TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Nov 93 01:58:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 769 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Microsoft Telephony API/SPI (Toby Nixon) Re: "Press (__) to Hear Special Message ..." (Mike King) Re: Crummy Service in NY (Gordon Jacobson) Re: Atomic Clocks (was: For A Good Time, Call 202-653-1800) (Alex Ranous) Re: Nationwide Caller ID (Patrick Chung-Pui Ko) Re: Sri Lanka is Joining the Internet (Lars Poulsen) Re: Wanted: Info on Cellular Phone Monitoring Systems (Michael P. Deignan) Re: Need to Buy E1 to T1 Converter (Ken A. Becker) Re: CA Tax Regulations for LD Providers (Paul Robinson) Re: CA Tax Regulations for LD Providers (Bob Schwartz) Re: Calling Card Question (Kevin A. Mitchell) Re: Calling Card Question (Paul Robinson) Re: NPA 905 Not Universally Recognized (David Leibold) Re: NPA 905, NAFTA and Mexico Area Codes (John R. Levine) Re: NPA 905, NAFTA and Mexico Area Codes (Carl Moore) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tnixon@microsoft.com (Toby Nixon) Subject: Re: Microsoft Telephony API/SPI Organization: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond WA, USA Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 00:47:47 GMT In article declrckd@rtsg.mot.com wrote: > In article , Joe Armstrong > wrote: >> Does anybody have any information available about products which use >> the recently published Microsoft Telephony API/SPI? > Given, that this spec is supported, and written by a joint venture of > two companies with little or no communications experience (Intel and > Micro$oft), it seems to have little promise of being adopted as a > standard. > This may change, if a major PBX or switch vendor buys into it. When Windows Telephony was announced back in May, over 40 companies participated. In addition to Microsoft and Intel, companies which have announced support include: Acer America Acotec GmbH Active Voice Corporation Alcatel Business Systems Group Ameritech Analog Devices Articulate Systems Aspect Communications AT&T Global Business Communications Systems Bell Atlantic Centigram Communications Corporation Compaq Computer Corporation Contact Software International Cypress Research Corporation DEES Communication Engineering Ltd. Delrina Dialogic Digital Equipment Corporation DSP Group, Inc. Ericsson Business Communications Executone Information Systems Floreat, Inc. Fujitsu Business Communications Systems GPT Harris Digital Telephone Systems Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. InteCom, Inc. ISOCOR Jensen-Jones, Inc. Lotus Mitel Momentum Data Systems Motorola Digital Signal Processor Operation Motorola/Universal Data Systems National Semiconductor, Inc. Natural MicroSystems NEC Corporation Northern Telecom Octel Communications Corporation OCTuS, Inc. PictureTel Polaris Software Rhetorex Rockwell International Corporation Siemens Private Communication Systems Group (ROLM) Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. Smart Technologies Spectron TeleInt GmbH Toshiba America Information Systems Unifi Communications Corporation US West Communications, Inc. VMX, Inc. Voice Technologies Group, Inc. I think you'll agree that this includes most of the major players in the industry, including the "major PBX or switch vendors" you say are necessary for success (AT&T, Northern Telecom, Seimens/Rolm, Ericsson, Alcatel, Fujitsu, NEC, Harris, Intecom, Mitel, etc.), plus all of the major PC-based voice processing companies, most of the makers of telephony hardware chips, many major data, fax, and voice software developers, major telephone network operators, etc. Over 10,000 copies of the preliminary specification have been downloaded from various FTP sites and CompuServe, in addition to the thousands mailed out on paper and diskette from Microsoft. The official release of the SDK is imminent. As for "little or no communications experience", I was Principal Engineer at Hayes for nine years, and their representative in US and international standards committees (including TIA and CCITT). Similar experience exists of the Intel side. You can't assume that companies at Microsoft will stand still and not hire the best talent in pursuit of major corporate initiatives. The spec wasn't developed in a vacuum, either; most of the companies mentioned above (including your own) have made extensive contributions as it was developed. I'm happy to say that the vast majority of industry analysts have heartily disagreed with your assessment that Windows Telephony has "little promise of being adopted as a standard." On the contrary, it will be the core of switched communications support in the next major version of Windows, and a major part of continuing to make personal computing easier to use. Toby Nixon Program Manager -- Windows Telephony Digital Office Systems Group Microsoft Corporation ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 08:10:07 EST From: mking@fsd.com (Mike King) Subject: Re: "Press (__) to Hear Special Message ..." In TELECOM Digest, V13 #742, elana@netcom.com (Elana Beach) wrote: > I want to somehow have the simple option of an answering machine that > will allow me to say