TELECOM Digest Fri, 25 Mar 94 13:42:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 148 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 1994 Discover Awards *** Last Call *** (Darlene Quinn) Re: New LA Area Code (David Esan) Re: Area Code 562 (Mark Rudholm) Re: New LA Area Code (Drew Dean) Re: AT&T Cellular Privacy System (Steven King) Need Information on ATM Hookups and Equipment (Timothy C. Wilson) Re: Telecom Business Idea (Mike Lanza) Re: Alphanumeric Pager Software (Bonnie J. Johnson) Re: Alphanumeric Pager Software (Steve Brack) Re: Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' (wjhalv1@pacbell.com) Re: Who Paid For My 550? (Gregory Youngblood) Re: Extension Cord For Cell Phone (David Tse) Re: Information Wanted on Women and Telecom (Gregory Youngblood) Re: Los Angeles Phone Fire Update (Martin McCormick) Re: Hush-a-Phone (Pawel Dobrowolski) Humorous Names For The RBOCs (David Aus) 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 GEnie. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson Associates of Skokie, Illinois USA. We provide telecom consultation services and long distance resale services including calling cards and 800 numbers. To reach us: Post Office Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690 or by phone at 708-329-0571 and fax at 708-329-0572. Email: ptownson@townson.com. ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. 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Subject: 1994 Discover Awards *** Last Call *** Date: 25 Mar 1994 18:10:12 GMT Organization: Net Access - Philadelphia's Internet Connection The 1994 DISCOVER Awards for Technological Innovation --------------------------------------------------------- Presented by Epcot '94 at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida DISCOVER Magazine is pleased to announce that it is now accepting nominations for the fifth annual DISCOVER Awards program. These awards recognize breakthrough technologies in science and honor the men and women whose creative genius improves our quality of life. Companies, research institutions, and individuals are invited to nominate innovations in seven categories: 1. AUTOMOTIVE & TRANSPORTATION 2. AVIATION & AEROSPACE 3. COMPUTER HARDWARD & ELECTRONICS 4. COMPUTER SOFTWARE 5. ENVIRONMENT 6. SIGHT 7. SOUND Winning innovations and their inventors will be featured in a special October 1994 DISCOVER Awards issue. Plus, all finalists and winners will be showcased at "Innoventions," a new attraction opening at Epcot '94 at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. If you would like to receive a nomination package, please contact Darlene Quinn via the internet at: disaward@netaxs.com 1994 DISCOVER AWARDS Phone #: (800) 637-8509 c/o Media Management Services, Inc. Fax #: (215) 579-8589 105 Terry Drive Suite 120 E-Mail: disaward@netaxs.com Newtown, PA 18940 ------------------------------ From: de@moscom.com (David Esan) Subject: Re: New LA Area Code Date: 24 Mar 94 20:04:02 GMT Organization: Moscom Corporation, Pittsford NY In article the MODERATOR wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well the New York City metro area has quite > a few now: 212/718/914/917, what else? Are we counting New Jersey? PAT] Now I know that people in the Second City (now the third city, and sliding) have complete disdain for New York City. We certainly do in Western New York. However, New York City proper contains 212, 718 and 917. The Long Island suburbs are in 516. The northern suburbs (Westchester and part of Rockland counties) are in 914. LATA 132 encompasses all of 212, 718, 917, all of 516 except Fisher's Island, and the southern portion of 914. All calls in the LATA are local, meaning that the local calling area has FIVE area codes. Also note that 212 is high on the list of unsplit area codes, and the city will soon have six area codes. David Esan de@moscom.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 10:40:48 -0800 From: rudholm@aimla.com (Mark Rudholm) Subject: Re: Area Code 562 Dave Niebuhr writes: >> Four area codes in one metro area. Can anybody beat that? > and thus did the Editor write: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well the New York City metro area has quite >> a few now: 212/718/914/907, what else? Are we counting New Jersey? PAT] > 907 is Alaska; it is 917 > 914 is metro NYC covering Rockland, Westchester, part of Orange and > possibly Dutchess and Putnam counties. > Add AC 516 (Long Island) and parts of ACs 201/708 (NJ) and part of > AC 203 (Ct.) > With the exception of NJ, all of the ACs listed are part of the NYC > LATA. Yes, but 213, 310, 818, and 562 will all fall within the corporate limits of the _city_ of Los Angeles, not just the metro area. With the addition of 310, LA City was, according