Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id DAA27091; Fri, 18 Apr 1997 03:05:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 03:05:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199704180705.DAA27091@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #95 TELECOM Digest Fri, 18 Apr 97 03:05:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 95 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Approves BellSouth CEI Plan for Payphone Operations (Mike King) Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split (Linc Madison) Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split (Bob Goudreau) Overlay and 10D HNPA Dialing (was Re: Florida PSC to Revisit) (J. Cropper) Re: Pay Phone Charges Now 25c in Massachusetts? Yes or No? (oldbear@arctos) Re: Pay Phone Charges Now 25c in Massachusetts? Yes or No? (Jon Kamens) Re: Inexpensive Collect Calls (Stanley Cline) Seeking Reseller's Association Forum (Michelle Thew) Oops! Let Me Rephrase That ... (John Cropper) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike King Subject: FCC Approves BellSouth CEI Plan For Payphone Operations Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 23:10:46 PDT Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 10:55:48 -0400 (EDT) From: BellSouth Subject: FCC Approves BellSouth CEI Plan for Payphone Operations FCC Approves BellSouth CEI Plan for Payphone Operations Paves Way for Value-Added Payphone Services HOMEWOOD, ALA. -- BellSouth on Tuesday received approval of its Comparably Efficient Interconnection (CEI) plan from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), paving the way for its new payphone subsidiary to begin offering value-added service to payphone customers in the Southeast. With FCC approval of BellSouth's CEI plan, BellSouth Public Communications, Inc. (BSPC) immediately gains the ability to provide single-source management of payphone services on behalf of businesses and property owners who provide locations for the placement of BellSouth payphones. In addition to the service it already provides customers through BellSouth payphones, BellSouth Public Communications is now able to work with these location providers to select and contract for reasonably priced long distance service from a qualified long distance carrier. "We're pleased the FCC has approved BellSouth's plan in its entirety and has allowed us to move forward in coordinating both local and long distance service for our payphone location providers," said James B. "Jim" Hawkins, president of BellSouth Public Communications, Inc. "We've long shared the FCC's concern that end-user customers receive the benefit of fair and reasonable long distance rates. BellSouth payphone location providers who take advantage of this new single-source opportunity will help ensure that payphone users receive the benefit of fair and reasonable long distance rates. "We'll immediately begin working with the payphone location providers in our region to make them aware of this added capability we now bring to the payphone marketplace. It's a newfound freedom that should work greatly to the benefit of both our location providers, and payphone end-user customers," Hawkins said. BellSouth filed its CEI plan with the FCC last November to demonstrate the company's compliance with certain FCC requirements under the Commission's Payphone Report and Order of September 20, 1996, and the Commission's Order on Reconsideration of November 8, 1996. The plan assures that BellSouth Telecommunications, as a telephone company, provides telephone line services on a non-discriminatory basis to BellSouth Public Communications and all other independent payphone service providers. Established as a separate BellSouth subsidiary on April 1, BellSouth Public Communications, Inc. is the nation's largest stand-alone payphone services provider. BSPC customers complete over 3.2 million calls per day using over 172,000 BellSouth payphones at public and inmate locations throughout the Southeast. BellSouth Public Communications, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of BBS Holdings, Inc., which itself is a wholly owned subsidiary of BellSouth Telecommunications. BSPC is headquartered in Homewood, Ala., a suburb of Birmingham, and employs more than 785 people throughout BellSouth's nine-state region. ### For more information, contact: David A. Storey BSPC Media Relations (205) 943-2532 Pager: 1-800-678-6159 ------------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 20:43:32 -0700 Organization: No unsolicited commercial e-mail! In article , wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) wrote: > 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. Wrong. If there is a general-services overlay, all 7-digit dialing must disappear. The FCC has said so, and with good reason. Allowing 7-digit dialing in an overlay is both confusing to consumers (and encourages the habit of quoting numbers as only 7 digits -- a habit that must be broken) and also