TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 Jul 90 00:27:57 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 471 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Legion of Doom Members Plead Guilty [Eduardo Krell] Canadian Hotel Revises Phone Call Rates [Marcel D. Mongeon] Merlin Question [Roy M. Silvernail] Radio Shack CT-102 [Doug Faunt] NAMFAX Info Wanted [Eric Varsanyi] Telebit T1000 Modem at 9600 Baud [Phil Ngai] How Do I Wire a 500 Set? [Roy M. Smith] Curious About Overseas Call Responses [Subbarayu Darisipudi] Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Tom Neff] Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access [G. Monti] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 16:14:38 EDT Subject: Legion of Doom Members Plead Guilty Extracts from an AP news wire: Three members of the Legion of Doom group pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges Monday. U.S. Attorney Joe Whitley said the group disrupted telecommunications, stole computer source codes and information, stole credit card information and fraudulently obtained money and property. In May, authorities in Indiana prosecuted a juvenile who pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud and agreed to testify against the three Atlanta men, in a trial scheduled to start today. Instead, the three pleaded guilty. They are E. Grant, 22 and Robert Riggs, 22 (both from Atlanta) and Franklin E. Darden Jr, 24 of Norcross. Whitley said in a statement that they illegally accessed various BellSouth computers between Sept. 10, 1987 and July 21, 1989. Grant and Darden also monitored private telephone conversations. They were carged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, wire fraud, access code fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. Darden and Riggs pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy each and face a maximum of 5 years in prison and a $ 250,000 fine. Grant pleaded guilty to possessing 15 or more BellSouth access devices with intent to defraud and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $ 250,000 fine. Eduardo Krell AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ UUCP: {att,decvax,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell Internet: ekrell@ulysses.att.com ------------------------------ From: root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) Subject: Canadian Hotel Revises Phone Call Rates Date: 9 Jul 90 15:35:02 GMT Organization: The Joymarmon Group Inc. I administer a hotel PBX (please no flames about hotel charges until you read this whole posting). The hotel is located in Ontario Canada which means we have only one long distance supplier - Bell Canada (A first cousin of AT&T). With the proliferation of long distance companies in the United States and the large number of guests that we attract from the states, we have been getting a *lot* of inquiries concerning accessing alternate long distance companies. In a few cases (MCI and Sprint to be exact), we do let the guests know about the 1-800-950-1022 and 1-800-877-8000 telephone numbers to access these two services. However, I would like to provide our guests with a much more complete list. Therefore I would appreciate e-mail or postings to this group of such numbers (remember they have to be accessible from Canada! - a lot of US 800 numbers will not work from Canada). In addition to the American long distance providers, I would also like as many of the "Overseas" 'Direct' numbers, including AT&T's USA Direct. Finally, as to the charges that we levy: some of you will recall a posting some time ago on this subject from myself. AFter overcoming the shock of the vehemence of some of the replies, I examined what people were saying and then ran a test period of a new charging scheme. That scheme is the following: Local Calls -- No charge. Directory Assistance -- $1.00 (after all every room has a telephone book and we have to pay $.75 for these calls). Credit Card Calls -- No charge. Operator Assisted (not charged to the Hotel) -- No Charge. Operator Assisted (charged to the Hotel) -- Actual charges plus a $1.00 surcharge (if you don't want to pay the surcharge put it on your credit card). 800 Calls -- No charge (This includes 800-950-1022 and any other LD access numbers). Guest Dialed Long Distance (charged to the room) -- Actual DDD charges plus 50% plus a $1.00 surcharge ($2.50 for international calls) (see description below). 900 and 700 Calls -- Blocked in the switch Generally the policy is simple, if the hotel doesn't have to pay for the call (notwithstanding monthly trunk charges etc.) neither does the guest. In the case of Guest Dialled Long Distance, I am sure that there are some people who might start screaming "Rip-Off" with the 50% and $1 surcharges. However, before you start doing this, let's compare the cost to making a credit card call: My telephone book tells me that all station-to-station credit card calls completed by an operator have a surcharge of $1.50 and $3.75 for a person-to-person. In addition, there is a minimum 34 cent charge for the call on top of that. Charges are rounded up to the next whole minute whereas our call detail recorder only charges 10ths of a minute. Therefore, the surcharges we tack on are in keeping with those placed on a credit