TELECOM Digest Thu, 17 Mar 94 10:26:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 135 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson History of the Term "Switch" (Jonathan Welch) GTI LD Service (US) (allen0@delphi.com) NPA-NXX V&H Coordinates Request (Gary K. Nitzberg) Local CID Showing Out of Area (Jim Derdzinski) 911 Used From Car Phone (Carl Moore) Canadian Government WWW Project (Tyson Macaulay) LCI Has Network Problems (Alec Isaacson) Looking For Introductory Books, FAQ (Roger West) Re: Brian McCann of WLUP Encourages Telephone Harrassment (Bob Schwartz) Re: Communications Software For UNIX/HPUX Wanted (Bill Mayhew) Re: USR's New Modem (trent@netcom.com) On Telex Answerbacks (Paul Robinson) Re: ICs in CHINA (Andrew Wu) Re: TIME Reports 80% Oppose Clipper Chip (Charles Randall Yates) PA Bell in California? (jdl@wam.umd.edu) Re: Hardware Recommendations For Phone Bank Wanted (David Devereaux-Weber) Last Laugh! BBB on 900 Bumber (Carl Moore) 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. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 19:14:58 -0500 From: Jonathan_Welch Subject: History of the Term "Switch" I saw a brief image on TV how the first so-called switch consisted of movable contacts mounted on a board, serving eight customers. Presumably this is where the term came from for today's complex switching equipment. But was the term switch invented for telegraph equipment? I don't think the light bulb existed when the telephone was invented, so it wouldn't have been used in that context (correct me if I'm wrong). Jonathan Welch VAX Systems Manager Umass/Amherst JHWELCH@ecs.umass.edu ------------------------------ From: allen0@news.delphi.com Subject: GTI LD Service (US) Date: 16 Mar 1994 20:39:22 -0500 Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation For all you long distance users out there, I have found a service that is cheaper than anything I've seen. The telecom is called GTI, based in Seattle, Washington. Below is a summary of what the service costs and has to offer. If you have more questions or would like signup info, send email to 'Allen0@delphi.com'. I would be happy to give you further info about this great service. o Rates as low as *$2.60/hr* o *No change* in present Long Distance carrier required o All calls are routed thru an 800 number o Calls may be placed from *anywhere* in U.S. to *anywhere* in U.S. o Most pay phones require no coins o *No time restrictions* -- call anytime you like o 60 day risk free guarantee (sign-up fee will be refunded) o Itemized summary of calls made each month Faxed brochures are available for convenience. Please include this in your EMAIL if you prefer this method instead of "Smail." Allen [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We've had this one before, and the catch lies in the 'rates as low as $2.60 per hour' thing, as a couple readers have pointed out. There are a few other things not completely described above, but as an educational exercise I shall let new readers send in for the brochure and learn about the program. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gknitz@netcom.com (Gary K. Nitzberg) Subject: NPA-NXX V&H Coordinates Request Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 01:59:04 GMT I am taking a class which requires a WAN designation within the United States and the instructor has supplied us with NPA-NXX numbers for the purpose of the project. Unfortunely, to acquire the major and minor V&H coordinates for these locations, I would need to purchase the documentation from Bellcore. Not to mention hoping they would come before the class is over. I was wondering if anyone could be so kind as to lookup the V&H coordinates for the following locations or maybe know of a on or offline location this information is available for the purpose of education. Thank you in advance. Irvine, CA. 714-753 Milpitas, CA. 408-945 San Diego, CA. 619-336 Atlanta, GA. 404-717 Franklin Park, IL. 708-288 Westboro, MA. 508-836 Austin, TX. 512-343 Dallas, TX. 817-685 Gary K. Nitzberg gknitz@netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 21:15:06 EST From: JMDCHICAGO@delphi.com Subject: Local CID Showing Out of Area > When CID was deployed in my area (516 area code), I tried calling home > from a pay phone and the number was displayed. However, when I call > home while I'm having my car serviced at a local service station, the > number doesn't show. > The difference is that the pay phone on the corner is NYNEX owned, > and the other one is a COCOT. This sounds to me like your area might be served by a CO with two vintages of switches (i.e., one is SS7 compatible, and the other isn't) The Nynex telephone is probably connected to the SS7 compatible switch in that CO and the COCOT telephone is probably