Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA17715; Wed, 18 Mar 1998 23:22:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 23:22:06 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199803190422.XAA17715@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V18 #38 TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Mar 98 23:22:00 EST Volume 18 : Issue 38 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Deluge of Junk E-Mail Disrupts Pacific Bell Internet Service (Tad Cook) Book Review: "Internet in a Nutshell", Valerie Quercia (Rob Slade) Telephone Trickery - 90# (Tal Meta) Memorized Area Codes? Expect More (Monty Solomon) And Toronto's Area Code is ... (adam_adam_adam@hotmail.com) ISDN in Germany (oldbear@arctos.com) AT&T Foreign Language Operator/Card Services (Mark J. Cuccia) Phoning Home From Abroad: You Make the Call (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: * 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. 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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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Deluge of Junk E-Mail Disrupts Pacific Bell Internet Service Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 15:14:01 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) By George Avalos, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Mar. 13--Marketers and scam artists "spammed" Pacific Bell's Internet service this week with a digital deluge that fouled up e-mail for subscribers, the company confirmed Thursday. The "spammers" disrupted e-mail service for about 175,000 of Pac Bell's Internet customers. The spam spiked late Monday and wasn't fixed until Thursday evening, when Pac Bell doubled its capacity for handling e-mail traffic. Spamming is being called by some experts as the Internet's worst problem. This is the practice of sending out mass mailings, usually advertisements, to thousands or even millions of Internet users simultaneously. A huge influx of the cyber-messages can clog an online service and mail boxes. In the Pacific Bell spam, e-mail traffic ranged from slow for about 75 percent of the company's customers to a virtual dead stop for one in four, or about 44,000 people, officials said. "You might not get an e-mail message for two hours, it might take you an hour to send out e-mail," said Ruben Cota, a vice president with Pacific Southwestern Bell Internet Services. Some delays were even worse, Cota said: "Some people didn't get mail until the next day. Some people weren't even able to send a message." The incidents represents the worst case of spamming ever directed at the phone company's Internet service, which was launched in mid-1996. Pac Bell isn't sure if the spamming was done out of spite or merely aggressive marketing. The company is investigating the origins of the junk-mail messages. "The spamming that caused the impairment of the system was from multiple external sources," Cota said. "The messages were of varying size." If it can track down the companies that serve the individuals who sent out the mail, Pac Bell says it will press the provider to revoke the offender's service. Pacific Bell is hardly alone in being slammed by spam. America Online, CompuServe and other big providers have suffered the problem. "Spamming is not only the biggest consumer complaint, it is also the biggest nightmare and headache for online service providers," said Brian O'Shaugnessy, director of public policy with the Interactive Services Association in Silver Spring, Md. "It causes brownouts, it causes slowdowns, it can cause computers to crash." To be sure, spamming is an economical way to market a service or product. An individual could spend $100 to reach 2 million cyber-customers quickly. But the benefits to marketers of get-rich-quick schemes are outweighed by the problems these practices unleash upon Internet services and customers. "Spam has a very detrimental impact on the Internet," O'Shaugnessy said. Particularly hard hit have been formerly lively online debate forums such as Usenet. "Usenet has become a virtual wasteland because spammers have used that resource for marketing," O'Shaugnessy said. "It has been overrun by Ponzi schemes and pornography." California lawmakers are pondering ways to halt spamming. One proposal by Assemblymembers Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, and Jim Cuneen, R-Campbell, would allow online service providers to sue a spammer for up to $15,000. AOL recently won a judgment against a spammer. "Spamming is becoming a bigger and bigger problem," Pac Bell spokesman Paul Cohen said. ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 13:11:04 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Internet in a Nutshell", Valerie Quercia Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKINTNSH.RVW 971230 "Internet in a Nutshell", Valerie Quercia, 1997, 1-56592-323-5, U$19.95/C$28.95 %A Valerie Quercia val@oreilly.com %C 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472 %D 1997 %G 1-56592-323-5 %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %O U$19.95/C$28.95 800-998-9938 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com %P 450 p. %S Nutshell %T "Internet in a Nutshell" The first of the larger, catalogue type of Internet guides was Ed Krol's "The Internet User's Guide and Catalog" (cf. BKKROL.RVW), recently updated with special reference to Windows 95 (cf. BKKROL95.RVW). Krol's work was published by O'Reilly, whose Nutshell series has garnered justifiable praise in both the publishing and computer industries. Quercia, therefore, has large shoes to fill in taking on this title. The Internet, unfortunately, does not appear to