Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id DAA14059; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 03:47:19 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 03:47:19 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199801150847.DAA14059@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V18 #10 TELECOM Digest Thu, 15 Jan 98 03:47:00 EST Volume 18 : Issue 10 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New MCI FCC Charge (Jack Decker) Re: Teleport ATT Merger (David G. Lewis) Re: Teleport ATT Merger (T. McLough) Re: Colorado PUC Wavering on 720 Overlay of Denver 303 (Adam H. Kerman) Re: ISDN in Pennsylvania, Anyone? (acarr@aol.com) Re: ISDN in Pennsylvania, Anyone? (Edward Kern) Re: ISDN in Pennsylvania, Anyone? (Joe Vallender) Re: The Microsoft Witchhunt (Bruce Wilson) Re: Digital Cell Phones Jam Hearing Aids (Fred R. Goldstein) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. 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: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 23:43:11 -0500 From: Jack Decker Subject: New MCI FCC Charge I got a bill for long distance usage on my residence line from MCI today. This line gets very little long distance usage, and none at all some months. Every since the inception of "equal access" I've always had my primary residence line set up as "no PIC" (no default long distance carrier) - at first, when I lived at my previous residence, it was a protest against being sent a "Russian ballot" (I used that terminology back then, which of course was prior to the fall of the Soviet empire!) that contained only ONE carrier choice. Later on, I figured out that having "no PIC" was a good primary line of defense against people making toll calls on my phone without my knowledge, and it never bothered me to have to dial the extra digits on the very few toll calls made from that line. When MCI long distance service eventually became available at my previous residence I got a "10XXX" account with them, which basically made me an MCI customer in the same way as someone who had MCI as their "Dial 1" carrier, the only difference being that my phone line was not actually presubscribed to MCI. Then, when I moved to GTE territory a few years ago, I had my new residence line set up in the same way, and had my MCI "10XXX" account transferred to the new number. Well, today when I got my MCI bill, there were three short calls on it (one of which was really a misdial, where I actually wound up being charged for a call within my local calling area!). The call total was 72 cents, and there was another six cents in federal and state taxes . So far, so good. But then there was also a "National Access Fee" surcharge of $1.07 on the bill. That brought the total bill up to $1.85, for what started out as 72 cents worth of calls. A notation on the bill offers this explanation: "The FCC is now requiring MCI and all other long distance companies to pay a fee to the local phone companies based on the number of lines subscribed to each carrier for originating and terminating your long distance calls. As a result, MCI will pass along a subscriber fee to each usage customer." Well, the first thing I did was to fire off an e-mail of complaint to my representative in the U.S. Congress. I for one, am fed up the federal government treating phone service as though it's some kind of luxury, and phone users as sheep waiting to be fleeced every time the FCC has some pet project they want to fund. I figured that maybe if a few of the "sheep" start kicking and screaming a little, Congress just might take notice, especially given that this is an election year. Keep in mind that we already get hit with a federally-mandated "intrastate access charge" on local telephone company bills, so how much more are we expected to bleed on the whim of the F.C.C.? But after that, I got to wondering -- if the carriers are charged based on number of lines subscribed, and my line isn't subscribed to MCI (nor to any other carrier), then why should I be paying MCI this fee? After all, wasn't the whole idea of the "10(10)XXX" codes that you could, if you so desire, place each toll call you make with a different carrier so as to get the best rate? It kind of defeats the purpose if every time you use a different carrier, they soak you with their own version of this "National Access Fee." So I called MCI, and guess what -- it's even worse than I thought. I spoke to TWO different representatives, and both confirmed that I would be billed this monthly fee every month *even if I did not make any long distance calls.* I asked how they could do that, since my line isn't presubscribed to MCI. Apparently, in their view that doesn't matter -- as long as I have an account with MCI, they intend to bill me the $1.07 each month, even though my line is not presubscribed to them and even though I may never make a call using MCI again. They view a "10XXX" account as no different from a regular account in this regard. Now granted, it's not going to be a big loss to MCI, but chances are that in a couple days I'm going to call back and cancel my MCI account completely. It's bad enough to be assessed an access fee in the months when you only make a few short toll calls, but worse yet to have this monthly charge build up in months when you don't use the service at all. I'm trying to figure out now if there is any way that I can place intraLATA calls using GTE (so far, no one in or out of GTE has been able to provide me with a 10(10)XXX code that lets me use