TELECOM Digest Thu, 24 Mar 94 11:06:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 145 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Frequently Asked Questions About Caller-ID (A. Padgett Peterson) CATV Modems (Dominique Gabioud) FCC Gopher Service (Robert Keller via Peter M. Weiss) Re: Country Code For San Marino (Carl Moore) Re: Country Code For San Marino (Bob Smeets) Information Wanted on Women and Telecom (Melanie Spencer) Request For Info: Strategic Planning For Local Exchange Carrier (J. Lovell) Re: Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' (David McCord) Re: Who Paid For My 550? (Terry Gilson) Re: Area Code 562 (Dave Niebuhr) Re: Telecom Business Idea (Jonathan Welch) Re: International Toll Free Numbers (Thierry Samama) Obtaining Files From International Telecommunications Union (Carl Law) 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: Thu, 24 Mar 94 08:57:28 -0500 From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson) Subject: Frequently Asked Questions About Caller-ID [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This file will become a permanent entry in the Telecom Archives. PAT] Frequently Asked Questions About Caller-ID v1.0 Mar. 1994 1) What is Caller-ID ? First ask "What is ANI" 2) OK, What is ANI ? ANI or Automatic Number Identification is a mechanism by which the different telephone companies determine what account is to be charged for a call, This information is passed between Telcos and was originally for billing purposes. Since the Telcos had it anyway, the decision was made to make it available to authorized parties such as 911 service and law enforcement agencies. ANI is also used to let a Telco operator know who is calling. More recently, ANI is used to report to 800 and 900 subscribers, who made the calls they have received, in the first case so that the 800 subscriber knows who the charge is for, and so that 900 number subscribers know who to charge. 3) Now (maybe) what is Caller-ID ? Caller-ID (more properly CNID or Calling Number IDentification)is a Telco service that is a byproduct of (but not exactly the same as) ANI. In this case, only those numbers reported by subscribing exchanges are returned, exactly which are and which are not is at the Telco's discretion (in theory, since the Telco has all of the numbers via ANI, *something* useful could be reported for any call. Most Telcos do not). The Federal Government has stated that it is their intent that nationwide CNID be available by mid-1995. Currently there are two types of Caller-ID. The first (often referred to as "basic" service) just returns the calling number or an error message and the date/time of the call. The second ("enhanced" Caller-ID) also returns the directory information about the calling number. 4) How is the Caller-ID information provided ? As a 1200 baud, 7 data bits, 1 stop bit data stream usually transmitted following the first and before the second ring signal on the line. The signal is provided before the circuit is complete: picking up the receiver before the data stream is finished will stop/corrupt the transmission. Currently there are two types of information returned: a "short form" which contains the date/time (telco and not local) of the call and the calling number or error message. The "long form" can also contain the name and/or address (directory information) of the calling phone. The "short form" stream consists of a set of null values, followed by a two byte prefix, followed by the DATE (Month/Day), TIME (24 hour format), and number including area code in ASCII, followed by a 2s compliment checksum. Most modems/caller id devices will format the data but the raw stream looks like this : 0412303232383134333434303735353537373737xx or (prefix)02281334407555777(checksum) A formatted output would look like this: Date - Feb 28 Time - 1:34 pm Number - (407)555-7777 5) Can a Caller-ID signal be forged/altered ? Since the signal is provided by the local Telco switch and the calling party's line is not connected until after the phone is answered, generally the signal cannot be altered from the distant end. Manipulation would have to take place either at the switch or on the called party's line. (never say "never") 6) What is "ID Blocking" ? Most Telco's providing Caller-ID have been required to also provide the ability for a calling party to suppress the Caller-ID signal. Generally this is done by pressing star-six-seven before making the call. In most cases this will block the next call only however some Telcos have decided to implement this in a bewildering array of methods. The best answer is to contact the service provider and get an answer in writing. Currently this is supplied as either by-call or by-line blocking. By-Call is preferred since the caller must consciously block the transmission on each call. By-Line blocking as currently implemented has the disadvantage that the caller, without having a second caller-id equipped line to use for checking, has no way of knowing if the last star-six-seven toggled blocking on or off. 7) What happens if a call is forwarded ? Generally, the number reported is that of the last phone to forward the call. Again there are some Telco differences so use the same precaution as in (6). If the forwarding is done by customer owned equipment there is no way of telling but will probably be the last calling number. 8) What happens if I have two phone lines and a black box to do the forwarding ? If you have two phone lines or use a PBX with outdialing features, the reported number will be that of the last line to dial. Currently there is no way to tell a black box from a human holding two handsets together. 