connected to the non-SS7 switch. As you can see, this also results in some prefixes in your exchange being able to get and display CID and the rest not being able to. Situations like this exist here in Chicago (although becoming rarer) The Chicago-Superior exchange comes to mind. It is possible in this area to place calls from different telephones in the same building and have the CID work with some, and "Out-of-Area" on the rest. One person in an apartment building can readily subscribe to CID, but their next door neighbor can't unless they change their number. (I always thought it was kind of funny that I can see when my mom in St. John, IN calls me, but I can't see when my friends within walking distance of here call. Ahh, modern telecommunications ...) It is my understanding that these partial CO upgrades are a result of various equipment depreciation tables, tariffs and all that other stuff. However, a buddy of mine at Ameritech told me recently that they hope to have the entire Chicago area CID capable by the end of this year. Jim Derdzinski Chicago, IL JMDCHICAGO@DELPHI.COM ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 15:53:01 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: 911 Used From Car Phone KYW news-radio has noted the use of 911 from a car phone. That's apparently how a tanker-truck crash at Conshohocken, PA was reported (this happened on I-76/I-476 interchange) this week. The driver of that truck was killed, and nobody else was hurt. ------------------------------ From: tyson@debra.dgbt.doc.ca (Tyson Macaulay) Subject: Canadian Government WWW project Organization: Communications Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 21:08:58 GMT (This notice is directed primarily to systems administrators. More information will be forthcoming shortly - please do not email requesting general information. Thanks in advance.) This is a solicitation for participant from Canadian and potentially international Internet hosts for the *Open Government* project. ---------------- The Open Government Pilot is a World-Wide-Web demonstration project that is being developed by the Directorate of Communications Development, Industry Canada. The Open Government Pilot is an Internet-based service that provides single-window access to the various segments of the federal government including: the House of Commons; the Senate; the Supreme Court; and, federal departments and agencies. The Open Government Pilot provides pointers to various Internet sites within the federal government as well as sites around Canada. Information that is available from these sites includes: contact information and information about members of Parliament; information about the Supreme Court, including its rulings; contact information for both federal and provincial government departments and agencies; and, constitutional and treaty documents. The Open Government Pilot is intended to be an educational tool. Its primary goal is to inform Canadians and people from around the world how the federal system of government works and who the key participants are. Its secondary function is to provide a central access point for those seeking contacts within House of Commons, the Senate, the Supreme Court, or government departments and agencies. This pilot is now in beta-test and a tentative launch date has been set for March 31st. *** Because of the projected load of this service, and to supply as good service as possible to the Internet community, Industry Canada wishes to create mirror sites of the Open Government project. *** Parties that may be interested in acting as host to a mirror site please send email to: tyson@debra.dgbt.doc.ca Tyson Macaulay - Internet Applications Consultant DTP/DGCP Industry Canada, 7th Floor, Journal Tower North 300 Slater Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. K1A 0C8 Email: tyson.macaulay@crc.doc.ca Voice: 613 99304236 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 15:47:12 EST From: Alec Isaacson Subject: LCI Has Network Problems As of 1:30 EST Wednesday LCI Communications has had network problems. As far as I can see it covers at least southern Ohio, and probably reaches farther than that. If you try to dial long distance on a phone that defaults to LCI you get either a re-order, an "All circuits are busy" or "Due to network problems, your call cannot be completed as dialed." This problem also affects some T1s that my employer uses for internal voice and data traffic between sites distributed across the eastern U.S. Their help desk people say they know about the problem, but had no details. If I get any more news, I'll let you know. Ironic part: I had to force my phone to AT&T (10ATT0) to call LCI to report trouble, just dialing their 800 number didn't cut it. Alec D. Isaacson