real GTE service for intraLATA toll calls -- I asked about that here a few months ago, but though many suggestions were made, none of them actually worked in this area). If I find a way to do it (I'm waiting for a call back from someone at the local GTE office), I'll just cancel my MCI account entirely and use the access code to place whatever few calls we make from that line through GTE. From what I have been reading here, however, I gather that some carriers are NOT directly passing along this monthly fee to their customers. I'd be interested to know if there are any that a) accept casual calls and bill through the local phone company, b) do NOT charge a monthly charge of any kind beyond the actual price of the calls, and c) have reasonable per-minute rates on calls within Michigan. Obviously, for the calling volume on this line a difference of a couple cents per minute is not as important as not getting stuck with that infernal monthly fee. Every now and again we get ads in the mail from some long distance company that uses "10XXX" access, but lately almost every one of them has included fine print that indicates that there will be some kind of fixed charge of a few dollars tacked onto your bill if you use their service even once in a month. I will close this by saying that if anyone else is upset about this new charge, you ought to consider writing your member of congress. Since this is an election year, they may not be as likely to just blow you off, and as long as you are writing you might consider also mentioning the subscriber line charge that appears on you local phone bill, both to indicate that you realize that we are already getting dinged by the feds for that charge, and (if you so desire) to express your displeasure with that charge as well. It would probably be a good thing for our lawmakers to realize that we can't be fooled just because the various charges are spread out all over the bill(s). I realize that some who object to this latest charge may choose to simply change carriers, but even if you do, it wouldn't hurt to let your representatives know if you feel that telephone users are not a bottomless money pit to be mined whenever they feel the urge to start up some new federal project. (If your representative has a Web page, it is probably linked from the page at http://www.house.gov:80/MemberWWW.html and if you go to your rep's page, you should be able to find their e-mail address, assuming that they are not still living in the stone age). To reply via e-mail, please make the obvious modification to my return e-mail address. Jack ------------------------------ From: David.G.Lewis@att.com Subject: Re: Teleport ATT Merger Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 09:17:52 -0500 Organization: AT&T - NCS Reply-To: dglewis@ems.att.com Richard Barnaby wrote: > Just wondering ... > The Teleport/ATT merger is being heralded as a "great thing" by (it > seems) everyone. Teleport has built its business (so it seems to me) > by being IXC neutral. Since Teleport (AFAIK) was not competing in the > LD area (to any great extent if at all), any IXC would feel > comfortable placing their business with them rather than the ILEC in > that city, all other things being equal. > Now how will the *other* IXC's feel with ATT knowing all their > business connections. If I were an IXC I'd be just a tad nervous. > Does this portend well for other CLEC's to have business migrated to > them? Does it *even* matter anymore :-) That is, of course, a matter of opinion; note that (a) TCG does have a long distance product offer, called PrimeDistance (SM) service; and (b) TCG has an agreement to purchase ACC Corp., which has an agreement to purchase US WATS Inc., another LD provider. Thus, it's not precisely true that TCG isn't in the LD business. Furthermore, as the industry boundaries continue to dissolve, there will be more and more cases of companies being both competitors and customers. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think it is interesting that last > week AT&T claims massive losses attempting to get into the local > business and said they are out of it for good; then this week they > buy up Teleport and approach the local business from a different > angle. Maybe this method will work for them. PAT] Actually, it wasn't last week, it was last November, and the announcement was that AT&T was suspending marketing of local service, not that AT&T was getting out of the local business (USA Today even printed a correction ...). David G. Lewis AT&T Network and Computing Services Network Planning The future - it's a long distance from long distance. ------------------------------ From: root@newsb.cb.att.com (T. McLough) Subject: Re: Teleport ATT Merger Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 13:52:58 -0500 Reply-To: tmclough@erols.com Pat's comment: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think it is interesting that last > week AT&T claims massive losses attempting to get into the local > business and said they are out of it for good; then this week they > buy up Teleport and approach the local business from a different > angle. Maybe this method will work for them. PAT] The really interesting thing is how even telecom-savvy people like Pat completely misinterpreted AT&T's statment. The reporting media are at fault for being too generic in their reporting. If you read the AT&T press releases, it was perfectly clear. AT&T was discontinuing the strategy of reselling the local connection from the LECs. They found