something like: "Press 1 for the latest news on > Chris Franke's limited CD release". That way, anyone who wants to > hear that stuff would have the option, and others can just ignore it > and leave a message like usual. Would you consider the inverse? Most GE, Panasonic, and AT&T answering machines have a feature where the caller can press '*' to avoid the rest of the outgoing message and get the beep immediately. Perhaps you could set your OGM to, "If you'd like to leave a message, press star; otherwise stay on hte line for the latest news on Chris Franke's limited CD release." I've used my machine in that manner when I've needed to leave the house but I wanted to get a message to the caller. "Hello, if this is ...., please stay on the line; otherwise, press star to leave a message." Of course, I never left confidential messages in that manner. Mike mking@fsd.com * Usual disclaimers * ------------------------------ Reply-To: gaj@pcs.win.net (Gordon Jacobson) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 00:02:08 Subject: Re: Crummy Service in NY From: gaj@pcs.win.net (Gordon Jacobson) > Oh, and I cannot get ISDN, either. All Business Service NYTel COs south of 57th Street provide ISDN PRI/BRI. Call Bob Block at (212) 395 5272. > My service comes from the "Second Avenue" central office in Manhattan. So does mine -- 2nd Avenue and 56th Street in fact. And I can get ISDN whenever I want it. Regards, GAJ ------------------------------ From: ranous@news.nsa.hp.com (Alex Ranous) Subject: Re: Atomic Clocks (was: For A Good Time, Call 202-653-1800) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 22:14:09 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Networked Systems Architecture Lou Fernandez (lff@sequent.com) wrote: > For more than you ever wanted to know about time, frequency and > clocks, I recommend you consult the July 1991 issue of the Proceeding > of the IEEE, Special Issue on Time and Frequency. Another place to find about this subject which is a bit more approchable is the July 93 issue of {Scientific American} in an artical titled "Accurate Measurement of Time" Alex ------------------------------ From: patko@uclink.berkeley.edu (Patrick Chung-Pui Ko) Subject: Re: Nationwide Caller ID Date: 19 Nov 1993 02:09:07 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Is there any way I could get a phone service from Northwest Bell in California? Since PacBell plays games can we just use a different telco? [Moderator's Note: Sure you can, subject to a few requirements and a big budget for phone service. You can call 'Northwest Bell' or any telco you like; tell them you want Foreign Exchange (FX) service at your address in California. In other words, you want local Minneapolis dialtone or whatever. They'll be glad to arrange it for you, and of course, they'll coordinate it through PacBell since that's the telco which will supply the wire pair. You'll pay many, many hundreds of dollars per month for the FX circuit; but when you pick up the phone you'll get dialtone from the city of your choice and when someone dials that local number wherever, it will in fact ring on your phone in California. Two caveats, or maybe three: you won't be able to make *local* calls on that phone, since *local* will be defined as the service area of 'Northwest Bell'. I hope you know a lot of people living in Minneapolis, because you will be able to call them like a local call. Another caveat: it is questionable if custom calling features will be available to you. Not all telcos offer custom calling with FX service; I think it is the exception if they do. A third caveat: plan to pay PacBell for two things: the minimum monthly amount for one of their lines you never use since you have to have some form of local service as part of the deal, and also plan to pay PacBell for the wiring you are leasing from them to bring your 'Northwest Bell' service in to you -- unless the remote telco is paying it direct to PacBell and charging it back to you. In summary, each local telco has a protected area which is theirs alone to serve. At the present time, and in the immediate future, it is unlikely the Bell Companies -- or for that matter, any of the inde- pent telcos who have historically worked together -- will invade each other's territories to provide local dialtone. On the other hand, had you asked if you could ditch PacBell and go with a *non-traditional* carrier -- say, your local cable company, or one of the upstarts in recent years like Metropolitan Fiber, my answer would be maybe you can before long. But in real practice, no you can't right now unless you are a big business and can justify the cost of FX. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Sri Lanka is Joining the Internet Organization: CMC Network Products, Copenhagen DENMARK Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 17:49:27 GMT I have received large amounts of email with proof that the Federal Networking Council's ban on routing Internet packets to Russia has been lifted, and RELCOM has installed a line to ALTER.NET. I am pleased to see this concession to reality. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@CMC.COM CMC Network Products Phone: (011-) +45-31 49 81 08 Hvidovre Strandvej 72 B Telefax: +45-31 49 83 08 DK-2650 Hvidovre, DENMARK Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: md@maxcy2.maxcy.brown.edu (Michael P. Deignan) Subject: Re: Wanted: Info on Cellular Phone Monitoring Systems Reply-To: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 23:59:27 GMT In article , mds@access.digex.net (Michael D. Sullivan) writes: > Under federal law, any conversation going through a cellular switch is > considered a telephone conversation subject to the wiretap laws (the > technical term is "wire communication". A cellular phone is just as > private as a landline phone, because people have the same legal right > not to be "scanned" as they do not to have someone tapping in on a > craft set. Why is it not illegal to listen to cordless phone conversation then? Cordless phones work on the same principle as cellular, except you only have a single "cell" (your base station) to communicate with. Michael P. Deignan Population Studies & Training Center Brown University, Box 1916, Providence, RI 02912 (401) 863-7284 [Moderator's Note: Why? Because the industry association which represents cordless phone manufacturers does not have the same political pull with Congress that the cellular phone companies have. If they would offer cash bribes -- only they call them gifts to the congress person's campaign fund -- the same as the cellular carriers did, then they could have a stupid law passed on their behalf also. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 09:31:26 EST From: kab@hotsc.att.com Subject: Re: Need to Buy E1 to T1 Converter Organization: AT&T In article , wts1@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (wts1) writes: > In article ken@pluto.dss.com (Ken > Adler) writes: >> Does anyone know of any companies that make a box that takes in one or >> more E1 trunks and convert it to multiple T1 trunks? >> I urgently need contact info for companies that have such a product. > Tellabs makes a T1 to CEPT (E1) PCM standards converter. > Tellabs International Inc. > 4951 Indiana Avenue > Lisle, IL 60532 > > PH: (708) 969-8800 > FAX: (708) 969-2884 > William T. Sykes AT&T FSAT-Engineering att!gcuxb!gcwts Well, I hope this doesn't turn into an advertising campaign. AT&T happens to make a system called DACS II (Digital Accress and Cross-connect Switch) that does this stuff to a fair-thee-well. In fact, we sell these things in E1 land, T1 land, and in all those places in between that need to convert. The small, cheap version (ISX) handles between 1 and 64 T1's or E1's; the biggie (CEF) can get up to 2,560 T1's or 2048 E1's, or any combination in between. Why do I know? Look at the sig. Ken Becker kab@hotsc.att.com DACS II circuit design [Moderator's Note: Ah, don't worry about 'commercializing the net'. I'm alleged to do it all the time. What a joke! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 20:46:03 EST Reply-To: 0005066432@MCIMAIL.COM Subject: Re: CA Tax Regulations for LD Providers From: Paul Robinson Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA > Perhaps someone in the group -- or the Moderator -- can help me get > some information. Does anybody know the regulations and rates for > determining if tax is applicable, and what taxes, a LD provider > located OUTSIDE of California for long distance calls originating > within (and if applicable) outside of California? [Text Deleted] > [Moderator's Note: No, no, you do not want to get involved in utility > tax accounting and procedures. Repeat after me, "I do not want to know > about utility tax accounting procedures ...". Say it a few more times. I absolutely agree that you _do not_ want to have to do utility tax accounting. Especially not in California, since you would probably have to get California Public Utilities Commission Certification as a Common Carrier. (See my article in the Digest on the status of the CAL PUC within about a year ago, "... Is the Highest Law of the Land ...") As a former resident and California Sales Tax Permit holder, the paperwork isn't too bad for sales tax, but PUC rules are a mess. What you really want to do is figure out if you can operate the organization entirely from a state that either has no sales tax or has almost no chance of having any customers from within that state. I ran a mail-order software sales business out of a Post Office Box in the District of Columbia for just that reason. Since I never sold anything to a District address and had no warehouse or facilities outside the District, I did not have to collect sales tax. (I did have a District Sales tax permit and sent the forms in with zero sales on them). Based on newspaper reports (see, I get around being accused of practicing law) There are two Supreme Court Cases on this subject. One is a 1966 Connecticut Department of Revenue case: if you have no presence in a state you cannot be required to collect sales tax by it. The second is the recent (1992) Quill decision. Quill Corporation, an Illiniois office supply company, sells all over the country. The North Dakota Department of Revenue decided that since Quill is running ads that show up in North