TELECOM Digest Sun, 1 Jul 90 08:32:14 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 463 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Mysterious Disconnection [Rob Warnock] Telephone Company/Credit Card Tie-Ins [Jeff Jonas] Power Out Device [David Dodell] DTMF Decoder [John Lefor] Re: Manhole Covers [Marc T. Kaufman] Re: Motorola Plans Global Cellular Thrust [Michael Gammal] Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [TELECOM Moderator] Temporary Re-route and Resulting Problems [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 04:12:34 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Mysterious Disconnection Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA A mysterious thing happened to me a couple of days ago. I woke up to discover my primary home telephone was dead -- no battery voltage. (My modem line was still o.k.) After checking to make sure I'd paid my bill (!), I called repair service. [From the old-Telco-habits-die-hard file: Them: "What time will someone be home to let the repair person into the house?" Me: "I've checked at the demarc and there's no dial tone and no battery voltage." Them: " Oh. Okay. Is there a number where we can we call you to let you know when we've fixed it?" Me: "."] About an hour later I get a call on the mobile. It's the repairman, who says it's all fixed. Now here's the strange thing. He says that out on the pole the "jumper" [didn't say whether it was a bridging clip or a real pair of wires] was missing! Just gone. Not there. He declined to provide any speculation as to how such a thing had happened. My question: Do such things happen often? I can understand the horror stories I've heard about pair-starved apartment buildings in downtown Chicago or New York, but this is in a medium-low-density "single-family dwelling" neighborhood 25 miles away from a "real" city. (O.k., San Mateo's a city, but it's not San Francisco or San Jose. It's not even Palo Alto!) I have a 6-pair drop cable to the house (of which only two happen to be live these days). Is this likely to have been an installer's random goof? ... or some sort of vandalism? ... or a prelude to a burglary? Just paranoid I guess. Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 [Moderator's Note: Is it possible it was somehow loose / not properly attached and eventually worked its way off and fell to the ground? Have you noticed any difference in the behavior (or lack of it) in the other pairs which you say are not currently active coming from the pole? I would attribute it to error. PT] ------------------------------ From: Jeff Jonas Subject: Telephone Company/Credit Card Tie-ins Date: 30 Jun 90 05:14:50 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Jonas Organization: Jeff's House of Electronic Parts A news item from AT&T's newsline (800-2ATT-NOW): AT&T's Universal Card has gotten twice the response anticipated. [surprise! When were AT&T's forecasts ever right, such as anticipating the demand of the PC6300 during the employee fire-sale?] Citibank and other banks are trying to retaliate, crying "foul" that AT&T is in the credit card business. In response, Citibank is now offering a tie-in between MCI and its VISA card, but has no intention of reducing their fees. (Did Citibank switch from AT&T to MCI in response to the Universal Card offering? Some feared that AT&T offended some of their banking customers by competing with them in the credit card arena. Then again, some financial institutions made their own telecommunications network, such as the NY Teleport as reported in the TELECOM Digest.) American Express has offered MCI's "Expressphone" for a while now, so the link between credit cards and phone service is not new. The AT&T Universal card is free for those who enroll this year, and offers 10% discount on calling card calls. The others offer no discounts. I'd say that AT&T succeeded in upsetting Citibank and all the other overpriced credit cards. Good going! The phone company is not just technology. It's finance too. Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@synsys.uucp ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 09:45:56 mst From: David Dodell Subject: Power Out Device I am looking for a device that I could plug into my home's AC outlet, and if power goes off, it would automatically dial a programmed phone number, and perhaps say with a synthesized voice: "The power is out". I know this would have to be battery operated (or at least a float). Any suggestions? David St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, Phoenix, Arizona uucp: {gatech, ames, rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!ddodell Bitnet: ATW1H @ ASUACAD FidoNet=> 1:114/15 Internet: ddodell@stjhmc.fidonet.org FAX: +1 (602) 451-1165 [Moderator's Note: There are commercial devices available which allow what you want, and also accept incoming calls to tell you about the temperature at the place where the device is located, then allow you to listen to background noise for thirty seconds or so. In the event of some problem (usually a choice of three or four problems) they call out to up to four(?) different phones, and keep calling until someone presses certain tones on the phone to reset the device. PT] ------------------------------ From: John Lefor Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 21:05:28 BST Subject: DTMF Decoder In a recent issue, a Telecom reader asked for a service which would be able to decode DTMF tones. My understanding was that he wanted to be able to figure out what number an autodialer was dialing without risking calling the local fire department. I have rigged up what I call a DTMF decoder service that anyone is welcome to use but I would appreciate a few tests before announcing it to the world. If you think this would be useful to Telecom readers and are willing to be a tester here is how it works: 1) Call 716-248-5269 2) An answering system will answer with a message "You have reached Tele-Ware Corporation for ...." 