to Pacific Bell, the first single city in the US to have three area codes. Unless NYC gets another area code before 562 goes on-line, we will also be the first with four. The following area codes fall entirely or partially within the metro area but outside the city of LA; 714, 805, 909, and 619. All of those area codes are entirely within the LA LATA except 805 and 619, which are only partially within the LATA. Mark D. Rudholm Philips Interactive Media rudholm@aimla.com 11050 Santa Monica Boulevard +1 213 930 1449 Los Angeles, CA 90025-7511 ------------------------------ From: ddean@robadome.com (Drew Dean) Subject: Re: New LA Area Code Date: 24 Mar 1994 18:47:11 -0800 Organization: ROLM - A Siemens Company In article , Rich Greenberg wrote: > Well Pat, if you are going to count Nuuuu Joooooisy as part of Metro > New York, then I can throw in 714,909, 805, and mabe a slice of 619. Uh, 619 is San Diego and other parts of California (having grown up there, I remember the split from 714). Did you perhaps mean 609, which I believe is in New Jersey? Drew Dean (408) 492-5524 ddean@robadome.com ROLM, a Siemens company [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh dear, another one. Sigh ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: king@wildebeest.cig.mot.com (Steven King) Subject: Re: AT&T Cellular Privacy System Date: 24 Mar 1994 17:16:12 GMT Organization: Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group Reply-To: king@wildebeest.cig.mot.com darneke@attmail.com (David R Arneke) publicly declared: > AT&T SECURE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS NEWS RELEASE I have a few questions about this system. (This is genuine curiosity, not veiled criticism of what sounds like a very beneficial feature.) 1) What scrambling technology is used? Is it a simple inversion such as used in the Motorola Secure-Clear cordless phones? 2) Is the signalling channel also scrambled? How about the blank-and-burst signal sent on the voice channel to change power level or to do a handoff? 3) Is the SAT tone affected? If so, what does this do to system planning? 4) How does the mobile recognize that it's in a scrambler-capable system? How does the base site recognize that a mobile has a scrambler attached? Does the mobile scrambling unit recognize when the mobile is roaming into an incompatible system and turn itself off? 5) Is the MTSO scrambler unit part of the base site or part of the switch? If it's part of the base site, can a scrambled call be handed off into a cell with no scrambler unit attached? 6) If there are no MTSO scrambler units available when a call is placed (or handed off), does the subscriber get any indication that the call is being sent in the clear rather than scrambled? 7) Bottom line -- What is Ameritech charging for the feature? I've sent this note to the TELECOM Digest and to David Arneke directly. Hopefully Mr. Arneke will respond to the Digest, or give me permission to post his answers if he responds directly to me. Steven King -- Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 12:17:10 EDT From: Timothy C. Wilson Subject: Need Information on ATM Hookups and Equipment Greetings from the snow belt, I am preparing a presentation for a Switching Technology class on connecting various inputs (video, voice and data) from an in-house LAN to a remote site via ATM transmission. I would appreciate any information on equipment, cards, or other information suitable for this application. I am planning this project using GTE SPANet, but am open to other suggestions. Any vendor reps out there that would like to send me some propaganda, that is most welcome. Thank you in advance, Timothy C. Wilson tcw5443@rit.edu Rochester Institute of Technology 716-475-7226 Rochester, NY ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 10:20:17 GMT From: Mike Lanza Subject: Re: Telecom Business Idea > Since many people are buying computers with modems and software (and often > trial Compuserve memberships), I feel there may be a market for providing a > local access number that would give them a dial-tone in a neighboring city, > thus allowing them to dial the service of their choice. If the economics were there to do this, I don't see why the packet networks wouldn't have already done it. Besides, it seems to me that the most cost-effective way to get this done is either through 800 access or 950 access for those who do not have a local access number. At low volume, 800 service (w/ T1 at the receiving end) goes for about 14 cents a minute, while 950 access goes for around 18 cents a minute, but the latter should definitely come down as its traffic increases. This compares to about eight or nine cents a minute for packet access. (Of course, keep in mind that the quantity