9) I called somebody from a company phone (555-1234) but the Caller-ID reported 555-1000. Often a company with multiple trunks from the Telco and their own switch will report a generic number for all of the trunks. 10) I run a BBS. How can I use Caller-ID to authenticate/log callers ? There are two ways. The first utilizes a separate Caller-ID box with a serial cable or an internal card. This sends the information back to a PC which can then decide whether to answer the phone and what device should respond. Some of these are available which can handle multiple phone lines per card and multiple cards per PC. The second (and most common) is for the capability to be built in a modem or FAX/modem. While limited to a single line per modem, the information can be transmitted through the normal COM port to a program that again can decide whether or not to answer the phone and how. There is a FreeWare Caller-ID ASP script for Procomm Plus v2.x available for FTP from the Telecom archive. Most such software packages will also log each call as it is received and the action taken. Of course for true wizards, there are chips available (one of the first was the Motorolla MC14544TP) that can recognize the CNID signal and tranform it into a proper RS-232 (serial) signal. 11) How is security enhanced by using Caller-ID over a Call-Back service or one-time-passwords for dial-up access ? Caller-ID has one great advantage over any other mechanism for telephone lines. It allows the customer to decide *before* picking up the receiver, whether to answer the call. Consider hackers, crackers, and phreaks. Their goal in life is to forcibly penetrate electronic systems without permission (sounds like rape doesn't it ?). They employ demon dialers and "finger hacking" to discover responsive numbers, often checking every number in a 10,000 number exchange. If they get a response such as a modem tone, they have a target and will often spend days or weeks trying every possible combination of codes to get in. With Caller-ID answer selection, the miscreant will never get to the modem tone in the first place, yet for an authorized number, the tone will appear on the second ring. Previously the best solution for dial-ups was to set the modem to answer on the sixth ring (ats0=6). Few hackers will wait that long but it can also irritate customers. 12) What error messages will Caller-ID return ? a) Out of Area - (Telco) the call came from outside the Telco's service area and the Telco has chosen not to return the ANI information. b) Blocked or Private - (Telco) the caller either has permanent call blocking enabled or has dialed star-six-seven for this call. You do not have to answer either. c) Buffer Full - (device manufacturer) there are many Caller-ID devices on the market and exactly how they have chosen to implement storage is up to the manufacturer. This probably mans that the divide has a limited buffer space and the device is either losing the earliest call records or has stopped recording new calls. 13) Why are so many people against Caller-ID ? FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt or 10,000,000 lemmings can't be wrong. There were some justifiable concerns that some people (battered wives, undercover policemen) might be endangered or subject to harassment (doctors, lawyers, celebrities) by Caller-ID. As mentioned above there are several legitimate ways to either block Caller-ID or to have it return a different number. It is up to the caller. The advantage is that with Caller-ID, for the first time, the called party has the same "right of refusal". Expect yet another Telco service (at a slight additional charge) to be offered to return an office number for calls made from home. Crisis centers could return the number of the local police station. Compiled by Padgett Peterson. Constructive comments to: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com Brickbats >nul. ------------------------------ From: gabioud@uni2a.unige.ch Subject: CATV Modems Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 08:12:15 GMT A CATV cable has a huge bandwidth available. A part of it is usually not used for TV channels and could be used (at least from a technical standpoint) for data transmission, if a return channel is available. Do you know any equipment (modem, remodulator, ...) that allows data communication over the CATV cable. On the user side, the modem should feature a well-known interface (RS232C, Ethernet, ...). Dominique Gabioud gabioud@uni2a.unige.ch ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 07:21:10 EST From: Peter M. Weiss Subject: FCC Gopher Service Organization: Penn State University I don't recall seeing this posted here (pete-weiss@psu.edu) -- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 17:12:09 -0600 From: Bob Keller To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Finger FCC Releases Taking a page from John Higgins' book, I will be temporarily putting five days' worth of FCC Daily Digests pulled from ftp.fcc.gov in my .plan file so that it can be accessed by fingering . This is being done for experimental purposes, but if anyone finds it useful in the meantime, so much the better. Be sure to open your capture buffer first, as the file is many screens long. It is also possible to Gopher to the FCC site [Gopher fcc.gov] as well a regular old ftp. Reportedly, the FCC is planning eventually to have an e-mail server and/or mailing list for accessing documents. Bob Keller Robert J. Keller, P.C. Internet: rjk@telcomlaw.com ---------- Federal Telecommunications Law Telephone: +1 301.229.5208 KY3R 4200 Wisconsin Ave NW #106-261 Facsimile: +1 301.229.6875 Washington, DC 20016-2143 USA CompuServe UID: 76100.3333 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 