that they could not profit given the prices and errors that the LECs were charging and generating. AT&T said it would find other ways to reach the local customer. The Teleport aquisition is perfectly consistent with that strategy. Side note: If the LEC cost to connect to a local customer really is as high as wholesale rates they are offering to the IXCs, then the LECs are in trouble. If not, then they really are dragging their feet on opening up competition. trm ------------------------------ From: ahk@chinet.chinet.com (Adam H. Kerman) Subject: Re: Colorado PUC Wavering on 720 Overlay of Denver 303 Date: 14 Jan 1998 13:57:09 -0600 Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site In article , Donald M. Heiberg wrote: > Denver customers should gird for 1st shot at 10-digit dialing > Education campaign will begin Monday. > The telecommunications industry and the commission have worked for > months to prepare a $1 million public education campaign beginning > Monday that will let metro Denver residents know they can start dialing > 303 in front of each local number, beginning Feb. 1. Does this mean that the "1" dialling prefix never needs to be used to dial an interLATA call? Or, is it required to dial an intraLATA intraNPA call? How did they arrange things so that there's no transition from mandatory eleven-digit dialling on some calls to optional eleven-digit dialling? I thought that couldn't be done. At least, that's what they claim in Chicago. > But commissioners also said they want to continue exploring > alternatives since an estimated three million of the eight million > numbers in the 303 area code are not being used -- although most of > them have been assigned to companies. > 1. Requiring wireless users to switch to 720 and giving the new area > code only to future wireless users. This option is silly. Then, there will be no incentive to find a way to share NPA-NXX combinations among wireless and wireline resellers. > 2. Consolidating rate centers. The big supply of unused 303 numbers > stems from traditional telephone technology, which assigns prefixes to > specific rate centers, the geographic point of measuring and billing > long-distance calls. > Blocks of 10,000 numbers at a time are allotted, which means that each > new telephone company wanting to serve all of 303 has a block in each of > 42 rate centers, or 420,000 numbers. This is ridiculous. "Rate center" is an artificial concept, particularly for wireless carriers. You can't make an outgoing call on a pager, last time I looked. And, with respect to a cell phone, it won't affect long-distance rating if there's only one rate center in Denver, and every third or fourth rate center is used in the suburbs. No one at all would be affected if two thirds of the rate centers were eliminated for a wireless carrier attempting to cover all of 303, and the currently-held NPA-NXX combinations were reassigned to remaining rate centers. > As a side benefit, that could lead to a bigger local calling area. That > would mean higher monthly bills for all customers. How is this possible? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 23:37:47 -0500 From: acarr@aol.com (ACARR) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: ISDN in Pennsylvania, Anyone? Bill, Here are the rates for ISDN BRI in PA for Bell Atlantic: Residential: B Hours) Monthly Rate Best Package For You 20 Hours $31.00 33.1 hrs or less 60 Hours $41.25 33.1 hrs - 78.3 hrs 140 Hours $55.50 78.3 hrs - 176.5 hrs 300 Hours $84.00 176.5 hrs - 331.4 hrs 500 Hours $108.50 331.4 hrs - 680.1 hrs Unlimited $249.00 NA For residential, usage is charged for local data AND voice calls (ie no DOVBS). local usage in excess of the allowance are charged at $0.02 per min per B channel peak and $0.01 off-peak. more info at B Hours) Business: $31-$39 per month plus depending on where you live. $0.02 per minute per B channel for local circuit switched data normal business voice rates for circuit switched voice (or DOVBS). Usage packages for business are coming out soon. BA only charges for the monthly fee and local usage. Toll calls are rated at the normal voice rate. Long distance are billed by the LD carrier. Usage allowances count only towards local usage. Initial installation and setup is sometimes challenging, but most people love it once its set up. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 12:07:36 -0500 From: Edward Kern Subject: Re: ISDN in Pennsylvania, Anyone? Bill Levant writes: > BA's web pages are generally uninformative. Is there anyone out there > who actually *has* ISDN from BA-Pennsylvania, and can tell me : > 1) What does it REALLY cost per month (exclusive of usage) > 2) What usage is charged for, and how (is LD charged as usage PLUS toll, > are incoming calls charged; does BA allow flat-rate voice-over-bearer?) > 3) Are you happy with it? I'm making the assumption that you're looking at residential ISDN, and not business rates. The rates they post for different usage packages are all-inclusive, except for the $3.50/mo federal tax. The well-hidden web site http://www.bell-atl.com/isdn/consumer/getcon.htm (get conned? Hrmm.. :> ) has all the rates for residential ISDN. According to BA, you get charged for all outgoing calls, voice or data. Incoming calls are not metered. However, my bill (which is 30+ pages - they itemize all ISDN calls) shows that I wasn't charged at all for outbound calls, both local and long distance (I did get charged from my long distance carrier, like normal, for the long distance voice