Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA14809; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:39:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:39:06 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199801272139.QAA14809@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V18 #21 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 Jan 98 16:38:00 EST Volume 18 : Issue 21 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Getting Hits", Don Sellers (Rob Slade) Can SS7 be Carried in Frame-Relay? (Patrick Coghlan) Antenna Construction Freeze (Todd Boyle) Re: Bell Atlantic Wants Fees on ISPs (oldbear@arctos.com) Re: Bell Atlantic Wants Fees on ISPs (Edward Kern) Re: Bell Atlantic Wants Fees on ISPs (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Telco Says No Copper Anywhere? (Jonathan I. Kamens) Re: Telco Says No Copper Anywhere? (Steve Bagdon) Re: Stopping Annoying "Private" Calls (Adam H. Kerman) Call Block by Number (was Re: Stopping Annoying "Private" Calls)(G. Rapp) 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: * telecom-request@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 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:12:04 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Getting Hits", Don Sellers Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKGETHIT.RVW 970817 "Getting Hits", Don Sellers, 1997, 0-201-68815-8, U$19.95/C$32.00 %A Don Sellers don@zap.com donsellers@aol.com %C 2414 6th St., Berkeley, CA 94710 %D 1997 %G 0-201-68815-8 %I PeachPit %O U$19.95/C$32.00 510-548-4393 fax: 510-548-5991 416-447-5101 %O markj@aw.com trish@peachpit.com gary@peachpit.com %P 178 %T "Getting Hits: The Definitive Guide to Promoting Your Website" The overwhelming majority of books on the business use of the Internet see the net primarily as a means of advertising. The "politically correct" form of net advertising is the Web page. Web pages are acceptable advertising because they are passive -- the user has to make the request to link to a page, rather than being forced to deal with it like spam on email or newsgroups. The Web page does, though, have one significant drawback: the user has to find it. Most net commerce books now do recognize this point, and may have a chapter or two on promoting your promotional material. "Getting Hits" is *only* about pushing your Web site. The coverage compared with the topic is quite complete: sometimes depressingly so. Seasoned internauts may not be thrilled at the tips designed to fool search sites, but Sellers does, at least, make the token gesture of not recommending their use -- and notes that some search engines will eliminate your listing if you use such tricks. The book does seem to have an overall bias towards commercial advertising, but there are some pointers for use by those who have more time than money available. The book provides good references for promotional resources. (One caveat is that the contact listings are *only* online; mostly Websites; even for print media and other offline ventures.) However, the text could have been even thinner than it is. Many entities are described four times or more, sometimes with little new information being added. Some of this repetitive material can be attributed to two additional authors for five of the chapters, but it is still annoying for the reader. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997 BKGETHIT.RVW 970817 ------------------------------ From: pcoghlan@magma.ca (Patrick Coghlan) Subject: Can SS7 be Carried in Frame-Relay? Date: 27 Jan 1998 09:35:57 -0500 Organization: Magma Communications Reply-To: pcoghlan@magma.ca.noSpam What kinds of facilities (FR etc.) can be used to carry SS7 traffic? Thanks in advance. Pat Coghlan Note: Remove 'noSpam' to reply via e-mail ------------------------------ From: tboyle@aa.net (Todd Boyle) Subject: Antenna Construction Freeze Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1998 17:50:08 GMT Organization: Alternate Access Inc. Kirkland WA. has been under a freeze of new cellular antenna permits for more than 6 months. Here is some general background: I attended the Wireless Task Force meeting Wed. Jan 21 in Kirkland City Hall. The WTF seemed to be composed of approx. 10 people plus Nancy Cox, City of Kirkland Planning Supv. Subjective comments follow: The meeting ran from 7:00 to 9:30 with much toing and froing about how big a tower needs to be, and how big the equipment cabinet needs to be. ATT Wireless and Western Wireless or Sprint employees were present. A consultancy calld the River Oaks Communication Corp. presented an excellent but rather bland overview of PCS, Cellular, line of sight, frequencies, the 1996 telecomms reform, etc. There was rather little information content in the meeting, other than descriptions of other cities' regulations, which might provide Kirkland some ideas in managing antenna construction. The model statutes were not distributed during the meeting however. (apparently they are *quite* varied.) The WTF members included at least