16:44:47 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Country Code For San Marino +39 549 does appear in the Telecom Archives as "supplied by British Telecom" or words similar. ------------------------------ From: smeets@duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl Subject: Re: Country code for San Marino Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 13:18:41 MET Bill Hofmann writes: > Well, I checked with Sprint, they told me 378, however, I received a > private communication from someone in Rome who told me that as of > 1990, San Marino had been split from 541 and now has Italian city code > 549, and that further both country codes 295 and 378 are disallowed > from Rome. Can some folks in other countries check this out? The Dutch telephone authorities mention +39 549 for access to San Marino. Bob Smeets ------------------------------ Subject: Information Wanted on Women and Telecom Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 15:18:52 EST From: Melanie Spencer I'm looking for information on women in telecommunications -- particu- larily statistics on participation and any cases of discrimination. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the past, women generally were in the front office -- line of fire -- positions directly interacting with the subscribers as service representatives and operators while men were in management and research. That is still true today, although not to as great an extent as a half century ago. Which jobs are 'more important'? I guess since the subscribers are the ones paying the bill, their inter- action with the 'phone company' through the operators and service reps is the most important consideration in how telco functions in my opinion, yet their wages and the way they are treated does not always reflect that, sorry to say. PAT] ------------------------------ From: clearlake@ins.infonet.net Subject: Request For Info: Strategic Planning For Local Exchange Carrier Date: 23 Mar 1994 22:54:50 GMT Organization: INFOnet - Iowa Network Services, Inc. Reply-To: clearlake@ins.infonet.net I am asking for any resource info anyone might have regarding strategic planning models for local exchange carriers (telephone companies), specifically rural telephone companies.. I am working on a thesis for a master's in telecommunications and my topic is to prepare a strategic planning model for rural Iowa independent telephonies in a competitive environment. If there is info on strategic planning in a metro environment for telcos, that would be welcome as well. I would appreciate anything -- books, thesis materials, journals, etc. for my literature search and to ensure that nothing has been done on this same topic previously. Please leave any info in my email. Thanking you in advance. Jan Lovell, Assistant Manager, Clear Lake Independent Telephone Company, Clear Lake, Iowa ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 15:38:10 -0800 From: david_mccord@INS.COM (David McCord) Subject: Re: Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' Steve wrote: > Could someone explain what this term means. Please email. I guess these is a corrupted reference to "streaming terminal." On a multipoint data communications line, if two or more devices attempt communications simultaneously, transmission fails. To avoid this, a typical protocol arrangement provides for devices to transmit ONLY when specifically requested to do so. A streaming terminal is one that is in violation of this arrangement, usually in a manner so that it is constantly transmitting and thereby fouling operation of the entire line. This can be a serious problem. david_mccord@ins.com International Network Services + 1 415 254 4229 voice Mountain View, California, USA + 1 415 967 3247 fax ------------------------------ From: tgilson@DELPHI.COM (Terry Gilson) Subject: Re: Who Paid For My 550? Date: 24 Mar 1994 08:18:54 GMT Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation On Wed, Mar 23, Jim Cluett Can anyone explain the economics of the $50 Motorola 550? The 550 is > selling locally at a discount department store for $50. Motorola can't > build 'em for that. The department store is acting as an agent for > both an A and a B carrier, but I don't think they can recover enough > from a year's contract to make up the difference. Who's subsidizing > this? It's probably me, but I don't quite see how. I'm not sure what it costs Motorola to make the 550, however, the current wholesale price to the Cellular Industry is from $250 to $280 depending on where you get it, and deals with certain carriers bring it down lower than that. The department store you bought the phone from probably does not make anything from the on-going use of the phone, instead they may get a one-time commission for the activation of a number. This commission can run from $75.00 to $300.00+ depending on the rate plan and part of the country. It is the commission from the carrier that usually brings the phone prices way down. Gillette's theory ... give away the razor but charge a lot for the blades. In states where the cellular industry is regulated, such as California, the dealers can only sell up to $25.00 below their cost, and a quick glance through the newspaper advertisements will give you a pretty good idea of the cost of each phone. In my area, which is Southern California, our average phone bill is now around $135.00 per month including access charge and airtime. Most Carriers can recoup the commission paid for a number within the first year and still make some decent, or indecent ;-), profit. Terry Gilson tgilson@eis.calstate.edu DCN Cellular 805-379-3333 71220.2040@compuserve.com Westlake Village, CA tgilson@delphi.