discriminatory against new competing local access carriers. In an overlay, the area code becomes nothing more than a "super-prefix." You can't dial a number that happens to be in your prefix by dialing only the last four digits (at least not in any community with more than one prefix). In an overlay, you can't dial a number that happens to be in your super-prefix by dialing only the last seven digits. Of course, that only means that overlays will be a scant few years ahead of the rest of us, because, like it or not, 7-digit dialing will disappear throughout the NANP very soon. >> 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). Or Houston or Dallas, for that matter. For the record, there has NEVER been an overlay (in all the nearly 50 years of the area code system) with 18 months permissive dialing. The longest has been a bit over a year. ** Do not spam e-mail me! ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best-com >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must change "NOSPAM" to "com" << ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 16:35:43 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: Florida PSC to Revisit 904 Split Steve Hayes wrote: > Replying to a suggestion by (Richard D.G. Cox) richard@mandarin.com: >>> 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. > Bob Goudreau (goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com) wrote: >> 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. > I feel I have to spring to the defence of a fellow denizen of Wales. > Richard's suggestion is (or at least would have been) entirely practicable. > Here's how I would implement it: > First step is to reserve sequential blocks of 8 NPAs each in the new > numbering space that opened up when the restriction on the middle digit > (0/1) was lifted. Each of these blocks would have the same two first digits > with the last digit in the range 2-9. Actually, it would have to be 2-8 (a block of 7 NPAs), because the N9X format is already reserved for future number expansion to a format of more than 10 digits. > These blocks would be reserved for the large metropolitan areas > where the proliferation of NPAs within local calling areas is > worst. Other areas would not be affected and other unassigned new NPAs > would be available for splits in those areas as now. But in this you depart radically from Richard's suggestion, which seems to advocate the wholesale NANP-wide *replacement* of the current 3+7 format with a new 2+8 format. Your plan, OTOH, envisions a mixture of 2+8 and 3+7 numbers. I agree that yours is far more feasible. > Next step is to change the existing NPAs in those metropolitan areas to > NPAs in the new blocks so that all NPAs in a given area would be in one > block. Permissive dialing would be allowed and might continue indefinitely. > You could still be dialing 1-212-PE6-5000 in 2020. > The remaining NPAs in each sequential block would be available for overlay > use in the corresponding metropolitan area. No more splits would be carried > out in those areas. However, this does point out a weakness of the plan, which is that any decision to change a metro area to 8-digit local dialing immediately and irrevocably consumes the equivalent of 7 NPAs (over one percent of the assignable NPA space), even if it turns out that the metro area never needs more than 3 or 4 NPAs' worth of numbering space. And it seems likely that in at least some areas (such as Los Angeles), even 7 NPAs might fill up, so splits would still not be completely out of the question. > Now comes the key point. Instead of introducing mandatory 10 digit dialing > as overlays are brought in in the metropolitan areas, you introduce > mandatory 8 digit dialing where the last digit of the NPA plus the existing > 7 digit number has to be dialed for local calls. This would have to be > introduced in big bang fashion with no permissive period but the same is > likely true of 10 digit dialing. It need not be true for 10D dialing, as long as all the local NPA numerics are already protected against reuse as local exchange prefixes. This protection allows 10D and 7D dialing of local calls to coexist (as is the case in Toronto, Washington, Dallas/Ft. Worth), which means that 7D dialing can be phased out permissively. Long distance calls must of course be dialed using 1+10D. > Software in the local switches would have > to be modified but switches outside the area would still view the numbers > as 3 digit NPA and 7 digit local number and would not be affected. People > would be encouraged to give their number as a two digit NPA and 8 digit > local number but could view it as 3+7 if they preferred. > The real shame about this is that I rather suspect that, with the seemingly > random assignment of NPAs in the new range, there may be few if any blocks > of 8 NPAs still available that could be reserved for this use. Reserving > them wouldn't mean that they had to be used in this way but at least the > option would be kept