two officials from Houghton neighborhood, who constituted the dominant personalities at the table. I would stand by this as an objective assessment, based on microphone time, and number of interruption of other speakers, and number of times changing the subject of the discussion. Kirkland was birthplace of McCaw Cellular (Now ATT Wireless) and is now the home of http://www.teledesic.com/ -- but the Houghton contingent seemed the most inclined toward blocking and limiting antenna construction in various ways. They made several requests for further information from the telecomms industry staffers: * surveys of emerging technology alternatives that offer smaller footprint or lower tower height, * requests to visit existing antennas and examine inside the equipment cabinets, * requests for proprietary info. such as where they plan to apply for future sites, * requests for projected size of the Kirkland market, and other projections All this was requested to help the WTF forecast how many towers would be likely to be requested in future years, and what they might look like, which is reasonable enough, I guess. ATT wireless said it would be ahem, awkward to disclose some of this stuff ... The impression I got was -- * At the initial stages of any new wireless service, providers need to begin with large coverage areas, due to their internal economies of scale in marketing/technical support and due to customer requirements for roaming or wide coverage. * The wide coverage can be achieved most cheaply by a few tall towers. That is a fact of life, especially in communities where low, locally situated towers are resisted even more strongly than tall towers up in the trees. * It is also possible to provide wide coverage with a quite numerous antenna sites on top of buildings, etc. throughout the city, but this costs more. * each tower can handle a fixed limited number of users. After that, it is highly likely they will need more towers. But the new towers would be smaller and smaller, and more localized, as time goes by. * Finally and this is just my impression, even if towers are blocked completely, the telcos will certainly go forward with smaller rooftop and utility pole antennas. But they won't do that unless Kirkland rejects their applications for the taller towers up in the trees. And the customer would pay higher rates. And fewer companies could compete. There was no discussion of the entire "cost" side of the equation: the impact of regulation in reducing Kirkland's supply of telephone service, reducing the number of competitors who could afford the legal delays, and driving up the cost to the consumer. I got an impression the WTF as czars, reallocating the resources of society, and making various social choices for us. They take money away from telecomms users, and spend it to beautify their neighborhoods. This social choice inhibits the growth of small business data services, which impacts on the whole information infrastructure of the community, causing increased vehicle traffic and other economic waste. In other words, you'd have to be nuts, to try to operate a wireless business in Kirkland. Due to the WTF's inability to make rules timely, Kirkland is steered by default towards the unlovely model of mega-telephone companies and state regulated utilities, which has resulted in higher costs and lower quality data services for everybody... Ya gotta wonder whether the big telcos intentionally applied for 10,000-foot towers to stall the whole thing. Gasp! That's unheard of, planning two moves ahead ... --lets not forget why ATT bought McCaw in the first place!! (etc.etc. rant rant! sorry for the opinions! ) * Todd F. Boyle CPA tboyle@aa.net * Accounting Systems Integration www.aa.net/~tboyle * 9745-128th Av NE, Kirkland WA 98033 (425) 827-3107 * co-moderator biz.comp.accounting ------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: Bell Atlantic Wants Fees on ISPs Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 16:25:43 -0500 Organization: The Arctos Group - http://www.arctos.com/arctos jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) was good enough to point out the following nformation from the www.fcc.gov site: > [retrieved from www.fcc.gov, 11 January 1998] > THE FCC, INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS, AND ACCESS CHARGES > This fact sheet offers informal guidance on an issue that has > generated a great deal of public interest. For more specific details > about the proceedings currently before the Commission, please visit > our web site (http://www.fcc.gov/). > _________________________________________________________________ > . . . > As part of its Access Reform proceeding, CC Docket 96-262, the FCC in > December 1996 sought comment on the treatment of ISPs and other > "enhanced service providers" that also use local telephone companies' > facilities. Since the access charge system was established in 1983, > enhanced service providers have been classified as "end users" rather > than "carriers" for purposes of the access