TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Dec 93 13:37:30 CST Volume 13 : Issue 840 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Monopoly For Hong Kong Telecom is Threatened, Cable is Merging (Dan Chun) Information Wanted on European E1/ISDN Standards (Doug A. Chan) FTP Site For EIA Standards (Rob McConnell) FCC Jurisdiction Over 500-Channel TV (Justin Fidler) Communication Speeds and Distances (jemli@iastate.edu) Telix and Busy Signals (Eric Walrod) Guatemala Calls Canada Looking For Love (James Salsman) Dialing in Area 601 (Mississippi) (Carl Moore) Re: Details of AT&T's Divestiture and the MFJ (Robert L. McMillin) Re: Details of AT&T's Divestiture and the MFJ (Michael Jacobs) 500 Channel Cable Television (A. Padgett Peterson) Re: TDMA vs. CDMA = Betamax vs. VHS? (Michael G. Capuano) Re: The Superhighway and Telcos (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Unique(?) Problem With Voicemail Prompts (Martin McCormick) Re: TDD Software Wanted (Todd D. Hale) 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. TELECOM Digest is gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom. It has no connection with the unmoderated Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom.tech whose mailing list "Telecom-Tech Digest" shares archives resources at lcs.mit.edu for the convenience of users. Please *DO NOT* cross post articles between the groups. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Dec 93 17:52 GMT From: "chun d."@infomail.infonet.com Subject: Monopoly For Hong Kong Telecom is Threatened, Cable is Merging Hi everyone, There are many stories covered on mergers and acquisitions for cable operators, online information services and home shopping operators, telcos, etc in the news. Everybody talks about multimedia and interactive services and information superhighway with ISDN, fibre-optics and the idea of anywhere-anytime computing concepts. Are there any interests from the western part of the world to learn more of the development in Asia and in particular Hong Kong. I have checked some newswire and some newsgroup but very few are aware of the development in this part of the world. In HK, where the local PTT -- Hong Kong Telecom HKT (a C&W plc's subsidiary) has recently been threatened on its monopoly by the OFTA (Office of the Telecommunication Authority) which has prepared to grant three fixed telecom licenses to three conglormerates. HKT stills enjoy the monopoly of providing local voice services until June 1995. The three conglormerates are namely: - New T&T Hong Kong ( backed by Wharf Holdings which also holds first exclusive Cable TV license for three years, NYNEX is the technology partner in this case); - Hutchison Communications ( joined by Telstra, formerly Telecom Australia and backed by Hutchison Whampoa empire of the richest man in HK, K.S. Li.); - New World Communications ( backed by New World Development, another conglormerate interested in property, infrastructure developments and to a lesser extent, paging services is also backed by US West, Infa Telecom, and Shanghai Long-Distance); In Hong Kong, the facts are that: 1. HKT holds all monopoly for international traffic in voice and data circuits until 2006; 2. HKT holds monopoly for providing local voice and data service until 1995; 3. HKT has fully digitised all exchanges and had spent major PR efforts in running up to the last minute including inviting the Governor to initiate the ceremony; 4. There is no charge for making any local calls in both voice/fax/data except for a monthly subscription rate; 5. HKT made about 60% of the revenue from enjoying the international monopoly; 6. The regulatory is begining to prove that it exists now that the appointed director who used to help deregulate the Australia market seeing Optus challenging Telecom Australia - now Telstra has announce the plan for deregulation; 7. In HK, the fax machines are very popular and is only second to Japan in the penetration of fax.(since fax supports funny images that are known as chinese or japanese chacracters.) It also supports a primitive workgroup concept before Lotus notes became a hit; 8. Online information services, BBSs, mobile data, PDAs, value-added networks, commercial internet gateways, enhanced fax store-forward services, fax-on-demand, and other advance services are all available and had made their presenece felt; Now, my question is do *you*, as a researcher or professional think the market in HK can substain three fixed telecom license? Debates and questions are welcomed. I am happy to continue this discussion based on the assumption that there are sufficient interests from all of you in the telecom market in HK and secondly I would like to learn from the deregulating environment experienced by AT&T some years ago and also the UK Mercury cutting into BT, etc. from you folks. I am online in CompuServe at 100267.712@compuserve.com and also here in Infonet but will be departing before end of year. I am also obtaining a full internet access via one of the local commercial gateways soon. So I will be in touch with you folks someway. Best regards and Happy 94!!! Daniel J Y Chun The Extrategic Wizard [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Something else to be considered are the changes coming in 1997 with the change in 'ownership' as the UK pulls out and China takes over. Will all the deals make prior still be honored? Will the economy in HK change to the extent that if three are supportable now, they will all remain viable after the change in the government? PAT] ------------------------------ From: apollo1@netcom.com (Doug A. Chan =-) Subject: Information Wanted on European E1/ISDN Standards Message-Id: Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 18:27:31 GMT 1) Where can I find out more info about E1 for telephony use? I'm looking for very specific details (line coding format, signalling format, etc...) for different countries (Germany, France, UK). Also, call progress information/tones for each of the countries would be very helpful... 