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 06:02:14 EST From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: Area Code 562 In a recent TELECOM Digest Issue richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) wrote: > Pacific Bell & GTE just anounced that in 1996, LA will get its fourth > area code. 562 will overlay the present 213-818-310 areas, and will > be used for cellular phones and pagers. > Four area codes in one metro area. Can anybody beat that? and thus did the Editor write: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well the New York City metro area has quite > a few now: 212/718/914/907, what else? Are we counting New Jersey? PAT] ^^^ ^^^ 907 is Alaska; it is 917 914 is metro NYC covering Rockland, Westchester, part of Orange and possibly Dutchess and Putnam counties. Add AC 516 (Long Island) and parts of ACs 201/708 (NJ) and part of AC 203 (Ct.) With the exception of NJ, all of the ACs listed are part of the NYC LATA. 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: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 07:09:22 -0500 From: Jonathan_Welch Subject: Re: Telecom Business Idea In article , voorst@dordt.edu (Dale Van Voorst) writes: > I am looking for input on a telecommunications business idea that I > have. I live in a relatively small town that does not have local > access numbers for any of the on-line services (Compuserve, Prodigy, > AOL, etc). If you want to access these services, you must pay long > distance charges on top of your normal membership fees. If you're going to go to the trouble of leasing a line you might be better off setting up a 486DX50 pc running linux and lease the line to an internet provider. You'd then sell accounts on your machine for a flat monthly rate. You'd have to be sure your local calling area encompases enough subscribers so you don't end up losing money. Jonathan Welch VAX Systems Manager Umass/Amherst JHWELCH@ecs.umass.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 14:11:54 +0100 From: Thierry.Samama@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr (Thierry Samama) Subject: Re: International Toll Free Numbers Reply-To: samama@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr Organization: Alcatel Alsthom Recherche (France) In article 7@eecs.nwu.edu, theone@email.teaser.com (Rachid Benzaoui) writes: > How would it be possible to know the French equivalent numbers of American > international toll-free numbers? In France, international toll free numbers are of the form 05 90 mc du, where 05 is the usual toll free prefix. Also, I believe (but that would need to be confirmed) that toll free choke numbers are 05 70. ------------------------------ Subject: Obtaining Files From International Telecommunications Union Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 09:06:11 CST From: Carl Law Reply-To: claw@cix.compulink.co.uk I am a new user on Usenet. I write telecom articles for various journals and for the {Financial Times} in London, but live in Northern Ireland where, so far, I cannot track down the ITU yearbook and analogous publications. Could you possibly tell me the command sequence on Usenet to punch thru to their computer in Geneva? Regards, Carl Edgar Law in Belfast, N. Ireland. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, first of all, we do not want to confuse 'Usenet' (a collection of newsgroups circulated via 'Internet', a network which joins together computers and other networks around the world with the Internet itself. The Internet is much, much larger than just the component we call Usenet, which coincidentally is just one of a few different collections of newsgroups. There is also a collection of newsgroups in a system called 'alt' -- they're not technically part of Usenet -- and there are numerous regional and local collections of newsgroups with limited circulation. What you want to know, I think, is how to connect to the computer at ITU using the facilities of your local site in conjunction with the Internet. Usenet has nothing to do with it. The network address of the International Telecommunications Union is 'itu.ch'. The 'ch' stands for Switzerland, and the ITU is located in Geneva. For starters, you need to be using a computer (or connected through your personal PC or terminal to a computer) which is connected to the Internet in one way or another. If a realtime, live connection exists, then you can connect to ITU using 'anonymous ftp', and perhaps using other similar services such as Gopher or WEB. The instructions for those services are detailed, and I won't cover them here right now. Without having a realtime online Internet connection, then the thing you would have to do is send email provided ITU has an automated program running to process email *as though it were coming via ftp*. At this point I will defer to our friends at ITU since we have not heard from them in awhile anyway, and perhaps Lucio or someone else there will forward a file dealing with the ITU public documents and how to obtain them. I am making this deferral since I believe in the next few days there will be an important announcement to share with all readers of TELECOM Digest (jointly by the ITU and myself) and it would be good to do it all at the same time. In the meantime, Carl, what you should do is make inquiries of your system administrator regards remote connectivity to other computers using ftp, Gopher and similar services. The way it is done is universal, meaning not only are the instructions pertinent to connecting with ITU, but to any site where there may be documents you wish to obtain. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #145 ****************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253