code. (And financial incentives can be put in place to make it even more unlikely.) > Businesses that complain about staionery, business cards, etc. are > totally full of it ... an 18 month permissive-dialing period should be > enough to exhaust anyone's supply of stationery and business cards, > which means they really aren't losing a cent by changing area codes. Except, of course, in the setup fees they have to pay to their printers. For that matter, your suggestion of an 18-month permissive period is totally unrealistic; permissive dialing in a completely full area code merely prolongs the numbering shortage. In some places, they don't even go 18 months /between/ new area codes (e.g., southern California). Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same wollman@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick ------------------------------ From: albert@husc.harvard.edu (David Albert) Subject: Pay Phone Charges Now 25c in Massachusetts? Yes or No? Date: 15 Apr 1997 12:55:19 GMT Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts In the last week I have made several calls from pay phones in Boston for ten cents (yes, we're still one of the two states with 10c payphones). Yesterday I tried to call a number from a NYNEX payphone, whose instructions clearly stated that calls were 10c. I received the following recording: "The number you are dialing cannot be reached from this phone. Please check the instruction card on the telephone or dial your operator". I tried three times before calling the operator, who answered "NYNEX" and told me (when I related my problem) that as of April 1, all pay phone calls in Boston are 25c. Now clearly this is not true, since I've made several successful calls from other phones recently. But when I put in a quarter and tried the number again, it worked. What's going on? If calls are a quarter, okay, fine. But shouldn't the phone say so in the instructions? And as for the intercept message, it nearly kept me from getting through -- I really thought perhaps I had misremembered the number. Surely they can come up with something more informative? David Albert :: albert@fas.harvard.edu :: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~albert ------------------------------ Subject: Mitnick to be Sentenced June 16 Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 23:41:57 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Computer hacker Kevin Mitnick to be sentenced June 16 LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, who admitted using stolen cellular phone numbers to dial into computer databases, will be sentenced June 16, a federal judge said. U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer on Monday also scheduled a hearing for May 12 to decide whether to disregard violations of Mitnick's supervised release from an earlier case, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Painter. "The defense attorney was trying to strike two of the allegations he's admitted to: possession of false ID's and not submitting to (probation) reports," Painter said. Mitnick was sentenced in 1989 to some prison time and supervised release, which required he not in engage in any more computer fraud and not engage in people associated with computer fraud, Painter said. He was arrested in February 1995 in Raleigh, N.C., following an investigation and cross-country manhunt, with a trap sprung by Tsutomo Shimomura, an expert in computer security. Mitnick pleaded guilty last year to using 15 stolen cellular phone numbers to dial into computer databases in the North Carolina case. Mitnick consented to having the case moved to his home state of California. Mitnick also pleaded innocent to 25 counts of computer and wire fraud, possessing unlawful access devices, damaging computers and intercepting electronic messages. The federal indictment charges Mitnick with stealing millions of dollars in software from high-tech companies, damaging University of Southern California computers and using stolen computer passwords. The indictment follows an investigation by a national task force of FBI, NASA and federal prosecutor high-tech experts. The affected companies are Novell, Motorola, Nokia, Fujitsu and NEC. The case still is pending. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #93 *****************************