3) At this point you can press "4" on the touch pad and you should get the message "DTMF decoder enter DTMF tones now" (or something like that). 4) Wait about 0.5 seconds then send some DTMF tones. 5) About 5 seconds after the last key is pressed you will get a message "You sent ...." reading off the tones you sent. The system will accept a maximum of 22 keys per sent tones. The "*" reads as "asterisk" and the "#" reads as "number". 6) You get sent back to the "DTMF decoder ..." message and you can enter more DTMF tones or hang up. All this for just the cost of a phone call. Please understand this is the answering system for my business. It gets very little traffic so I am happy to offer this service. If things get out of hand I will have to discontinue it. But if it looks interesting and useful I have no objection to making it available. PS - The system is actually an IBM PC with the IBM Voice Communications Option (the worlds most expensive answering machine). I programmed the answering system and I add feature as I see fit. This one seemed fun and useful. I program ... therefore I am. John Lefor University of Rochester Dept of E. Engineering 716-275-8265 jal@ee.rochester.edu uunet!ur-valhalla!jal ------------------------------ From: "Marc T. Kaufman" From: kaufman@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Date: Sun, 1 Jul 90 04:23:07 GMT In article <59794@bu.edu.bu.edu> msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: >Hold the lid with one edge vertical, and it will go in just fine if >placed next to one edge of the opening. So an equilateral triangle >*doesn't* work. Uh ... on that basis, a circle doesn't either. The diameter will allow a circle of the same diameter to pass edge on. On the other hand, most REAL *hole covers I have seen are set into a flanged ring that has a smaller diameter than the maximum diameter of the cover. Presumably this is to insure that the covers stay flush with the street, and don't fall to the bottom of the hole. I imagine that triangular covers are installed similarly. Based on this discussion, I think I am glad that computer scientists or telephone engineers did not design these things. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ From: Michael Gammal Subject: Re: Motorola Plans Global Cellular Thrust Organization: None Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 04:41:12 GMT I don't trust Motorola's world-wide plans! (World Cellular) Sounds like a nice way for espionage! Think about it... Every single user has their own coding.... Thus can locate any individual anywhere! Talk about tracking ... among other things.... Such as the fact that since it can receive calls the tracking is simple since no need for the phone call to originate with the user. FBI, CSIS, CIA, KGB, you name it! It is will also be useful when they develop cellular mini-belt and watch phones. Terrorists can be tracked in seconds!!! Anyone on a plane can be tracked and won't even know it. A hijacking is what I refer to. Michael Gammal Apple //e & Atari Enthusiast Dawson College gammal@altitude.CAM.ORG qp qp qp qp qp qp qp Montreal, Que. db Support Nature db Canada ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jul 90 8:23:10 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? Word has been reaching us the past few days of the tragic fires burning though parts of California, and the most disturbing news is that apparently much of the town of Santa Barbara is in ashes. Perhaps someone in the area could let us know what the effect has been on telco service in that area, and other parts of the state. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 23:43:34 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Temporary Re-route and Resulting Problems Due to a temporary problem with the Usenet gateway machine here at Northwestern, the comp.dcom.telecom messages are being re-routed via another account at cs.bu.edu. When I found that messages were not leaving here and being accepted and re-distributed by accuvax (the news machine at nwu), I took over thirty messages (three issues of the Digest) to my account at cs.bu.edu to send them out. Then the fun began: Although Pnews at cs.bu did accept the messages, an old .signature file had been forgotten about, and it reared its ugly head at the bottom of each message in issue 460, which explains the odd additions the Usenet people saw on those messages. But that is not all: Since some of the messages had been sitting in the queue here, waiting for accuvax to accept them for a couple days, a few places on the net have received no comp.dcom.telecom messages for three or four days. Now I suppose they are getting flooded with them from the backlog. Of course when no messages go out, I get no messages in return, which explains the skimpy issue you are reading now. Just the kind of trouble I need two days before leaving town! Please remember telecom will be off-line through July 8. Please HOLD new messages until next weekend before sending them in. Thanks. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #463 ****************************** ----- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253