TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Dec 93 02:23:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 819 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Possible Rate Lowering by NYNEX (Dave Niebuhr) Re: Emergency Services Will be Elsewhere... (Greg Abbott) Re: AT&T's New Facility (Christopher C. Blough) Re: Crummy Service in NY (Carl Oppedahl) Re: Looping and Data Looping (Michael Oshea) Re: PCS Questions (Kyle Griffin) Re: Considering a Car Phone - Need Advice (Glenn Inn) Re: Considering a Car Phone - Need Advice (Ray Normandeau) Re: Terse 800 Failure ... Oh My! (Randall Gellens) 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. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. 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You can reach us by snail mail at Post Office Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690 or Fax at 1-708-329-0572. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 19:45:12 EST From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Possible Rate Lowering by NYNEX {Newsday} (Dec 4, 1993) had an article concerning rate cuts for New York Telephone subscribers to the tune of nearly 297 million dollars (US). "If the Public Service Commission adopts the recommendation of two of its judges, at a meeting set for Dec. 15, the cost for many New York Telephone calls and for Touch Tone service could fall starting Jan. 1, 1994. "A residential customer now pays $1.35 a month for each Touch Tone line according to New York Telephone." "The ruling illustrates the tension between NYNEX goals and regulatory concerns. On Thursday, NYNEX announced a new marketing strategy and a planned restructuring for its operations. NYNEX also reiterated its determination to be able to offer a full range of interactive and video services, including cable TV, if it can list federal regularory restrictions." I always knew we were being ripped off and this is one of the few times that the PSC has come to the ratepayer's aid. NYNEX is also setting itself up for a regulatory battle concerning video in its service area due to a purchase of a portion of a company (Teleport I think) which has portions of it owned by some cable companies. Dave Niebuhr Internet: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (preferred) niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Senior Technical Specialist, Scientific Computing Facility Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 20:23:17 CST From: Greg Abbott Reply-To: gabbott@uiuc.edu Subject: Re: Emergency Services Will be Elsewhere... > I don't know what would be displayed if I had to call 911 from my > present phone on 410-287; my mail (including my phone bills) goes to a > PO box in another town. Utility companies need to know where you > live, because that is where the physical connections for service > (electricity, phone, etc.) go, even if the bills don't. (Perhaps > you'd want to find out what exchange serves 820 Old Apex Road. I did > find Apex Road and Street listed for zipcode 27707, and Apex Hwy. > listed for zip code 27713, both in Durham.) All of the telco's I deal with have billing addresses and service addresses. The 9-1-1 Database is not (atleast in Illinois) built from only billing addresses. We make a careful review of the database before the system can be turned on. Any listings found without a locatable address (i.e. P.O. Boxes, Rural Route, etc.) are contacted and asked for their locatable address. > Question: What about foreign exchange service? An old example in > Maryland was someone in an area served by 287 prefix who brought in > 642 Perryville (the next exchange to the west) as a foreign exchange > because it is local to Aberdeen (272,273,278) and Havre de Grace > (939). Another case (glaring because a state line is involved, and I > recall seeing this at least once in the Wilmington, Del. directory), > would be someone in the Wilmington or Holly Oak exchange area bringing > in Chester Heights (Pa.) as a foreign exchange; that choice: > -Keeps Wilmington, Newport, Holly Oak as local calls > -loses local service to other parts of New Castle County, Del. > and part of southern Chester County, Pa. > -GETS LOCAL SERVICE TO ALL OF PHILADELPHIA METRO AREA FX circuits are a particular headache, but not impossible to deal with. Once they are discovered we can make specific notations on that telephone number indicating where the actual telephone service is located at. Special routing can be set up (if equipment allows) to send the call to the correct PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point). > Remote-forward, which I set up in Delaware, would not be involved in > 911. No calls can originate on my Delaware number; it can only be > activated by an incoming call, and can only automatically call the > number I am forwarding to. If a telephone number can make outgoing calls (even if it is a fax, modem or remote forwarding device) then you can be