open. Let's tally them up. I count 16 NPA series in which the 8 NNN values are still unassigned and unreserved: 23N 27N 32N 36N 38N 43N 46N 48N 53N 58N 63N 65N 67N 74N 83N 98N I had to exclude a number of series which conflict with various NPAs already reserved by Bellcore: N9X: reserved for future expansion beyond 10 digits 37X: reserved with no explanation 96X: reserved with no explanation 68N: conflicts with reserved NPA 684 for American Samoa aaN: 222, 333, 444, etc. reserved for special services 52N: 52[1-9] reserved to fit Mexican numbers in billing format 8NN: 866, 855, 844, 833, 822 reserved for toll-free In addition, there are a few series in which exactly one NNN NPA is currently assigned, and so could be used to provide 8-digit numbers for their current area: 228: coastal Mississippi 352: Gainsville area, Florida 473: Grenada 573: St. Louis area, Missouri 626: Los Angeles area, California 649: Turks and Caicos Islands 664: Montserrat 724: western Pennsylvania Of these, the only areas that seem likely to require 8-digit local numbers within the next 50 years are Los Angeles and possibly St. Louis and Pittsburgh. So, that leaves 17 to 19 possible candidates for conversion to 8-digit local numbers. This does seem reasonable for a few years, but it's a little tight already. And as you point out, it will get tighter still pretty quickly as Bellcore continues to assign new NPAs that break up the few as-yet-unused NNN series ... Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Overlay and 10D HNPA Dialing (was Re: Florida PSC to Revisit) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 16:18:09 -0400 Organization: lincs.net Reply-To: jcropper@NOSPAM.lincs.net Garrett Wollman wrote: > 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.) Au contraire ... The FCC recently (last few days) CATEGORICALLY DENIED maintaining 7-digit dialing in an overlay situation. "The number of COCs that would need to be set aside due to conflict with adjacent NPAs would negate any positive gains made through use of an overlay"... This effectively RE-OPENED the 412/724 case in Pennsylvania, as BA had hoped to maintain 7-digit local dialing in their overlay ... >> 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). No, but Connecticut in 1995-6 (and Kansas in 1997-8 barring problems), experienced a thirteen month permissive period. Sure, the old days of long (~1 year) permissive periods are all but over for metro areas, but more rural splits will still see them once in a great while ... 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: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: Pay Phone Charges Now 25c in Massachusetts? Yes or No? Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 16:22:09 -0400 albert@husc.harvard.edu (David Albert) writes: > 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 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? The Massachusetts PUC approved NYNEX's request for a rate increase, effective this month. In a {Boston Globe} story, NYNEX explained that it would take their people a month or two to make the change-over (no pun intended) at all of the many payphones in Massachusetts. This was explained as just a matter of physical logistics of getting people to each phone to replace the dialing instruction cards and to make any programming changes to the phone where necessary. My assumption is that the CO changes to require the 25-cent deposit were a lot simpler and quicker to implement -- and the the confusing intercept recording is just a typical NYNEX screw-up. Let's see ... what can't you buy for a dime anymore: a newspaper, a cup of coffee, a cigar, a highway toll, a subway ride, a pack of gum, and now a phone call in Massachusetts. What is the world coming to? Cheers, The Old Bear ------------------------------ From: jik@cam.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens) Subject: Re: Pay Phone Charges Now 25c in Massachusetts? Yes or No? Date: 16 Apr 1997 13:21:56 GMT Organization: OpenVision Technologies, Inc. Reply-To: jik@kamens.brookline.ma.us NYNEX asked for, and received, approval to raise their pay-phone rate from 10 to 25 cents. According to the {Boston Globe}, NYNEX has been converting the phones over to the new rate gradually -- the people who collect change from the phones are doing the conversion as part of their collection rounds. Therefore, until all the phones are converted, you will find that some allow calls for a dime and some require a quarter. As for why the phone claimed to expect a dime when it really wanted a quarter, that means that either (a) the collectors aren't updating the placards on the phones, they're just updating the internals, or (b) the collector who converted the particular phone you used screwed up and didn't update its placards properly. I just called NYNEX's pay-phone services department and asked about this, and they said, "They'll be around to put a new sticker on your phone. It could take a while, though." This implies to me that