be a good candidate for the Nutshell reference format. The Internet is not a single entity, or even a single type of entity, but a complex amalgam of collections of technologies, protocols, applications, products, programs, and services. this does not easily reduce to a quickly accessible set of lists and tables. Quercia has done a decent and serviceable job of producing a general Internet guide, different in style but comparable in scope to Gilster's "Internet Navigator" (cf. BKINTNAV.RVW) or Comer's "The Internet Book" (cf. BKINTBOK.RVW). the strong Web emphasis accurately reflects the large and growing experience of the net by those who are presented primarily with a browser interface. The author's division of the book into parts is reasonable from the user's perspective, although the logic behind some fo the chapter divisions may be less so. Part one consists of the obligatory introductory chapter. Part two takes a detailed look at Web browsers, with chapters on Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. It should be noted, however, that these chapters, and most of the rest of the book, which looks at email, news, and even ftp through the Netscape Communicator and Internet Explorer/Mail/News interfaces, deal with Netscape 4.01 and MSIE (Internet Explorer) 3.02. Since browser development has been extremely rapid of late, those with older, or newer, products may find themselves at a disadvantage. Under the category of "Finding Stuff" in part three, there are chapters on Internet addressing, landmark sites, directories and search engines, finding people, and telnet. All of these topics contain information suitable to the novice or intermediate user. Email and Usenet news are logically listed together in part four. The chapter promoting them seems weak, but it is followed by good advice on strategies and survival, mailing lists, news, Netscape Messenger and Collabra, MSIE Mail, and MSIE News. Files, in part five, are handled quickly but well. There is discussion of file types and extensions, ftp and file transfer, a UNIX ftp command reference, as well as a brief look at file compression and archiving. Part six looks at helpers and plugins for the browser interfaces, first looking at configuring Netscape and MSIE for helper apps, and them briefly looking at plugins and ActiveX controls. Web authoring, in part seven, looks at basic authoring needs, HTML (HyperText Markup Language), colour, characters, and enhancements. Part eight covers IRC (Internet Relay Chat) briefly but reliably, with an overview chapter plus a reference to those commands found in the mIRC program. Given the scope of the Internet, and the relatively small size of this book, something had to be left out. One limitation is the choice of software. Except for WS_FTP and mIRC, everything relies on either Netscape Communicator or MSIE. (Macintosh users are not completely forgotten, and a number of Mac specific points are noted.) In regard to much of the rest of the material, it is well chosen to suit the general needs of the novice or intermediate user, with a smaller number of points that would be of use to advanced Internet denizens. Coverage is quick, but realistic for the non-specialist. It provides a good jumping off point, so long as the reader does not stop there. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997 BKINTNSH.RVW 971230 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 10:15:45 -0500 From: Tal Meta Organization: I am the truth from which you run... Subject: Telephone Trickery - 90# A friend of mine sent me the following inquiry, regarding a "telephone scam" she'd been told about by some of her friends. I was wondering if the folks on the digest could give us both a definitive answer ... > a couple of people i know have forwarded to me a warning about a > telephone scam. supposedly, someone will phone an innocent victim > and pose as an AT&T rep, saying that they are testing the lines, > and asking the person to dial 9, then 0, then #. the warning goes > on to say that this gives the calling party access to the called > party's phone line, and allows them to make long distance calls > charged to the victim. supposedly the person doing this is often > phoning from a local prison. > this sounds like a crock to me. from what i know of the telco > switching system, nothing as simple as a 3-digit code, even if it > contains a non-alphanumeric character, is going to hand over the > use of your line to an outside party. but a couple of friends in > boston have their knickers in a knot over this, and won't listen > to me. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 09:29:13 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Memorized Area Codes? Expect More http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/069/Memorized_area_codes__Expect_more.htm Memorized area codes? Expect more By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 03/10/98 State regulators had egg on their faces yesterday after being told that their newly redrawn 617 and 508 area codes may run out of phone numbers again in three years or less. If the projections are accurate, residents in 617 and 508 will probably have to go through another wrenching area code change in the not-too-distant future. Last year, lawmakers got into a nasty fight over which communities would remain in 617. The latest number crunch raises questions about whether state regulators made the right decision last year when they rejected an alternative area code format that would have kept the 617 and 508 area codes intact. Bell Atlantic had originally predicted the new area codes could last five to eight years, but company officials said heavy demand from competitors