2) I'm also looking for ISDN standards in Europe (EEC's NET 5 vs. current country specific implementation vs. CCITT specs?) I know this is quite a bit of information but I'll be quite happy if someone can point me in the right direction. I'll post a summary if I get sufficient info ... Thanks, Doug apollo1@netcom.com apollo@world.std.com ------------------------------ From: rob@ubitrex.mb.ca (Rob McConnell) Subject: FTP Site For EIA Standards Date: 28 Dec 1993 15:52:27 GMT Organization: UBITREX Corporation, Winnipeg, MB Canada Reply-To: rob@ubitrex.mb.ca Does anyone know the whereabouts of an FTP site for EIA standards, specifically EIA IS-60? Thanks, Rob McConnell Ubitrex Corporation | Voice: 204-942-2992 ext 223 1900-155 Carlton St | FAX: 204-942-3001 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3C 3H8 | Email: rob@ubitrex.mb.ca ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 00:03:54 EST From: Justin Fidler Subject: FCC Jurisdiction Over 500-Channel TV With all this talk of 500-channel television, the medium of delivery will change as well. If this medium is carried on private company equipment, will the FCC still have a right to control/censor the programming like they do broadcast television (which travels over airwaves)? Justin Fidler jfidler@cap.gwu.edu ------------------------------ From: jemli@iastate.edu Subject: Communication Speeds and Distances Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 00:23:52 GMT The latest draft of the `Communications Speeds and Distances' chart is on: 129.186.149.1 vincent1.iastate.edu (login: anonymous.jemli) as either comspeed.eps or comspeed.gif. The circles represent some protocol (like ethernet or local talk) positioned at their transmission speed (ethernet = 10Mbps) and as high as their range (ethernet = .5km). The ovals (like frame relay and DBDQ) represent their transmission speed range (frame relay goes from 64Kbps to 37.5Mbps), and their height is, again, their range. The colors are arbitrary. For most thingies I don't know their range (without repeaters) and just guess. If you can help with this info send a note. I was thinking that perhaps I should color them all according to their OSI layer. If this makes sense and anyone can classify all these thingies into their OSI layers I would welcome the feedback. Thanks, Jeremy |-) ------------------------------ From: ericw@seanews.akita.com (Eric Walrod) Subject: Telix and Busy signals Organization: SEANEWS - Seattle Public Access News + Mail Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 03:15:24 GMT Okay, I just set up a new PC Logic 14.4kbps Internal Fax/Modem for a friend, and set-up deltaComm's Telix v3.21 for it. I CANNOT get Telix to recognize a busy signal. I am already using ATX4V1 to no avail (sp?). Any suggestions (besides TRY x PROGRAM and BUY x BRAND MODEM) e-mailed to me would be most appreciated. Eric Walrod [] SEANEWS [] Seattle Public Access Usenet News + Mail [] +1 206 747 NEWS [] ericw@seanews.akita.com ------------------------------ From: bovik@eecs.nwu.edu (James Salsman) Subject: Guatemala Calls Canada Looking For Love Organization: BRI Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 09:11:38 GMT The {Los Angeles Times} reports that in the past few months, Guatemalan callers have placed 70,000 calls to Canadian phone-sex lines at $2.95 per minute. Basic phone service in Guatemala can be under $1/month. That is one call per every 2.8 telephones, according to my statistics. (Guatemala has about 800,000 people and 2% have telephones.) There was no disclosure of fees as is required by law in the U.S.A. The calls made so far are over one million U.S. dollars. I hope the $2.95/minute was an international tariff fee and not a Dial-IT/900 style fee. In a country already troubled by civil unrest and strife left over from the 1982 collapse of the Central American Market, that a big, wealthy country like Canada was trying to make money off of the overactive coffee-fed libidos of an impovrished people would be disgusting. James Salsman Bovik Research [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the same story as it appeared in the {Chicago Tribune} said that the people in Guatemala making the calls were finding out too late that the cost (of the call) was rather high and that many people were protesting the charges when they saw them on their phone bill. Apparently it is not entirely clear to people what they will be paying for the service. But the thing to remember is that it is not a 'big weathy country like Canada' which is making money off the people