AI4CPHYW@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu Miami University, Oxford, OH ------------------------------ From: west@lux.tsd.itg.ti.com (Roger West) Subject: Looking For Introductory Books, FAQ Date: 16 Mar 1994 22:38:10 GMT Organization: Texas Instruments, Speech Mushrooms. Reply-To: west@tsd.itg.ti.com Can anyone recommend any books which provide an overall introduction to telecommunications technology? The only one I'm familiar with is: "Voice/Data Telecommunications Systems, An Introduction to Technology" by Gurrie and O'Connor, Prentice Hall, 1986. but I would like to find something a little more current, if possible. Also, there wouldn't happen to be a FAQ for this newsgroup, would there? Thanks for any help. Roger West internet: west@tsd.itg.ti.com Texas Instruments voice: (512) 250-7372 Telecom Systems Division____fax: (512) 250-7104 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes there would happen to be an FAQ for this group. It is located in the Telecom Archives at lcs.mit.edu, and is available using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Brian McCann of WLUP Encourages Telephone Harrassment From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 15:01:07 PST Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Only a few people probably remember when > the FCC ordered our very own WLS (890 AM) off the air one night over > thirty years ago -- about 1960 sometime -- when one of the DJ's of the > 'new' managment (the team which dumped the Prairie Farmer, religion and > soap opera format for hard rock music) uttered the word 'damn' over the > air. Yep, that's all it took in those days. A telephone call from the > FCC enforcement representative in this area to the home of the General > Manager (it was late at night) followed by a call from the GM to the > engineer on duty caused the station to go off the air. They went off > so fast in fact they stopped the music they were playing in the middle > of the song and the DJ did a formal identification process of the station > (call letters, power, location of station, that they were licensed by the > FCC, etc) and concluded by saying that 'the Federal Communications Comm- > ission has ordered that this station remain silent until further notice > and accordingly we leave the air at this time.'. That was it, and within > five seconds or so of that they dropped the carrier and were gone. Maybe > ten minutes had passed between the 'damn' and WLS being ordered off the > air. That was a Saturday night, and they came back on the air about 10 AM > the next morning, probably after the station attornies and management > straightened it out with the FCC people. They were required by the FCC > to play a recorded message *once every hour* for two days and four times per > day for the rest of the week from the management of the station apologizing > for the indiscretion and informing the listeners how to contact the FCC > to file other complaints against the station if they wished to do so. PAT] Pat, as an avid listener of WLS at that time , my recollection is of a disk jockey, Dick Biondi, telling two jokes thought to be off color. One was about short skirts (mini skirts were just about to apear on the market or maybe it was about the first ones). The joke I recall went something like , if women's skirts get shorter they'll have two more cheeks to powder and more hair to comb. there was also a second joke but I just can't recall it. Not long afterwards, Art Roberts filled Biondi's spot. Could the jokes and the 'd' word been on the same night? Faint recollections are hinting that damn was in the punchline of the second joke. Dick Biondi was a great DJ! Biondi blue horizon ... Regards, Bob Schwartz bob@bci.nbn.com Bill Correctors, Inc. +1 415 488 9000 Marin County, California [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The way you describe it is the way I recall it also. WLS got an order from the FCC (in regards to Biondi) to 'cut him off the air right away' and Art Roberts took over the microphone. Still not placated, the FCC ordered the whole thing shut down. The main thing to remember here was that no one, including the FCC was very happy with the format change at WLS. Older listeners of WLS who had been tuned there for years did not like it; none of the couple dozen Sunday preachers liked it who got their shows dumped with a month's notice (on Sunday, WLS went from about 5:00 AM through 1:00 AM Monday morning with brokered pre-recorded religious programs one after another in those days, all fifteen to thirty minutes in length); the national association which represented farmers had two or three shows every weekday on WLS and they did not like it, etc. One local preacher here had the 11:00 AM - 12:00 noon slot every Sunday on WLS; his contract was