discount for packet access is greater since there is no fixed cost of local access -- four cents a minute -- to account for.) Another issue with this idea -- many RBOCs (e.g. PacBell) have applied for, and will soon receive, authorization to dramatically decrease their charges on inter-LATA calls. As I recall, PacBell's proposal would decrease these rates about 40% or so. Sorry for being a naysayer on this one, but telecom costs for online services is an issue that I've thought a lot about. Mike Lanza ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 13:15:16 EST From: Bonnie J Johnson Subject: Re: Alphanumeric Pager Software I use Notify. Reasonably priced at about $90 and there is a Mac and Windows version. They are working on a network version now. I have been happy with it. Contact Scott at 800-238-4738. bj ------------------------------ From: sbrack@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu (Steve Brack) Subject: Re: Alphanumeric Pager Software Organization: University of Toledo Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 01:09:11 GMT Kenn Krasner (kkrasner@ritz.mordor.com) wrote: > Kenn Krasner, Sr. Consultant One Equals On kkrasner@mordor.com >[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yep, 'one equals on' is the way he > wrote it. Its not my typo! Maybe Kenn will explain it. PAT] Doing consulting on IBM's I always have to tell people that 1 is "on" and 0 is "off." Lots of power switches are marked that way. Steven S. Brack sbrack@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu Toledo, OH 43613-1605 STU0061@UOFT01.BITNET MY OWN OPINIONS sbrack@maine.cse.utoledo.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is what I was told earlier by a couple other people. It is a sensible answer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wjhalv1@pacbell.com Subject: Re: Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' Date: 23 Mar 94 16:44:27 GMT Organization: Pacific * Bell In article , writes: > Could someone explain what this term means. Please email. I offer two examples of "streaming terminals": 1. In a WAN: A device attached to a multi-point circuit can fail in a way that makes it transmit garbage data. Multi-point circuits are like giant antennas: the device would broadcast its garbage onto the circit, effectively killing any useful communication between the "master" [FEP, in IBM jargon], and the "slaves" [Cluster controllers, in IBM jargon]. 2. In a LAN: Say your ethernet machine has a problem -- maybe it continually transmits ICMP packets because its PING code is buggy -- so it just "babbles databits" onto the LAN. How does Ethernet deal with this by itself? Ultimately somebody has to figure out which machine is causing the problem and turn the machine off. Hope this helps. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Who Paid For My 550? From: zeta@tcscs.com (Gregory Youngblood) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 09:32:38 PST Organization: TCS Computer Systems > So, anyhow, wholesale, a phone costs, let's say, $300. Average BASE > phone bill under a qualifying plan is $40/month. 10% of (40 x 12=$480/yr) > = $48. PER phone activated, the carrier gives the agent a fixed fee -- > typically, $250. So, the $300 phone is paid for. The agent is > gambling several things: > 1. You'll stay on longer than one year; > 2. You'll use more than $40/month in services. > Newer agents get less than $48, but still get the $250 acttivation. This varies with carrier to carrier. Some carriers offer the residuals (the percentage of the bill) others have straight commissions. For example, if an agent activates x number of phones in a month, he qualifies for commission plan a, which might be $200 or 250 for the activation, but if he can sell y number of phones in one month, he'll get bumped up to the next commission plan. It's difficult to know how things are actually, done, but you get a pretty good idea if you look at the fine print, "Activation required, Add $300 without activation." Which of course maintains their profit margin. :) CA on the other hand has a law that service and equipment can not be bundled, so your free phone elsewhere might cost you $150 or so in CA. But, that's also $150 with or without service. :) > Of course, the cellular carrier doesn't do too badly either; they > don't have to deal that much with the public, the agent being their > buffer One thing to remember too, is that since the beginning of cellular, it has been marketing and sales driven. With the penetration that cellular has achieved, look to see cellular operations change gears and move to become operations and customer service driven. With the fill dates coming up for a lot of the RSAs the engineering and operations people have to build the network to