in Guatemala, it is whoever is running the service who made the arrangements with the (Canadian and Guatemalan) telcos who is making the money. What about here in the USA where some numbers in the 201 (New Jersey) area code which connect with horoscopes, astrologists and practioners of Tarot are being heavily promoted in advertisements in newspapers in Spain, Haiti, Jamaica and other similar countries? The people in Spain/Haiti/Jamaica are getting the same message delivered to them that the Guatemalans are getting from Canada and that the gay guys in the USA are getting from the Netherland Antilles: **call for a good time**. No premium fees; just toll charges apply. We've covered here before how the payments get divided up among the folks responsible; making lots of money by taking advantage of the human frailties of others is nothing new: just the technology has changed. Years ago people went out to some certain place in their community where they knew they could find what they wanted for a price. Now they use the modern international phone network instead. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 12:36:09 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Dialing in Area 601 (Mississippi) I received the following on 23 December): ... we currently do not have to dial the area code within Mississippi. However, this will change this month (December) when we will be required to enter the whole 1 + 601 + seven digits. ------------------------------ From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: Details of AT&T's Divestiture and the MFJ - Ten Years Hence In-Reply-To: devalla@astra.tamu.edu's message of 25 Dec 1993 18:26:24 GMT Organization: Surf City Software/TBFW Project Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 06:21:41 GMT On 25 Dec 1993 18:26:24 GMT, TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > A feature I used to do occassionally was called "Ten Years Ago in > the Digest" and perhaps a few readers would enjoy some of the > comments from the readers who were on our list back then during the > final days of the old Bell System and the first few days of the 'new > way' of doing things. PAT] Yes, it can be interesting to go back in the archives. I remember seeing a note from the Moderator at the time, Jon Solomon, saying something to the effect that now that AT&T's breaking up, we can't have any political commentary in the Digest because of the AUP for the various nets. He also said the Net was about to convert from NP to the newfangled TCP/IP ... amazing how much technical progress there's been in the Internet in such a short period of time. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com 13442 Wilson St. | Garden Grove, CA | 92644 voice: 714-638-2459 | fax: 714-638-2384 I'm only a guest at surfcty.com; THEY certainly wouldn't have these opinions! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The Acceptable Use Policy has changed quite a bit over the years also, and I think Jon Solomon was somewhat mistaken in wanting to totally rule out 'political commentary'. He later changed his mind on this when I pointed out to him that so much of what is available today in telecommunications, and the way the industry implements what is available is due to politics. How can you therefore separate the 'political commentary' at times from a pure technology discussion? The classic example of this is Caller-ID. Yes, the changes in network technology have been occurring at a expotential rate. It took how many thousands of years to invent the telephone and learn to control electricity for our convenience? Then in the next hundred years ... wow! Computers were 'invented' in the late 1940's and early 1950's ... 25-30 years later 'home computers' first began to make an appearance in the late 1970's. Now 15 years later, more computational resources sit on the desk in my office than existed at Harvard University in 1960. Several years passed between the 110/300 baud modem and the 1200 baud modem. After a couple years 2400 baud became available, and then 9600 and 14.4 came through almost immediatly thereafter. The {Chicago Tribune} in an editorial comment in 1900 commenting on 'all the tremendous inventions of the past century' (meaning 1801-1900) asked, "how long will it be before we run out of things to invent ...". It boggles my mind to think of what kinds of things we will have at our disposal twenty years from now. That is, unless we 'run out of things to invent'... :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 19:37:50 EDT From: Michael Jacobs Subject: Re: Details of AT&T's Divestiture and the MFJ - Ten Years Hence Regarding the question about why the divestiture and how the terms of the Modified Final Judgement came to be, the best source I have seen is a book titled "The Deal of the Century," which should be available in any larger library. It includes relevant historical data, analysis, and interviews with all the major players. Contrary to popular belief, top AT&T executives got exactly what they wanted from the MFJ, namely a lifting of information services and other restrictions from AT&T. For more information regarding technical consequences of the MFJ terms, see "The Rape of Ma Bell" by Kraus and Duerig, who give an insider's perspective (with some emotional bias) to