that the record has been examined for accurate service location information. If you were to disconnect your remote forwarding device and plug in a standard telephone (or hook up a butt set to the D-Marc) you could dial a number just like a normal telephone line. Granted, you don't use your line this way and there probably will never be any other outgoing calls except those forwarded, but you *could*, if you wanted to, hook up a phone and dial 9-1-1 from that line. One more quick example of something we ran across. One of the local power companies has some remote telemetry units at their sub-stations. These units are hard wired into standard telephone lines. When we ran across their telephone records with addresses like "SBS36L-W3" we inquired where they were. We were told that there was no need to address these sub-stations since "no one could *ever* make a call from these lines". I asked to visit one of the sites with the power company rep. I looked at it and indeed the wires come out of the telemetry unit and go right into the D-Marc. I pulled out my butt set, tapped into the line and produced dial tone for the rep and dialed the time and temperature number. We immediatly went back to his office and assigned addresses to each of their sub-stations. I heard of a similar incident somewhere out west where a 9-1-1 center was searching for a telephone number that had a service record showing an address in the middle of a major bridge over a dam. After several conversations with the folks who manage the dam, an old-timer remembered a long time ago when they had had a telephone down in the base of a maintenance shaft, well under the water level. Someone (I don't know if it was a public safety official or an employee of the water folks) went down in this shaft and someone else up on the surface dialed the telephone number. Sure enough, there at the bottom of the shaft, back behind some old control cabinets was a rusted old wall phone that was ringing away. The person answered the phone and conversed with the surface. That phone had to have an address since it would be possible for someone to call 9-1-1 from it. I should clarify, it had an address, but it needed a better location added to the record. Hope this answers a few questions, though I'm sure it will stir up a few more comments/questions. Happy Holidays! GREG ABBOTT INTERNET: GABBOTT@UIUC.EDU 9-1-1 COORDINATOR COMPUSERVE: 76046,3107 VOICE: 217/333-4348 METCAD FAX: 217/384-7003 1905 E. MAIN ST. PAGER: 800/222-6651 URBANA, IL 61801 PIN # 9541 ------------------------------ From: gnh-starport!cblough@clark.net Subject: Re: AT&T's New Facility Date: 15 Dec 1993 02:21:33 -0500 Organization: Clark Internet Services, Inc. > Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I traveled south on I-95 from NYC to > Washington, DC. After emerging from the tunnel in Baltimore, the AT&T > cable laying ships are visible from the "port-side" in the harbor. On > Friday morning, both vessels were docked. However, on the Sunday > return trip, only one boat was still in port. Perhaps to Long Island > is where the second ship went? I personally make the trip from D.C. to philadelphia up 95 about three times a month. That is the first time in over a year that I have even heard of either ship being out to sea. Speaking of which, those ships are technically amazing. They can lay something like 20 miles of cable in a day (over a straight distance on a level sea floor). That isn't fiber optic, so I don't know how fast that goes. Christopher C. Blough InterNet: cblough@gnh-starport.clarknet UUCP: clarknet!gnh-starport!cblough Starport BBS 703-560-9308 ARPA: clarknet!gnh-starport!cblough@nosc.mil ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Crummy Service in NY Date: 14 Dec 1993 15:17:17 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In gaj@pcs.win.net (Gordon Jacobson) writes: >> 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. No, the "Second Avenue" central office is at Second Avenue and 13th Street. I expect they call it that because they don't like to repeat the number "13" if they can avoid it. There is ISDN in the Second Avenue CO, but I would only be able to receive incoming calls on it if I told lots of people to call a different number than they normally do. The exchange serving me there, which is 212-777, has no ISDN. Indeed only two out of thirty-six exchanges in that CO support ISDN, I am told. But another of my exchanges, the Yorktown Heights central office, has *no* ISDN. None. Even if I change my number there. And another central office I call frequently, 212-787 (West 73rd Street) has *no* ISDN. None. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW (patent lawyer) Oppedahl & Larson Yorktown Heights, NY voice 212-777-1330 ------------------------------ From: michael oshea Subject: Re: Looping and Data Looping Organization: University of Virginia Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 00:38:25 GMT I am familiar with the term looping or data looping in the sense that it relates to testing a line from here to there to see if it is functioning properly. Some looping can also be done at various stages with the electronics at the distant end to determine if it is functioning properly. I do not know how this relates to fraud. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 11:31:06 CST From: kgriffin@ltec.com (Kyle Griffin) Subject: Re: PCS questions In response to Roy Thompson's queries regarding PCS: > what are the likely timeframes we will see for new infrastructure being > deployed? Given the FCC's rulemaking, and the congressional Budget Act, spectrum auctions are supposed to occur in early May, 1994. The FCC's rulemaking also outlines a build-out requirement that basically requires licensees to be _offering_ service to 33% of the population of their license area (either MTA or BTA) within five years of the granting of the license, 67% within seven years, and 90% within ten years. Several equipment vendors are saying they'll be rolling out equipment in the late '94 -- early '95 time frame. > Is there anything, other than frequency issues, that make the PCS > infrastructure much different from standard cellular networks? An interesting thing happened to PCS on the way to the FCC. When it was first introduced as a concept in the industry (see Bellcore Framework Advisory 90-1013), it was envisioned as a low-power, pedestrian-oriented service. A typical "cell" might serve a two to four block area, would accommodate 50-200 users, and would be designed for low-speed (<30 mph) traffic. Such a service might someday replace wireline voice and low-speed data service. But suddenly all sorts of light bulbs went on and all sorts of warning flags shot up. All sorts of players from all sorts of industries wanted to get in on this deal. The cellular industry, perhaps thinking they could "nip this thing in the bud", started saying, "We already do that. We ARE providing PCS. There's nothing new here. Cellular IS PCS." Meanwhile, the FCC is chomping at the bit to establish more competition in the cellular marketplace. Then they hear "cellular IS PCS", and they think "Here's the answer. Here's our competition for cellular." So, with the Commission's underlying agenda, and the barrage of input from all the would-be players, PCS evolved into a higher-power, wider-area concept that looks very much like cellular. So, in answer to your question, the main differences are that 1) PCS will operate at a much higher frequency (with different propagation and fading characteristics) and will require a different sort of RF transmission hardware, 2) PCS will start out as digital radio technology (which has it's own unique set of design considerations), and 3) PCS will be designed from the start to take advantage of existing and evolving Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) functionality, something the cellular carriers are having to try to "retrofit". > I suppose the micro and pico cell management will create some > uniqueness in the network. In that case (with a pico cell for example), > will more switches be required? In some major cities it is possible that more than one PCS switch will be used, but in most cases one switch will be sufficient. In most of the schematics I've seen, the "cell site" transmitters are referred to as base stations, and are connected to some sort of Base Station Controller. The BSC concentrates several base stations, and from what I can tell has enough intelligence to route calls that are local to itself without burdening the MSS. (Of course, it still must send the call information to the switch for administrative and billing purposes). > What are the unique requirements for implementing at 1.8 GHz? I'm not an RF engineer, but from what I understand the transmission characteristics, especially fading, are much more of an issue. This means that things like terrain, structures, and vegetation (as it changes seasonally) have much more impact on network design. > I understand, maybe incorrectly, that GSM uses TDMA ... You understand correctly. Actually, many of the proponents of using the GSM standard in the US are proposing a slightly modified version to take into account 1) the slightly different US spectrum allocation (utilizing more of the 1900 Mhz band) and 2) different transmission power and propagation patterns, given that most areas of the US are more sparsely populated than the areas of Europe where GSM has been deployed. > Also, as GSM becomes a defacto standard in the US, what happens to CDMA? Although there are strong proponents of making GSM (or a modified version) a US standard, there's no guarantee that will happen. The FCC has stated that they would rather let the market determine standards rather than dictate any. There are also proponents of CDMA. I've seen some of the TDMA-CDMA dialogue in this digest. I'm not on either "side" of the