for new numbers has thrown those predictions way off already. The company forwarded its latest estimate to state officials in a letter last week. State regulators and competing companies were stunned at Bell Atlantic's new projections, which were released even before the just-redrawn area codes become fully activated on May 1. ''Their numbers don't seem to be very good,'' said Daniel Grabauskas, the state's consumer affairs director. ''We had been promised that these area codes would be good for about five years.'' AT&T spokeswoman Robin Sayre also blamed Bell Atlantic. ''We are outraged that Bell Atlantic has misforecast the need for exchanges,'' she said. ''We're mystified as to how this happened.'' Bell Atlantic said there is no mystery involved. The company, which supervises the distribution of exchange numbers, said that it and its competitors are gobbling up the three-digit exchange numbers to serve business, and to a lesser extent residential, customers at a gold rush pace. Each exchange number represents a block of 10,000 phone numbers. Bell Atlantic said it has requested 10 percent of the new exchange codes in 617 and 508, while its many competitors for primarily local business customers have requested the other 90 percent. The number shortage raises again the thorny issue of what to do about it. In the short term, industry officials plan to meet on April 3 to see if they can reach consensus on ways to conserve phone numbers and, if necessary, kick start the development of additional area codes. Last year the state Department of Telecommunications and Energy approved a plan to carve the 781 and 978 area codes out of the existing 617 and 508 area codes. It rejected an alternative approach, favored by Bell Atlantic, that would have had the new area codes overlay the old ones. That would have avoided the need to keep slicing up area codes by allowing existing customers to keep their area codes and numbers while new customers would get numbers in the new overlaid area codes. ''This situation illustrates why overlays are clearly the better way to add area codes,'' said Thomas DeSisto, executive director-regulatory for Bell Atlantic-Massachusetts. ''Demand is impossible to predict in a competitive environment.'' State regulators rejected that argument last year, largely because it would have required all consumers to dial at least 10 digits on every call, even local ones. The overlay approach would have also meant that neighbors on the same street could have different area codes. Janet Besser, chairwoman of the state Department of Telecommunications and Energy, said she had no regrets about the agency's decision last year. Besser acknowledged that Bell Atlantic had told her agency that a number shortage could develop in three years. She also said she had no reason to disbelieve Bell Atlantic's new projections. George Dean, the top utility regulator working for Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, said he was hopeful that new technologies could distribute phone numbers more efficiently and prolong the life of the existing area codes. But Besser said it is unlikely the new technology will become available before mid-1999, too late to help deal with the current situation. She said her agency will scrutinize Bell Atlantic's numbers carefully. ''We will not be moving ahead with new area codes unless they are absolutely needed,'' she said. This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 03/10/98. Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company. ------------------------------ From: adam_adam_adam@hotmail.com Subject: And Toronto's Area code is ... Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 15:27:58 -0600 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Bell Canada is set to announce Toronto's new area code the announcement of the code has been delayed since the orignal plans to overlay the "416" area code have been cancelled. Inside a cellular area code is being introduced. All cellular, PCS, pagers etc within the 416 area code will move to the new area code. As this is Canada not the US we do not have to follow FCC we have the CRTC. I have found out that the CRTC has agreed to this in principle, in the long run it will benefit the city. No forced 10-digit dialing : ). However cell phones who call others who are not on cell phones will require 10-digit local dialing. This is also good since the cell companies are hogging up all the numbers. This will free up numbers in Toronto. Did you know that the 905'ers who have cell phones almost always choose 416 # due to the wider local coverage? (that is it is not a toll call!!). Putting cells on a different band will help slow the splits!!!! Better yet we should add another digit to our local number that will increase them 10 fold. (maybe we could even have reverse splits???) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 13:24:13 -0500 From: The Old Bear Subject: ISDN in Germany --- forwarded message --- From: herrmann@kirsche.wupper.de (Wolfgang Herrmann) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.isdn Subject: Re: ISDN hitting its stride or dying a slow death???? Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 16:24:47 GMT It has been interesting for me to read this thread and compare it with the situation in Germany. Let me share with you my observations: The penetration in Germany has been at the end of 1997 2.9 million BRI and 56 thousend PRI out of 40 million phone lines and 80 million people. Thus, the penetration is substantially higher than in the US. What made ISDN fly in my opinion ? In the beginning, (1990), the driving force were medium to large PABXs connected via PRI. At that time, it was cheaper to use ISDN because the monthly subscribtion was lower if you needed more than 7 or 8 lines and the PABX itself was cheaper if it used a digital connection to the public exchange. The tariff for the calls was identical to the tariff for analog calls. All this is still valid, so since the beginning of the 90's practically all new PABXs installed were ISDN. In 1994 the BRI started to take off and actually overtook the PRI in the number of B-channels installed. A great boom came in 1995, when the number of BRI doubled. This was fuelled by a subsidizing plan of Deutsche Telekom: When you subscribed to ISDN, you received credit on your phone bill that would effectively pay for the ISDN phone. Also, it should be noted that it is cheaper to use ISDN than to have two analog lines. So I think, pricing played an important role in bringing up the penetration. Also, there was more motivation for Telekom to promote ISDN than for the RBOCs: Germany was relatively late in the digitisation of local exchanges, the result of this was that pracitcally all digital exchanges that were installed were capable of supporting ISDN without any modification or upgrades. Also, the distance between exchanges and subscribers is such that allmost all can be served without repeaters. Another thing that helps getting ISDN to the small office and home office is the availability of inexpensive PBXs that supports both ISDN and analog phones. A typical unit has an S0 bus for the connection of ISDN terminal equipment and eight analog ports, so you can still use your fax, answering machines, modems and analog phones. Such a unit sells for about $420. An ISDN phone will cost you about $100, an ISDN PC card costs about $80. The NT is included in the connection fee of $55. There were some commensts on the powering issue: Yes, in Germany power is provided from the exchange if local power fails. To be precise, the NT electronics is always powered from the exchange, and the power supply in the NT will power the terminal equipment under normal conditions. If local power fails, the NT will draw a few hundred milliwatts from the exchange to continue to provide power to the terminal. This, however, is not supported by all terminal equipment. Somebody said, that the German user may not even have a choice whether to go ISDN or not. This is not the case, still normal analog lines are provided and there are no plans to change that. Regards, Wolfgang Herrmann Kirschbaumstrasse 24, 42115 Wuppertal, Germany phone: ++49 202 308000 fax: ++49 202 3702242 email: herrmann@kirsche.wupper.de http://www.wupper.de/sites/kirsche/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 13:28:47 -0600 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: AT&T Foreign Language Operator/Card Services By dialing '00' from a presubscribed AT&T line, or 10(10)288-0('#'/0) from any equal access line ... when the voice-menu prompts come on after the "AT&T" jingle, you can say "Espan(i)ol" and get voice-menu prompts in Spanish. Similarly, dialing 00 (AT&T presubscribed) or 10(10)288-0('#'/0), and then entering *111 (star-one-one-one) at the 'jingle' will get you the same voice-menu prompts in Spanish. Both of the above methods of accessing AT&T Spanish language prompts are both automated in Spanish and allow the option of reaching a live AT&T Spanish speaking operator. 800-233-9008 is an AT&T 800-access number for Spanish card/opr services. I haven't tried dialing this one yet to see if it is automated, or only directly goes live to an AT&T Spanish speaking operator. Saying "Espan(i)ol" on AT&T's 800-CALL-ATT (800-225-5288) or 800-321-0288 access numbers don't changeover to Spanish language prompts. AT&T has other 800- card/operator access numbers for other foreign languages, as well as other *1XX (star-one-x-x) codes for foreign languages used on '00' access, as well. MARK_J._CUCCIA__PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE:__HOME:__(USA)__Tel:_CHestnut-1-2497 WORK:__mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu|4710-Wright-Road|__(+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity-5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New-Orleans-28__|fwds-on-no-answr-to Fax:UNiversity-5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail- ------------------------------ Subject: Phoning Home From Abroad: You Make the Call Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 22:52:57 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) By David Cay Johnston New York Times News Service MATT Smedley, 24, was nearing the end of a year spent exploring Europe last June when he spotted a pay phone in Tromso, a Norwegian harbor town above the Arctic Circle, and decided to call his parents in Malvern, Pa. "I thought it would cost a fortune, but I wanted to call so I did," said Smedley. Calling home from abroad can indeed be costly, as some travelers who pick up the phone in their hotel discover when they check out and are faced with surcharges that can make the cost of a telephone call higher than the room price. But as Smedley learned, a call home these days can also be cheap, almost as cheap as a long-distance call in the United States. "I found out later," Smedley said, "that my call cost just 35 cents a minute because my parents had signed up with MCI for an international plan that cost them $3 a month and 35 cents a minute to call me and, it turned out, the same price for me to call them." The splintering of the American telephone system and the explosion in electronic communications means there is now a dizzying array of options for phoning home from almost anywhere. Things began to change in the early 1990s, said Elroy Cartwright, director of travel services