either (a) the Globe's claim that the upgrade is being done manually by collectors is false -- the upgrade was done from a central location, but now the collectors have to put new stickers on the phones as part of their rounds -- or (b) for some reason they decoupled the task of upgrading the internals from the task of putting new stickers on the phones. I don't know which of these is the case, but given that (b) would seem to be more stupid, and NYNEX seems to do things stupidly whenever possible, I'd guess (b). Jonathan Kamens | OpenVision Technologies, Inc. | jik@cam.ov.com ------------------------------ From: roamer1@RemoveThis.pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: Inexpensive Collect Calls Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 02:45:16 GMT Organization: An antonym for Chaos Reply-To: roamer1@RemoveThis.pobox.com On Mon, 14 Apr 1997 10:26:15 -0600, in comp.dcom.telecom Lee Choquette wrote: > moderator?) mentioned in this forum that 800-TALK-4-25 was even > operation. A machine answered "Orange Collect" and prompted for my > name. I waited in silence and eventually got a human, who told me that > the automated calls were indeed 25c/min (operator-assisted was > something like $1.30 for the first minute). > I made three one-minute calls to my own home (from a pay phone) with > the automated operator. To my surprise my next US West bill had a page > labeled OAN Services (with a subhead of Interlink Telecom) charging me > $5.11 for each of these calls. I'm not surprised you were so substantially overcharged! Interlink is an IXC based in the Atlanta area; most of their business is providing AOSleaze at COCOTs (mostly in the Atlanta area)! Around here, about 3/4 of all COCOTs use Interlink's services. :( > days ago, but hasn't. Does anyone know anything about this (these) > company(-ies)? It looks as if Orange Collect may be an "operating name" of Interlink. Given their primary business is COCOTs, I doubt they have much of a good reputation. 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/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But when I had something to do with the Orange people several years ago, they were located in Minneapolis or somewhere close to there. Their calling cards were 25 cents per minute; they had an Orange Collect program for the same rate, and they were installing 'Orange Phones' (which was the actual color of the instrument) which allowed calls anywhere in the USA for one minute per 25 cent coin deposited in the phone. Whatever has happened to the company I do not know, but it does not sound good. Carl Moore was using the Orange Calling Card for quite a long time and he may still be using it; perhaps he can comment on changes made, if any. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 1997 16:53:08 +1000 From: Michelle Thew Subject: Seeking Resellers Association Forum I am currently trying to acquire information on what I believe is called "The Resellers Association Major Carriers Forum". Is anyone aware of this event and know where and when it will be held in 1997 and who I could contact ? Thanks, Michelle Thew Optus Communications, Australia ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Oops! Let Me Rephrase That ... Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 18:37:55 -0400 Organization: lincs.net Reply-To: jcropper@NOSPAM.lincs.net At 5AM, some things aren't always so clear... A few days ago I inadvertently wrote that the PA PUC played a major role in deciding against 7-digit dialing in the 412 overlay. Fact was that they were compelled to comply with the FCC, who ultimately made the decision to mandate 10-digit dialing in ALL overlays. Sorry for the error ... I really should get more sleep. :-) 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 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So should I John; get more sleep that is. It is 1:45 AM Friday morning here in Chicago and already I am dreading the sound of my phone ringing at 7:30 when MyLine's automated wakeup service calls me. Although in general I love the MyLine service, at that time every morning I *hate* it with a passion. The darn thing is so persistent. If it rings me several times without success my answering machine picks up the line, but not to be dissuaded, the MyLine computer just hangs up and dials back a minute or two later. Until I actually answer and enter my passcode it just keeps calling and demanding that I wake up and face the world. Ring, ring! ... get your lazy butt out of the bed and get moving! Ring, ring! Finally I wake up, sort of grasp for the phone, enter what is needed to make MyLine shut up and leave me alone, and this is followed immediatly by the cigarette smoker's pledge of allegiance. I make sure my friends are where I left them the night before, and panic if I cannot find them right away. I hate having to go to work at a 'real job' every day. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #95 *****************************