charge rules, and therefore > they do not pay the per-minute access charges that long-distance > companies pay to local telephone companies. > In the Access Reform Order, FCC 97-158, adopted on May 7, 1997, the > FCC concluded that the existing rate structure for ISPs should remain > in place. In other words, the Commission reaffirmed that ISPs are not > required to pay interstate access charges. > . . . > Q: How does the FCC regulate the rates that local telephone companies > charge to ISPs? > A: ISPs purchase local phone lines so that customers can call them. > Under FCC rules, enhanced service providers ISPs are considered "end > users" when they purchase services from local telephone companies. > Thus, ISPs pay the same rates as any other business customer, and > these rates are set separately in each state. By contrast, > long-distance companies are considered "carriers," and they pay > interstate access charges regulated by the FCC. Please contrast the above with the following information which comes from the Bell Atlantic Net web page FAQ which is at URL: < http://www.bellatlantic.net/faqs/index.html#gsp >. GSP stands for Global Service Provider. GSPs are companies which provide connections directly to the Internet -- a service that Bell Atlantic cannot provide to its customers in its region at this time. Other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) charge for long distance data carrier (GSP) service but their charges are often incorporated into their monthly service fee. Bell Atlantic gives you a choice of Global Service Providers, and separates their pass-through charges from our service charges because communications over the Internet have been ruled a long-distance service. Until Bell Atlantic receives approval to enter the long-distance market in our 7-state region, you will be asked to choose a GSP as your "long distance" Internet carrier for Internet connections. So, which is it: are internet communications providers classed as "enhanced service providers" as the FCC states -- or are is it that "communications over the Internet have been ruled a long-distance service" as Bell Atlantic tells us? I interpret the passive voice "have been ruled" to mean that Bell Atlantic would like us to believe that this has been ruled by the FCC. But it sure looks like "communicaitons over the internet" have been clearly ruled *NOT* to be a long-distance service by the FCC. Possibly Bell Atlantic meant to say that Bell Atlantic has ruled that such services should be treated as long-distance service and remains miffed that the FCC has not agreed. (I concede that Bell Atlantic may be proscribed from offering some services under other restrictions concerning the RBOCs and datacomm services, if those restrictions are still in effect. But the "long distance service" comments seems disingenuous at best.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:03:05 -0500 From: Edward Kern Subject: Re: Bell Atlantic Wants Fees on ISPs > If you get a chance, listen to the message before it gets changed, and > post your thoughts here. Remember that 800-647-NEWS is intended for > *internal* use by BA employees, and is not an official media source > for news from the company. Interesting ... If I dial that number from any of my lines at work or home (all Bell Atlantic lines), I get a recording that says "You have reached Bell Atlantic's voice messaging service. To leave a message, please enter the complete telephone number of the person you are calling." If I dial this number through my LD carrier's calling card (which does not provide CID to the receiver, and comes in from outside BA territory), I get the BA News that you spoke of. Nice of them to block us. Edward Kern (dag@soulfood.org) The Soulfood Group ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Bell Atlantic Wants Fees on ISPs From: fgoldstein@bbn.NO$LUNCHMEAT.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Organization: GTE Internetworking - BBN Technologies Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:45:13 GMT In article , jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us says ... > Alas, it's not in that court's jurisdiction. > This was dealt with last year, and the FCC apparently feels it has the > right to reserve jurisdiction on the topic of access fees, and this is > what I sent to all my correspondents on the topic: The FCC has ruled. Their web site posting is accurate. HOWEVER, the 8th Circuit claims jurisdiction over all Telecom Act cases, by some prior agreement of the circuits. Bell Titanic has apparently decided to bring their "modem tax" proposal there. It's sometimes called "venue shopping", hoping that some court somewhere will agree. The FCC is engaged in numerous battles with the 8th, whose main activity as of late seems to have been to overturn everything the FCC has said. If the FCC ruled that Tuesday followed Monday, the 8th might decide that Tuesday goes first. It's typically framed as a "states' rights" issue, based on ambiguity in the Telecom Act. It's quite a stretch to bring in this issue, and if the court rules for Bell it'll immediately be appealed and enjoined, but it could potentially drag on. Perhaps Bell thinks that the 8th can revive that dead horse by beating on it some more. 