for AT&T. Technology, competition and treaties all began to converge to lower prices for savvy callers. In 1927 the only way to place a call between New York and London was via a very high-frequency radio transmitter at a cost of $75 for three minutes of rather poor-quality sound. That price is the equivalent of more than $700 today. In 1998, you can make the same call for less than $1 with a cheap calling plan. "Prices have come way way down, but there are still privately owned situations that are gouging people," Cartwright said. "And while you should be wary of hotel room telephones, you can also walk up to what you think is a public pay phone and find out later you got socked with a $98 bill for a one- or two-minute call." Here are the basics of how to call home from abroad inexpensively: International call plans. Domestic long-distance carriers, like MCI and AT&T, have programs that can save money on calls both into and out of the United States. Expect to pay a modest monthly fee, such as the $3 for the MCI plan the Smedley family used, and then per-minute rates that are usually well under $1 a minute. Typically you will be given a wallet-size card with access numbers for most countries. If you call from a pay phone you may have to drop in a coin, or use a calling card issued by the local telephone company, to get a dial tone. Direct service. AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Premiere Worldlink Services and a variety of other long-distance carriers offer customers local numbers in other countries that connect directly to the United States, offering substantial savings compared to going through each country's own long-distance system. These services involve obtaining a calling card, which typically has your home telephone number plus a four-digit Personal Identification Number, or PIN, with the charges then billed to your home phone or to a credit card. The cheapest service for calls from Europe to the United States is Voicenet, according to the February issue of Consumer Reports Travel Letter. The company -- at (800) 864-2363 or on the Internet at http://www.vnetcard.com -- has no minimums or per-call surcharges, charges lower per-minute fees than most competitors and bills in six-second increments instead of rounding up to the next minute as AT&T, MCI, Sprint and Premiere do. A recent survey of long-distance carriers found that a one-minute call to the United States from Britain cost 27.5 cents with Voicenet, compared with $5.56 with AT&T. (A one-time activation fee of 99 cents is charged for joining Voicenet over the phone; there is no fee for joining on the Internet.) Hotel rooms. A basic money-saving rule has always been to avoid using hotel room phones. But even that is changing. AT&T has agreements with most international Sheratons and some other hotel chains to have a "hot button" on room phones that connects directly to AT&T, eliminating hotel surcharges. Callback services. These services are disappearing with global deregulation of telephone services, but if you will be in one place for a long time, and you expect to make a lot of calls to the United States, they may save you money. You dial a number in the United States, then hang up after one ring. A computer calls you back and gives you a dial tone, allowing you to make calls at the rates charged by domestic long-distance companies, generally lower than rates abroad. Telegroup, a Fairfield, Iowa, long-distance company, will examine rates between countries to customize a calling plan, Stan Bierbrier, the company treasurer, said. For information, call (800) 338-0225; http://www.telegroup.com. Cybercafes. A growing number of European cities have cafes that rent Internet access for about $5 per half-hour. These are a good way to check e-mail if you use a service such as hotmail.com. (See story, Page 8H.) E-Mail by voice. You can have your e-mail messages read to you by a computer if you sign up for Premiere Worldlink's "platinum service," (800) 609-2030 or on the Internet at http://www.premtek.com, for $19.95 a month. You have your e-mail routed to Premiere, which then uses text-to-speech software to have a computer read the subject line of each e-mail and then the text. "Once you hear the header, if the message is spam you can discard it and go on to the next," said Premiere's David Allison. You can use the keypad to indicate one of six canned responses. A number of long-distance carriers have indicated that they may soon offer a similar service. Cell phones. Your domestic cell phone will not work outside North America, and it will work in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean only if your cellular company has a roaming agreement with a company at your destination. Much of the rest of the world uses GSM technology, or global system for mobile communications. You can have calls to your domestic cell phone forwarded to a GSM cell phone in many countries, though it is costly. AT&T Wireless charges $49.99 a year plus $2.49 a minute. The company programs a credit card-size piece of plastic, embedded with circuits, that you insert into a GSM phone to make and receive calls in 77 countries. Iridium. In September the Iridium system, using a network of satellites, is scheduled to go into service, making cellular-type telephone services available everywhere on the planet. Satellite calls will require special telephones. A spokeswoman said the company has agreements with more than 140 distribution partners worldwide, but was not ready to release their names or prices, which she said would be "very competitive with existing wireless offerings." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V18 #38 *****************************