issue. From what I've read (from people not related to any company making either type of equipment), as well as an acquaintance at Bellcore, there is a general feeling that, as far as capacity is concerned, when all is said and done, they're going to come out about equal in terms of increased capacity over cellular AMPS (approximatly 7 to 1). > Isn't there an FCC regulation on wireless phones to support a dual-mode? There is no such regulation, at least to my knowledge. As I stated before, the FCC intends to let the market determine standards. In terms of cellular, I can pretty much guarantee that whether you buy a TDMA digital phone or a CDMA digital phone, it will be a "dual-mode" phone in that it will have the capability to fall back to an AMPS mode of operation (since it will be a while before digital makes any serious inroads, and AMPS is everywhere). In terms of PCS, I don't know that I would hold my breath waiting for a TDMA-CDMA dual-mode phone. Maybe somebody will make one someday, but I'm guessing it will be difficult enough to make the PCS handsets lightweight, compact, and affordable using one technology, let alone two. At any rate, I hope this has addressed some of your questions. Kyle Griffin The Lincoln Telephone Company kgriffin@ltec.com ------------------------------ From: Glenn Inn Subject: Re: Considering a Car Phone - Need Advice Organization: Latitude Communications, Inc. Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 18:00:53 GMT In article , writes: > Because my son is handicapped, he needs a lot of ferrying around from > place to place. I'm considering getting a car phone for my wife (who > does over 50% of the ferrying) just for peace of mind. > Anyway, I figure there has to be some underlying principals to follow; > aspects of things that I may not have thought of; so I'd welcome > advice or being pointed to a FAQ. This is the second person who's asked a "help choosing cellular phone" question. I'm going to write my choice/decision process because I sympathize with just how painful it is to pick a phone. (I spent over a year choosing). It sounded like you prefer a vehicular phone. When I searched, I was in the market for a portable -- I ended up with the Oki 900. Why? I found that All the "hi-end" portables were the same (clarity, and tx signal). It all boiled down to "software" features -- and the Oki (at that time) beat everyone else hands down. 200 number Alpha-memory, 189 speed dial's, paging, online help, to name a few. Now for vehicular, Oki has its "800" series of car phones. Many of the 900's features are in the 800-line. The Oki 830 is the top of the line. Another kicker: the Cellular-1 salesman who helped me? He had an Oki car phone and swore by it. gLENN Inn Latitude Communications inn@latitude.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Considering a Car Phone - Need Advice From: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) Date: 14 Dec 93 12:58:00 GMT Organization: Invention Factory's BBS - New York City, NY - 212-274-8298v.32bis Reply-To: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) > Because my son is handicapped, he needs a lot of ferrying around from > place to place. I'm considering getting a car phone for my wife (who > does over 50% of the ferrying) just for peace of mind. In Ontario canada there is a special rate for blind users. See if you can get a special handicap rate for your area. ------------------------------ From: RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM Date: 15 Dec 1993 01:41 GMT Subject: Re: Terse 800 Failure ... Oh My! sp9183@swuts.sbc.com (Scott M. Pfeffer) writes: > In any event, I got the following: > "Click" > High-paid male announcer's voice saying > "A system error has occurred. Goodbye." > "Click" > Weird. I wonder who the carrier was ...? I wonder where the problem > was ...? > I wonder what this world has come to ...? Reminds me of the old days > when terse young men used to serve as operators (way before any of us > were cognitive human beings ...) Every now and then, when I place a call from behing the PBX at my office there is a long delay wherein nothing happens, then I get: *click* (Background sounds of a very noisy equipement room) Slighly annoyed male voice: We're sorry; your call did not go through. *click* It sounds so different from the usual telco breathless-woman intercepts, that when I encounter it I always get a mental image of a switchroom with a very harried technician, trying to fix some problem, but constantly interrupted by misrouted calls, which he picks up, barks at, and hangs up. Randall Gellens randy@mv-oc.unisys.com A Series System Software Unisys Corporation [Please forward bounce messages Mission Viejo, CA to: rgellens@mcimail.com] Opinions are personal; facts are suspect; I speak only for myself ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #819 ****************************** Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253