the subject. Many of the technical problems have been worked out since 1984, and a lot of the horror stories are exaggerated, but the book does point out some areas still of concern ten years later. Personal Opinions Only, Mike Jacobs, JMT0@lafibm.lafayette.edu, Service Technician, Bell Atlantic-Pennsylvania ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 09:39:29 -0500 From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson) Subject: 500 Channel Cable Television Several people have written: > A. Padgett Peterson writes that he thinks that there is not much of a > logical reason for a 500 channel system. Specifically: and they have all missed my real point - not that there is not a *logical* reason but there is not a *logistical* structure to support it and this would be necessary. There have been several good suggestions. Personally I favor a built-in computer that could accept a [weekly|daily|hourly] listing in the background that would be stored in the home. Several people have suggested that they might be able to edit out everrything except what is wanted. I doubt that the companies will offer this since they are interested in selling *more* so will have to tell you about things you did not select. Personally, I *want* everything I can get. Just this week some people overseas mentioned some nuances and it was nice to be able to tune into "HOBOCTH" on channel 43 and see what was being released publically. The real stumbling block is liable to be the old NTSC/PAL/SECAM one (why foreign shows often are "boxed"). Hippo Hoppidays, Padgett PS: I wonder how the Brits licence PC-television boards and multi-channel displays. ------------------------------ From: mgcapuano@delphi.com (Michael G. Capuano) Subject: Re: TDMA vs. CDMA = Betamax vs. VHS? Date: 28 Dec 1993 03:42:01 GMT Organization: General Videotex Corporation Brendan, What is up with E-TDMA. Has that been thrown in the toilette. This posting is after reading your analysis of the San Diego "ideal" CDMA trial. Mike Capuaon ------------------------------ From: goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: The Superhighway and Telcos Date: 28 Dec 1993 05:47:20 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA In article darmy@symantec.com (Donald Army) writes: > Are there any news groups on ATM?? comp.dcom.cell-relay That should do it. Fred R. Goldstein k1io goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission ------------------------------ From: martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu (Martin McCormick) Subject: Re: Unique(?) Problem With Voicemail Prompts Organization: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 16:28:41 GMT In article dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: > A human voice typically generates only one frequency at a time, and > the components of the touch-tone signals are pairs of non-harmonically- > related frequencies, so this problem does not occur very often. The human voice may produce only one fundamental at any given time, but it also produces lots of harmonics which contain all of the intelligence in speech. It can happen that certain Howell sounds may produce a harmonic pattern that contains two frequencies which just happen to produce a valid duel-tone signal. The question is not whether this will happen, but how often. Male and female voices both produce lots of harmonic output and the possibility for a false trigger is always there. The first amateur radio automatic telephone patches used resonant tuned circuits and phase locked loops to "listen" for tones and frequently heard them in the harmonic content of voices. This caused the systems to frequently malfunction and either drop calls or randomly do other control sequences at inappropriate times. Now, we have digital signal processors which can be programmed to run more tests on a suspected DTMF signal to see if it is really a DTMF tone or just somebody's musical voice. A good source of basic information plus a lot of very interesting reading can be found in the "Benchmark Papers on Acoustics" series by Bell Laboratories. These research papers describe the quest to understand how human speech is generated so as to design machines which could artificially produce it and even understand spoken words. Some of the pre-computer era hardware was truly cleaver and did wonders to aid in understanding even if it didn't ever have any practical use. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK O.S.U. Computer Center Data Communications Group ------------------------------ From: thale@Novell.COM (Todd D. Hale) Subject: Re: TDD Software Wanted Organization: Novell, Inc., Provo, UT, USA Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 16:35:54 GMT In article peltz@cerl.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes: > Why don't they start releasing dual-mode TDD machines, that can handle > ASCII and "standard" modem standards, and eventually phase out Baudot- > only machines? I know that ASCII/BAUDOT TDDs are available, and have been for several years. But, the transition has been very slow. Todd D. Hale thale@novell.com halet@ernie.cs.byu.edu Unofficially speaking, of course. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #840 ****************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253