calls I placed). My guess is that they're billing me incorrectly. ISDN has really been great. It's really fast, and connections are more stable than modem calls. However, I've had problems with inbound calls being transferred to a BA operator if my line is busy. I've run through tech support with 3com/USRobotics (my TA manufacturer), BA InfoSpeed (residential ISDN folks), and a switch tech named John, and everyone says everything is ok. I'm not sure if I'm just going to get more analog lines for incoming and just live with BA's problem, or if I'm going to start pestering the PUC at this point. One final thing: BA will send you TONS of literature and signup kits for their own ISP, BellAtlantic.net. I'd recommend against using them -- their backbone provider, IConNet, has the worst quality service I've ever seen. Edward Kern (dag@soulfood.org) The Soulfood Group ------------------------------ From: Joe Vallender Subject: Re: ISDN in Pennsylvania, Anyone? Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 00:16:42 -0800 Reply-To: javallender@sprintmail.com Bill Levant wrote: > Well, we finally broke down and bought one of those new-fangled > Pentium computer thingies :-), but it is apparent that POTS dialup is > going to be almost intolerably slow (when we were using the poor old > 386, who noticed?). > I realize that this is a bit off-topic, but I've come to trust those > who post here; E-Mail is welcomed, so we don't drive POP (poor old > PAT) crazy with off-topic posts ... You might want to post this query on the COMP.DCOM.ISDN newsgroup. That's where a lot of the ISDN users hang out. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 01:35:29 -0500 From: blw1540@aol.com (BLW1540) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: The Microsoft Witchhunt In article , Telecom Digest Editor writes: > So, they had Microsoft in court today, trying to get the judge -- who seems > more confused than ever as each day goes by -- to hold Microsoft in contempt > for the great job the company is doing in supplying software to the masses. What was it, Pat? Was this a Microsoft press release? Are you worried about the value of your Microsoft stock? The simple fact is that applications, of which IE is one, are NOT part of an operating system any more than are word processing programs and spreadsheets, essential as either may be to someone's actual use of a computer. Bruce Wilson [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Microsoft does not send me press releases. Hardly any company does except those who want me to sell something for them -- for free usually -- and then they send the press release in the form of snail-mail to my post office box; anywhere from three to ten or more pages which they expect me to type in I guess. I do not own any stock in Microsoft, or any other company for that matter. And how are things with you these days Bruce? Did you get that woman with the deadbeat son straightened out? Has she gotten any more phone bills with unusual charges since we last chatted here? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Digital Cell Phones Jam Hearing Aids From: fgoldstein@bbn.NO$LUNCHMEAT.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Organization: GTE Internetworking - BBN Technologies Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 15:50:30 GMT In article , monty@roscom.com says: > It was a simple enough wish -- Fred Raxter of Seattle wanted to join > the telecommunications revolution and use a cellular phone.... > The hitch: Raxter wears hearing aids. So, to use the new generation of > digital phones without enduring a high-pitched squealing, he'd have to > turn off his aids. .... > AT&T Wireless currently uses both analog and digital phones. Its digital > phones can be programmed to act as analog phones to reduce interference, > Ruby said. But the whole wireless industry is moving toward digital > equipment. AT&T Wireless has a big problem of their own making, and there's no quick fix. The trouble is that there are two basic types of digital cell phone air interface, CDMA and TDMA. AT&T uses D-AMPS TDMA. In this system, the cell phone turns its transmitter on and off rapidly, allowing different users' transmitters to share a channel by transmitting at different time intervals. The resulting signal is a pulsed wave, which is essentially an AM transmitter 100% modulated with a square wave, which is rectified by nearby electronics. A super-shielded hearing aid *might* be able to resist it, but I doubt it would fit into an ear! (GSM is a different form of TDMA, with the same problems.) CDMA, used by many other carriers now, leaves the transmitters running all the time during a call. Each uses spread-spectrum to spread the signals over a wide band, while the receivers use correlation functions to pick out the desired signals from the many others on the same frequency at the same time. It sounds tricky and there's some heavy math behind it, but thanks to fast DSP silicon it works and requires very little power. (A Sony/Qualcomm CDMA cell phone gets 60 hours standby and 4 hours talk time per charge.) While there is an AM component too (power adjustment of 1 dB 800 times per second), it's a small fraction of TDMA's. I don't know if hearing aids have any problem with any CDMA phones, but I'm sure it'll be much less severe. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein"at"bbn.com GTE Internetworking - BBN Technologies, Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V18 #10 *****************************