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. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the papers today, an article says the same court has made some ruling regards 'local competition' and that that, as Fred suggests, the entire thing is now going to be passed to the Supreme Court. The {Chicago Tribune} this morning said the 'entire telecommunications act' will be reviewed by the court. The paper noted this means local competition will, for all intents and purposes , be postponed 'at least another year or more ...' PAT] ------------------------------ From: jik@kamens.brookline.ma.us (Jonathan I. Kamens) Subject: Re: Telco Says No Copper Anywhere? Date: 27 Jan 1998 12:34:59 GMT Organization: Jik's Linux box In article , Ian writes: > Are we out of options here? Reply in the newsgroup please as my > address has been de-spammed. I have what I believe are useful comments to make about your question, bit I refuse to engage in dialogue on the Usenet with people who make it impossible for me to send them E-mail. Such conduct is antithetical to the spirit of the Usenet. As much as I hate the tactic of putting bogus return addresses in postings, I can understand it. I cannot, however, understand why people must post messages without any indication whatsoever of their return address. There are ways of putting your return address in your postings that the spammers won't detect, you know. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If there is any solution to the growing problem of spam, I have yet to find it. Shaming them does no good; harassing them on the phone via their 800 numbers seems to help a little but there is not nearly enough of a concerted effort to make that effective; taking them to court is a long, very drawn-out and expensive process. I've thought about using only the writer's name with articles -- omitting the email address entirely -- but as is noted above, that really is not the in the spirit of how things should go on the net. I've also considered offering a remail/mail forwarding service only for people whose messages have appeared here, and then only for a limited period; perhaps five or six days following the appearance of their message here. I can tell you the software I am using, while perfectly adequate in the 1980's, is less than sufficient for the net as we know it today. I've a lot of things I've thought about doing here, but when I am totally unable to keep up with the volume of incoming mail and have an archives in need of much updating, there is no real time to spend working on updating and modernizing the whole process. :( PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:15:18 -0500 From: Steve Bagdon Reply-To: bagdon@rust.net Subject: Re: Telco Says No Copper Anywhere? The 'from:' has 'nospam', and there's no sig. Do you have an archive of the original, so we know who to send a reply to directly? Thanks! Steve B. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have nothing on it except what you saw. I guess if you want, answer it here in the Digest. Have you tried to find out if 'nospam' is a valid user-name at that site? Maybe mail addressed that way goes to someone there. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ahk@chinet.chinet.com (Adam H. Kerman) Subject: Re: Stopping Annoying "Private" Calls Date: 27 Jan 1998 11:42:54 -0600 Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site In article , wrote: > Thomas J. Huot wrote: >> Is there a box I can attach to our phone line which will identify >> these "Private" calls (that shouldn't be difficult since the caller ID >> already does that), answers the phone immediately, and responds with a >> message informing the caller that our line does not accept >> unidentified callers, and if they want to get through, they need to >> unblock their number. > If you can't find a hardware or TelCo solution that fits your needs > you could try a CID software package that will just take a PRIVATE > caller off/on hook after one RING. Perhaps such devices need override codes. There can be payphones or PBX's that are misconfigured to block CLID on outgoing calls. This would prevent you from checking your own messages on your answering machine! ------------------------------ From: George Rapp Subject: Call Block by Number (was Re: Stopping Annoying "Private" Calls) Organization: Novia Internetworking - Omaha, NE Date: 26 Jan 98 18:56:34 GMT PAT wrote: > Another service offered by telcos is known as 'call screening' and > this allows you to set up a group of numbers from which you do not > wish to recieve calls at any time. In addition to being 'reactive' and > adding the (unknown) number of the 'last call received' you can also be > pro-active and add in advance numbers you know about -- from almost > anywhere in the country -- that you'd