save the territory. Once the network is built then actual construction will decrease substantially and it will be a maintenance job. Around the same time this happens, look to see carriers become customer service oriented, since it is cheaper to maintain a happy customer base than to dump money into marketing for new activations and the new activations would probably be your low use, emergency plan people which don't generate a lot of revenue. To think about how much revenue these carriers are making, look at companies like McCaw which has got to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of subscribers. For example, say 500,000. If they collect an average of $25/month from all subscribers JUST for monthly service charges, NOT airtime, etc, that's 12,500,000 *each month* right off the top. Greg The Complete Solution BBS Allfiles List: Anonymous UUCP Calls Accepted 707-459-4547 (24hrs, v.32) ~/tcsbbs.lst Login: nuucp Password: nuucp Telemate Distribution Site zeta@tcscs.com Cellular Telephony Groups ------------------------------ From: a10554@giant.rsoft.bc.ca (David Tse) Subject: Re: Extension Cord For Cell Phone Date: 25 Mar 94 09:38:36 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! Communications Corp. MTOVAR@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU writes: > Can anybody tell me where I can purchase an extension cord for my > cellular phone? I tried my local Radio Shack but they don't carry > this. It appears to be an 8 wire connection. I happened to pick up an extension handset with a rather long extension cord (about 15 feet?) to be used for some older Radio Shack mobile cellular phones at our local (Vancouver, B.C., Canada) Radio Shack clearance centre where this (last one) thing has been sitting on the shelf for more than a year I have seen it. I modified the handset inside to make it to work as a handset for my amateur radio equipment in my car, particularly useful doing full duplex phone patch on an autopatch repeater. Or, the short answer is: it is somewhat available, but because it's hard to find, you might have to do some homework. However, the extension cord should be much easier to get than the extension handset I have. Most brands share similar design jacks for the cord. (Flat eight wires phone jack type.) > In case you are wondering, I'm not crazy :). My boyfriend lives in a > city thats a local call on cellular, but LD from my home. And, of > course, my cell phone is mounted in the car. I'm looking for a way to > stretch it into the house. Many cellular systems have wider local areas than the landline does. (But call forwarding on the cellular I think could be caught and they'd charge the toll on the landline bill, as I experimented some years ago while living in San Diego, served by PacBell and PacTel Cellular (same parent). Good luck, David Tse, VE7MDT Internet: a10554@giant.rsoft.bc.ca Do not use: dtse@rflab.ee.ubc.ca or David_Tse@mindlink.bc.ca Note: for large e-mail please send to dtse@rflab.ee.ubc.ca Snail-Mail: P.O. Box 26052, Richmond, B.C., V6Y 2B0, Canada. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Women and Telecom From: zeta@tcscs.com (Gregory Youngblood) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 94 07:39:19 PST Organization: TCS Computer Systems Melanie Spencer writes: > I'm looking for information on women in telecommunications -- particu- > larily statistics on participation and any cases of discrimination. I personally know of two women that are out in the field working on cellular cell sites and switches. One has been doing it for about three to five years I guess, and is now due to have a baby any week, and the other has been working on Ericson for about nine years. Both of these ladies are very sharp at what they do, and I've seen some try to give them a hassle, but, they know how to take care of those people. Also, a project manager of ours is also female, and she has got to be one of the better project managers I've ever worked around. Until I had seen these ladies, I had never seen a female out in the field with their kind of responsibilities ... glad they are out here in my region. :) Greg The Complete Solution BBS Allfiles List: Anonymous UUCP Calls Accepted 707-459-4547 (24hrs, v.32) ~/tcsbbs.lst Login: nuucp Password: nuucp Telemate Distribution Site zeta@tcscs.com Cellular Telephony Groups ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Mar 94 11:23:41 CST From: martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu (Martin McCormick) Subject: Re: Los Angeles Phone Fire Update Organization: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 17:23:39 GMT One factor which wasn't mentioned in all these discussions of the Chicago telephone fire in 1988 was whether or not any of the alarms being received in Springfield were specifically fire alarms or just alarms caused by damage from the fire. The few remote fire alarm circuits that I have ever heard any technical information about signal both a fire alarm condition and a trouble condition if the telephone line is disrupted. One would think that if there was a dedicated fire alarm system and it showed a possible fire, then it's time to call the fire department and check things out. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK O.S.U. Computer Center Data Communications Group ------------------------------ From: dobrowol@husc8.harvard.edu (Pawel Dobrowolski) Subject: Re: Hush-a-Phone Date: 25 Mar 1994 17:39:25 GMT Organization: Harvard University Science Center > They realized that if there was one phone company, that company > would be able to build a high quality nationwide phone system instead > of the numerous mom and pop systems that were scattered all over the > country. You're confusing a technological truth (one country needs one telephone network) with a supposed economic truth (one telephone company for one country). I don't have the data with me right now (I just suffered a huge HD crash) but if you look at the number of telephones connected after the Bell patents lapsed c.a. 1894 you will notice that competition brought more phones faster while at the same time rates kept falling. Non-Bell companies started serving poor urban neighborhoods and rural areas Bell wasn't interested in serving while it still had the original phone patent monopoly (1877-1893). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The way AT&T handled things right after the patent ran out and everyone started making phones was to first go into a town where non-Bell stuff was being used and politely try to buy them out. If that failed -- and it frequently did because even back then the local leaders in many small towns had genuine feelings of dislike for the AT&T monopoly -- then AT&T's response was to refuse interconnection. They'd say well if you think your phones are so good, see how good they are when you cannot make any calls outside your local exchange because we are not going to carry your traffic. Then they'd go into the same town, set up an exchange and give the service away for free if necessary, including long distance service until sufficient numbers of the citizens had signed up for Bell service instead of the competitor's. Once the competitor was almost out of business, AT&T would go back and offer him maybe ten percent of what they had originally offered a year earlier and of course he was a fool if he did not take it. GTE was originally a lot of small independent telcos which had banded together for protection and mutual assistance when AT&T started hasseling them. Regards rural telephony, AT&T refused to touch it claiming the costs were too high. They scream in recent years about MCI 'skimming the cream' where the high-volume, very profitable east coast corridor traffic is concerned, but you should have seen *them* back in the 1930's ... President Franklin Roosevelt established the REA (Rural Electrification Administration) to bring electricity and telephones to the farmers. He also hated AT&T, you know ... AT&T had nothing to do with the hundreds of Telephone Cooperative Societies all over the USA in those years; they struggled along the best they could with the mortgage money they got from the REA, and somehow survived during the great depression and the years which followed. Then comes the 1950's; their mortgages are paid off and they are starting to make a bit of money for their farmer-owners. All of a sudden AT&T is in the picture again, buying them up left and right, 'for the good of the public telephone network' you know ... A lot of them still refused to deal with AT&T and went into other telephone consortiums instead. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 24 Mar 94 14:55:22 EST From: DAVID AUS <71742.1102@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Humorous Names For the RBOCs When the Bell System was broken up, some wags came up with a cute name for each of the then new RBOCs. I think I remember some of them: Ameritech ? Bell Atlantic Liberty Bell Bell South Southern Belle Nynex ? PacTel Tinker Bell Southwestern Bell Mission Bell US West Taco Bell Does anyone remember all the names? David A. Aus 71742.1102@compuserve.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Such a 'LATA map' appeared a few years ago in Harry Newton's {Teleconnect Magazine}, but he had it broken down by geographic areas of the USA rather than BOCs. For example, his map had Texas shown as 'Taco Bell'. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #148 ****************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253