solid for another two or three years and he would not accept WLS' offer to buy him out so after the format change to rock music the station still had to stop the music to put him on. The DJ on Sunday morning would always stop his music at 10:58 AM with a comment that "now it is time for Reverend Bradley at People's Church, Lawrence and Sheridan Avenues ... me, I'm going out for breakfast across the street at Walgreen's cafeteria. I'll be back at noon, and you better be back also! Please don't tune us out." And *precisely* at noon they cut the feed (the religious program was live) and the DJ was back on the air screaming about the top 40 hits of the day. They did that for about two or three years until the contract expired. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) Subject: Re: Communications Software For UNIX/HPUX Wanted Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 00:07:34 GMT In article syntech@access.digex.net (SynTech) writes: > I am looking for a good communications package for use on a UNIX > (HP/UX) system. What I want to be able to do is send Hayes commands > to my modem from a UNIX command prompt. Kermit is not too helpful for > this purpose. I test most of our modem pool lines every day. I do so by dialing out from an HP-9000 running HP-UX version 7. (yep, I know, that's old!) I use the cu program. It is lean and mean and quite handy for issuing quick 'n dirty AT commands to modems. Cu is not a terminal emulator by any means, but it is available on virtually any UNIX system. Check out the man pages; cu is one of the standard commands. Kermit, I agreee, is too much excess baggage for simple jobs. It has been about five years since I wired the ports, but I recall the wiring recommended in the manuals for tty -> modem is suboptimal. I use uugetty instead of the standard getty command so that I can support both incoming and outgoing use of the modems on the HP system. You have to make nodes for the cul and cua devices for uugetty. Cua honors modem control signals, but cul seems to ignore the control signals. I have dial-ins use the uugetty running on a cua device and dial out manually with cul since I don't have to re-invoke cu every time the carrier drops. The uugettys occasionally lock up, so I run a shell program from the crontab once per hour to kill the uugettys if there isn't an interactive shell or uucp program running on the associated port at the moment. The hourly kill repsawns the uugettys and helps assure maximum availability of the modems for incoming traffic. I still dial most of the lines in our modem pool on a regular basis manually. There is a lot of qualitative feel that you don't get from an automated script that dials the numbers. The problem is that we're getting enough lines now that dialing them is getting to take quite a bit of time. Bill Mayhew NEOUCOM Computer Services Department Rootstown, OH 44272-0095 USA phone: 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu amateur radio 146.58: N8WED ------------------------------ From: trent@netcom.com Subject: Re: USR's New Modem Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 00:53:59 GMT allen0@delphi.com wrote: > U.S. Robotics is releasing a new modem in five weeks. The modem will > be upgradable to the V.34 standard when it is approved via a software > download. The new modem will have read/writeable EPROMS which will > allow this. The modem will have all the current protocols, making it > the best modem on the market. And since there's no fee to get the > V.34, I'd say it'll be the best buy when it comes out. For more info > call USR at 1-800-DIALUSR. Yeah, and what you forget to mention is that their one of the highest priced modems on the market, whos twisted the arms of customers for years by pushing their so-called HST protocol which wasn't even worthy of use for bidirectional transfers. Then they came out with their v.32terbo modems which just introduced more problems -- They like to 'train down' to speeds below V.32bis. Their solution to the problem was to remove an S register option instead of correcting the protocol implementation. They offer poor technical support, low turn around time, and poor over all response. Personally, I'd rather not pay their high cost for a modem that says 'USR' on it. They're starting to remind me of COMPUCOM before they finally folded. As far as v.34 is concerned, Microcom is offering a sysop deal vFAST modem for $140.00 RIGHT NOW. You can order them, and they'll be on their way. When v.34 is finally announced they will send you an upgrade for $39.00. Microcom can be reached at 800-822-8224. Zoom is offering a similar deal as well, but I haven't researched it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 20:40:59 EST From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: On Telex Answerbacks Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA Sheldon W. Hoenig writes in TELECOM Digest: > The telex system uses an answerback code [and]... a suffix... [which] > tells which telex carrier supplies the telex number and service... > Does anyone have a list...? As it happened, I wrote one which is part of the Internet library as Internet RFC 1394. I have finished and will be releasing within the next 60 days a revised edition that is more than twice as large. To obtain a copy of the currently available listing, which shows ISO 3166 country codes, telex answerback codes, telex numbers (three digit) and telephone area codes throughout the world, you can get a copy by anonymous FTP as follows: FTP rs.internic.net anonymous your.name@your.site cd /rfc get rfc1394.txt quit Paul Robinson - Paul@TDR.COM ------------------------------ From: awu@cisco.com (Andrew Wu) Subject: Re: ICs in CHINA Date: 17 Mar 94 02:32:16 GMT Organization: cisco Systems Yes, there were a couple of IC manufacturers in mainland China about four years ago when I left there and at least one of them, at Shanghai, was a joint venture with foreign investment. Unfortunatly, I don't know much about the IC and don't have much information about them. But you may want to post your questions to some .china news groups, as I know many engieers, scholars, students from China read these. Good luck, andrew ------------------------------ From: yatesc@zeus.ec.usf.edu (Charles Randall Yates) Subject: Re: TIME Reports 80% Oppose Clipper Chip Date: 17 Mar 1994 03:11:14 GMT Organization: University of South Florida In article ped@panix.com (Philip Elmer-DeWitt) writes: > To accompany an article on the Clipper Chip in this week's TIME, the > magazine commissioned a poll on public attitudes toward wiretap > issues. The relevant graph: > "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by > Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect > the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to > conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they > opposed it." Why shouldn't the government have the right to listen in? Any law-abiding citizen should have nothing to hide. I'm for it. Randy Yates Signal Processing & Communications/Mathematics Student University of South Florida [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, umm, err, uh, I dunno about that. I come down a bit more conservative than many people around here and I don't think I would like your idea. Were you, like our suicide-hotline- on-a-900-number fellow yesterday just getting an early start on April Fool's Day this year or do you really believe Big Brother should get to listen and see everything? Never mind, don't answer, my mailbox would get flooded worse than ever. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 18:15:19 -0500 From: Jonathan Subject: PA Bell in California Some contributor wrote the following on this newsgroup: The radio news reported a fire on the 13th floor of a pa bell building in downtown LA that affects part of the 911 service and also mentioned connections to MCI, et al PA Bell? I didn't know that PA Bell had service in LA. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's not PA as in Pennsylvania (nor MA as in Massachusetts). It's 'pa' as in the opposite of 'ma' or your mother. Now some might contend that it really was supposed to be 'Pac' with your editor committing a typographical error by omitting the 'c' and failing to upper-case the 'P' as in 'Pac', the short form of 'Pacific'. But really the author was talking about Pa (as in Father) Bell. Or even if he wasn't, I thought it was cute that way and left it alone. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 16:51:43 CST From: weberdd@clover.macc.wisc.edu Reply-To: David Devereaux-Weber Subject: Re: Hardware Recommendations For Phone Bank Wanted mmm@cup.portal.com wrote about his suicide hot line ... mmm: It's 16 days before April Fools Day. Did you figure you'd beat the rush? > ... policy of not charging for calls where the client eventually does > commit suicide ... David Devereaux-Weber, P.E. weberdd@macc.wisc.edu (Internet) The University of Wisconsin - Madison (608)262-3584 (voice) DoIT - MACC Communications; B263 (608)262-4679 (FAX) 1210 W Dayton St. Madison, WI 53706 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 15:47:15 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Last Laugh! BBB on 900 Number I saw this on a billboard, I think it was along I-95 in Philadelphia: "Tired of rip-offs? Call 1-900-CALL-BBB. 95 cents / minute" (The number translates to 1-900-225-5222. BBB stands for Better Business Bureau.) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #135 ****************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253