Dakota, it has a presence in the state and must collect tax. The State Supreme Court agreed. The U.S. Supreme Court continued the holding in the 1966 case, saying that only the U.S. Congress has the power to authorize such a collection. Since Congress has not done so, Quill is under no obligation to pay sales tax to a state it has no presence (warehouse, office space or agent) within. So, if you are going to run a common carrier, pick a state either with not enough people to matter not taking (like Wyoming, which has less people in it than the District), and only do interstate calls, or pick a state without sales tax (Like Nevada or New Hampshire) and operate from there. Or just operate from your own state but don't do any intrastate business and don't have any facilities, warehouses or agents in any state you do carry calls from. Mailing bills does not constitute having a presence there; buy the trunks from AT&T or MCI or someone and let them pay the sales taxes on their transactions. You could also consider DC as a place to operate. :) I would also note that the District of Columbia has a special exemption on certain sales taxes paid by "long distance telephone companies." There are only two long distance companies operating in the District: Mid Atlantic Telecom and MCI. Which of these do you think was big enough to get an exemption passed? :) Paul Robinson - TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ Subject: Re: CA Tax Regulations for LD Providers From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 21:30:01 PST Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California ole!rwing!pat@nwnexus.wa.com (Pat Myrto) writes: > Perhaps someone in the group -- or the Moderator -- can help me get > some information. Does anybody know the regulations and rates for > determining if tax is applicable, and what taxes, a LD provider > located OUTSIDE of California for long distance calls originating > within (and if applicable) outside of California? > Telccom outfits in CA are quite evasive on the subject (read: no > useful information), and there has been not very much luck in getting > meaningful information from authorities. This has been going on for It's not quite as tough as our Moderator describes. There are a limited number of taxes and applications. Yes, there are legions of bureaucrats that do this for telcos but remember that some bureaucrats work so hard and fererishly that we have forgotten that the work they do is not at all necessary. In the past we have used information from Veretex, 1041 Old Cassatt Rd, Berwyn PA, 19312 (215-640-4200) speak with John Riewe and tell him hi from me please. They have a database on the ten thousand or so taxing jurisdictions. In short, it doesn't matter where the provider is located what does matter is the origonating location and or the terminating location. Other than veretex you might call the business office and ask for a breakdown/explanation of thge taxes on your bills. Information on exemptions can be found in thr IRS codes section 4251 I believe. Bob Schwartz bob@bci.nbn.com Bill Correctors, Inc. +1 415 488 9000 Marin County, California ------------------------------ From: kam@dlogics.com (Kevin A. Mitchell) Subject: Re: Calling Card Question Organization: Datalogics, Incorporated, Chicago, IL Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 15:24:34 GMT In article dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) writes: > Can a calling card be acquired from either the LEC or an IXC with > the following restriction: that it can -only- get billed by the Local > Carrier (where appropriate) or by the disgnated IXC? I'm pretty sure the AT&T calling card offers this feature, and that was one of the reasons I chose it. I've paid $6.95 for a one-minute call from Pontiac, IL to Elmwood Park, IL made by my wife, and a local COCOT says that credit card rates for the two blocks to home are $2.95 for the first minute. AT&T Customer Service is 1-800-CALL-ATT. They can give you the definitive answer. Also, make sure the OLD card is really cut off. I got some AOS calling card charges on my bill earlier this year, and found that my wife had used the old number. I had to make a call to Illinois B ... oops ... "Ameritech" and tell them that when I said I wanted the card turned off, I meant it. I think they dropped the charges. Kevin A. Mitchell (312) 266-3257 Datalogics, Inc Internet: kam@dlogics.com 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!kam ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 19:38:17 EST Reply-To: 0005066432@MCIMAIL.COM Subject: Re: Calling Card Question From: Paul Robinson Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA danny burstein , writes: > Can a calling card be acquired from either the LEC or an IXC with > the following restriction: that it can -only- get billed by the > Local Carrier (where appropriate) or by the disgnated IXC? Yes. The "85" AT&T Cards (as well as the new custom number cards) are only accepted by AT&T and by local telephone companies.