card call. Finally, for those who think that these surcharges still leave us sitting on a mountain of money we have to take into consideration what the inavailability of answer supervision means for the charging of short calls. Answer supervision is what makes a pay phone grab your quarter when the other party answers and give it back to you if they don't. If the phone company can provide it to every blessed pay phone, you wonder why they can't make it work for a call detail recorer in a hotel. The bottom line is they can't (or maybe they won't?). Therefore, in charging calls to our guests, we have to program two additional numbers, the minimum time that a call must continue before it is eleigible to be charged and the time to be deducted from the total length of the call which represents the setup time (the switching and the ringing). If these numbers are set too low, then a lot of calls that were never made will get charged with a lot of guest complaints to boot. Set the number too high and a lot of calls that were made and completed properly will not get charged with the attendant loss of income to the hotel even though the phone company will charge us for those calls. Our philosophy has been to set up the numbers on the high side. Since doing so, we have almost eleiminated complaints of calls being charged that were never completed. On the other hand, our comparisons of what was charged to guests versus what was charged by the phone company indicates that there is a small revenue loss. We make up for this loss with the surcharge. In other words, all people who make long duration long distance calls end up subsidizing thos who make short calls which are not charged for. If anyone can convince the phone company to provide us answer supervision no problem, we can get rid of the surcharge. Until then, it's the best solution that I know of. ||| Marcel D. Mongeon ||| e-mail: ... (uunet, maccs)!joymrmn!root or ||| joymrmn!marcelm ------------------------------ Subject: Merlin Question From: "Roy M. Silvernail" Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 21:15:51 CDT Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN An associate has asked a question I cannot answer, so I would like to call on any Merlin gurus reading this group. He doesn't know the model number, but is discussing adding a line card to a Merlin system. I believe this would be a 820 KSU. The question is... are there any third-party voice terminals available for the Merlin system, or must he use the AT&T model? E-mail responses would be fine, as I doubt this is of great general import. Thanks in advance! Roy M. Silvernail | Opinions found now available at: | herein are mine, cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu | but you can rent (cyberspace... be here!)| | them. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 20:33:16 -0700 From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 Subject: Radio Shack CT-102 The Radio Shack CT-102 is for sale for $299. What does the Telecom collective conciousness think of the unit? Are there better deals available in the SF Bay area? What is the lowest base cost rate available for service in the Bay Area? Thanx for the information. ------------------------------ From: Eric Varsanyi Subject: NAMFAX Info Wanted Date: 9 Jul 90 13:52:48 GMT Organization: Cray Computer Corporation A while ago someone posted about the NAMFAX guide to programming various cellular phones. I called them (they are in the Bay Area) and asked for details on what type of information they had on each phone, but the person I talked to was not very knowledgable and just answered that they have all the information I would ever need. Has anyone out there actually bought NAXFAX? If so, what level of detail do they have on the Motorola 750. I have all the info on reprogramming the NAM and getting into maintenance mode (shorting a pin on the back to GND), but Motorola would not give me any of the details on what other neat things you can do from maintenance mode (like how to change the six digit internal lock code). Does the NAMFAX guide have this level of detail? On other phones too? Is it worth the $100/$150 for someone with a single phone? Eric Varsanyi (ewv@craycos.com) Cray Computer Corporation ------------------------------ From: Phil Ngai Subject: Telebit T1000 Modem at 9600 Baud Reply-To: Phil Ngai Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Sunnyvale CA Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 07:47:07 GMT A couple years ago, I went from 2400 to Telebit for dial-in, interactive use. I was unimpressed. I found the packetization disturbing. The average delay from when I did something to when the first character of a response came back seemed greater. After that, of course, the characters came in faster. But I think the delay to first character is what's important. I can't read at 2400 anyway. If there was no way to select what I want to display then it would be nice to display the stuff I don't need faster, but usually I can skip to exactly what I want and after that, the difference between 2400 and 9600 is not that important. For UUCP, Telebit is probably worth considering but for dial-in, I didn't like it. Phil Ngai, phil@amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil PALASM 90: it's not the same old PALASM any more! ------------------------------ From: roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: How Do I Wire A 500 Set? Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 12:18:18 GMT I have a good old basic rotary desk phone (500 set) that works fine except for the ringer, which doesn't ring. I suspect that somewhere along the (time) line it might have been disconnected to avoid REN-count detection, and put back on the wrong terminals on the network block. Can anybody tell me how to wire the ringer so it works? Tip and ring I now have on L1 and L2, although there seem to be many combinations of terminals to which I can connect T/R and still have the phone work, modulo the ringer. I experimented with various places for the red and white wires from the ringer, but havn't found the magic combination yet. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy ------------------------------ From: Subbarayu Darisipudi Subject: Curious About Overseas Call Responses Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 18:37:54 GMT Just curious, wondering how the phone system works. When I call up India using the University phones I dial 8 and after a I get a different tone I enter my billing code and I get back to the usual tone. Now I press 01 - Country Code - Area Code - Phone number. The call usually takes a couple of seconds to set up. When the call is not set up, I get a message which goes something like this: "YOUR INTERNATIONAL CALL DID NOT COMPLETE IN THE DESTINATION COUNTRY DIALLED. PLEASE TRY YOUR CALL LATER 405 2 T" Two questions: 1. Is the message due to the reason that the party called is busy or is it due to the reason that there were no lines available to India at that instant? ( Note: When I call up from a friend's phone with a direct AT&T line or from a pay phone using AT&T or MCI card, the call is usually set up promptly but from the university phone, it literally takes forever!!) 2. The numbers at the end of the message, are they indicating the originating area code. I am calling from (405)-XXX-XXXX. As I said, just curious. Nothing more. Thanks, Subbarayudu D. ------------------------------ From: Tom Neff Subject: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Date: 9 Jul 90 10:19:07 GMT Reply-To: Tom Neff In this summer's movie DIE HARD 2**, which supposedly takes place in Dulles International Airport (Washington DC), the payphones have a prominent Pac*Bell logo on them. Do they really provide the service in Dulles? Or was this an unavoidable glitch due to shooting in LA? Or just a plug for the highest bidder? (GTE was featured prominently on the in-flight public phone, and hundreds of other vendors had their little plugs too -- this has become par for the course in movies.) ** Mini review -- not as tight as the first one, even less believable, but still good for laughs and ouch! type thrills. See it on a hot, boring afternoon. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 13:54:32 PDT From: "John R. Covert 09-Jul-1990 1654" Subject: Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access From: Greg Monti Date: 9 July 1990 Subject: Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access (Regarding what kind of carrier, inter-LATA or intra-LATA, carries international toll calls. I had stated that international calls were inter-LATA): PCI@cup.portal.com writes: > This is not quite accurate. LEC's are not allowed to provide > inter-LATA service. They are allowed to provide intra-LATA and > International service. > This situation in very familiar to the carriers that serve the Hawaii > market. One of the largest IRC's (International Record Carriers) in > the region is GTE Hawaiian Telephone (HawTel) the local LEC... > ...we find our LEC (which has a monopoly for local > service) ... competing with us. You are right, I wasn't clear enough. The Modified Final Judgment which governed the breakup of AT&T affected (and still affects) only AT&T and the *Bell* Operating Companies (BOCs) which were once *majority*-held by AT&T. Technically speaking, the concept of a LATA applies only to *BOC*s. "Independent" LECs can either be "associated with" a nearby BOC's LATA or can be in their own "area" which acts like a LATA, like the "Rochester Area" referred to in New York Telephone directories. There are states that have no BOCs operating anywhere within them. Alaska and Hawaii are two of them (the only two?). GTE, since it is not a BOC, but is an "independent" does not have the same line-of-business restrictions on it that the MFJ has over a BOC. That's why companies like GTE can do international service, why Centel can run cable TV service (which broadcasters and cable operators are trying to keep BOCs out of) and why Contel can run a competitive domestic satellite data company (Contel ASC). I believe that GTE is subject to a different (non-MFJ) consent decree which *does* require it to offer equal access, even where its one-time long distance company (Sprint) was one of the equal competitors. So the same restrictions don't apply to BOCs and independents. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822-2633 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #471 ****************************** ----- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253