rather not talk to. Here in US Weird territory, the "Call Block" service only can be applied to numbers local to me -- I can't add numbers outside of my local service area, even in the same NPA. At least that's what happened to me last fall. A clever 6-year-old friend was visiting Des Moines (NPA 515) and had figured out how to dial long distance to talk to me. Wanting to spare her family the cost of the LD calls, I tried to "block the last calling number" and was told "this number cannot be added to your call block list". Some experimentation yielded the following results (I get all these numbers on my Caller ID): 515/328-XXXX (Des Moines, US West): see above - can't be added 402/488-XXXX (Lincoln - same NPA, different telco): can't be added 402/494-XXXX (Northeast NE, US West): sorry, no can do 402/330-XXXX (west Omaha, different central office): OK, added to list 402/733-XXXX (same CO - in fact, my 2nd line): OK, we can do that. So apparently this feature's range varies - it's legal to add non-local numbers in the Chicagoland area, but not here in Omaha. (BTW, a quick call to the six-year-old's family yielded a spanking, which also effectively stopped the LD calls. 8^) George Rapp EDS - DFAS Electronic Document Management Partnership Postal: DFAS-OM, Attn. EDS, 901 SAC Blvd., Offutt AFB, NE 68113-5680 Phone: 402/232-3446 DSN: 272-3446 Fax: 402/232-3453 gwr@novia.net "Windows is a 'fault-driven' system ..." - Hurricane 2.01 software manual [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have not experimented with this for a few years now, but when I tried adding numbers at random from around the USA to see who could be added and who could not be added, I found that (at that time) whoever sent me caller-id could likewise be added to call screening and 'return last call received'. If the caller-id said 'outside' -- meaning the local telco was saying in effect 'we do not know who this is' -- then I could not screen them either before or after the fact. That is, if I tried to do 'block calls from last number which called you' in those cases it would say 'sorry, cannot add that number to your list'. Now I notice from your .signature that you are located at Offutt AFB, so you might want to detirmine if the centrex there on base is set up a little differently than the rest of Omaha. I'd think you should also be able to block anyone you get caller-id on -- even if the caller-id responds 'private' -- at least from a 'regular' central office not connected with Offutt. My experience with trying to add various numbers at random around the USA was that unlike a local block, where the switch responds in an instant with a response 'it has been added' or 'it cannot be added at this time', when trying to add a number to the screening list which was outside the local area, it would take a few seconds longer. It was as if my switch went off to go interogate the distant switch, much as a computer sends a 'ping' to another computer and then responds to the requestor once the other site responds to it. When I tried to add a number that not only was not local, but was in some other part of the USA, it seemed to take 'forever' to get a response. Ten or fifteen seconds of silence before receiving an answer back was common. Many of those distant points could be added, and were in fact added by my switch once it got through communicating with the other end, however long that took. Others could not be added 'at this time'. The really bizzare response however came from those inquiries of places where (when my switch would try to communicate with a distant switch) the connection 'timed out' before the other end responded. In those cases -- and there were only a couple -- maybe twenty seconds would pass in silence then my local switch would reply, "The number you wish to add to your screening list cannot be added *right now*. Please try again in a few minutes ... " And of all the places in Chicago which could be tested, one in particular was odd: 312-855 *always* caused my switch to respond with the 'not right now ... try again in a few minutes' message. No matter what day, or what time of day, 312-855 in the series of numbers from 0000 through about 3900 was never available 'right now ... try again in a few minutes'. For what it is worth, that block of numbers at that time was a bunch of DID trunks behind a centrex which sent 'outside' to caller-id boxes and maybe still does. Those of you with caller-id who get the number/name on long distance calls might want to experiment with this and your local switch to see how it works there. If you are successful at blocking long distance numbers at random be sure to remove the block when you have finished testing. :) And if some local exchange refuses to accept blocks or stalls on returning the information your own CO needs to complete the block, see what sort of special arrangements are in place; ie a large company with lots of special circuits, DID trunks, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V18 #21 *****************************