* MCI and Sprint's plastic will only be accepted by them when using their 950 or 1-800 numbers. This is because when one dials 10xxx + 0 + npa + number, AT&T checks its own database as well as the database of local line company numbers. The others only check the local line company database, which is why you can't use MCI or Sprint cards even when dialing 10222 + 0 or 10333 + 0 respectively. * There is one known problem. In certain cases using a restricted calling card will allow the user to make any calls. The systems which are incorrectly implemented check the first call (which is to a valid number the restricted card is assigned to) then accept further calls from that card to any number. This appears to be common on airplane phones. My personal opinion is that if the minimum monthly charge for 800 numbers gets any lower, anyone taking *any* collect calls will find it easier to get an 800 number than to worry about collect call charges. The current rates now indicate that if you accept more than six collect calls a month, it is cheaper to get an 800 number unless they are very long duration where you need the lower per-minute rates after the first minute and you can't do a callback in such a case. > This would do a good job of reducing the tele-zleaze surcharges. The AOS systems on COCOTS cannot accept AT&T "85" cards. This is how I get around the problem of being charged $6.00 for a local call placed by AOS on a calling card, that C&P Telephone would charge 65c and AT&T would charge $1.00. Paul Robinson - TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM [Moderator's Note: 800 numbers are really the way to go now-a-days. The 800 numbers I now broker are 18.4 cents per minute of use with a $5 monthly service fee. These are your own personal 800 numbers, set up to terminate on whatever line you request, not one of the bogus deals like MCI has where you have to append some extra digits at the end. I also represent the AT&T Software Defined Network, and those 800 numbers are time of day and distance sensitive, meaning you can get an 800 number with rates of 9-10 cents per minute if the calls are at night from nearby places, etc. You have to spend at least $200-250 per month on 800 service to get one of those however since the discounts at the end of the month are factored into the final cost per minute of use. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 23:53:41 EST From: David Leibold Subject: Re: NPA 905 Not Universally Recognized To clarify a thing or two, the (905) number given for weather is indeed using metric readings, not only in degrees Celsius, but km/h wind speeds and kilopascal barometer values (can't believe it's been that many years since I last heard of pressure readings in "inches"). The weather office serving Toronto is at the Pearson International Airport which is actually in Mississauga, Malton exchange (Bell still refers to the Mississauga area in terms of separate exchanges such as Malton, Port Credit, Streetsville, etc). It's good to hear that calls from many parts of the world are completing to 905, but there are still a few telcos who need to know about 905 (or might that be a good number of COCOTs and PBXes?). Now ... fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush) wrote: > Could someone with knowledge of the 416/905 split enlighten me about > 416-551? The Niagara Falls Bridge Commission hotline was at > 416-551-3409, and I had thought that area was going to 905. Yet from 551 has been a pager exchange; this appears to have been in effect throughout the old 416 territory. What happens to such numbers is unclear since they're not part of the ordinary phone service. These numbers might still be served out of Toronto for both 416 and 905, thus the 416-551. Certainly this is not a regular exchange in the Niagara Falls/St. Catharines' region, at least last I heard. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 18:13 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: NPA 905, NAFTA and Mexico Area Codes Organization: I.E.C.C. > Would NAFTA have any impact on area code assignment? If USA, Canada, > and Mexico are gonna be an economic unit, would there be motivation to > make phone calling to Mexico similar to the style used to call Canada > and USA (outside your local area code)? I doubt that dialing to Mexico will change any time soon. For one thing, it's incredibly expensive. It costs more to call Mexico City than it does to call Tokyo. Also, Mexico has a mixture of six and seven digit numbers, so they'd have to renumber to match NANP numbers. On the other hand, after 1995 there will be plenty of area codes, so if NAFTA really works, it might end up being worth doing. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 16:46:25 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: NPA 905, NAFTA and Mexico Area Codes This is the first time I have heard someone wondering about NAFTA's effect on the phone system. When was NAFTA proposed originally? It's unrelated (right?) to the change in usage for 905, formerly used for some calls to Mexico and now in use for a part of Canada. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #769 ****************************** ****************************************************************************** Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253