TELECOM Digest Fri, 25 Mar 94 00:29:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 146 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cell One/NY Billing Errors, Also DC (Douglas Scott Reuben) New Book Announcement (Kathleen M. Billus) Cell One Switches Toll-Digit Dialing (Monty Solomon) Dying Telephones (Doug Taylor) Pager Scam Resurfaces (Stephen Goodman) Jobs Offered - Telecom Analysts (Ernie Garcia) Re: Los Angeles Phone Fire (Mark Brukhartz) Re: Bell South ISDN Announcement (Tom Horsley) Re: Hush-a-Phone (Brian J. Cecil) Re: Area Code 562 (K. M. Peterson) Re: Area Code 562 (Linc Madison) Re: Area Code 562 (Alan M. Gallatin) 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: 24 Mar 1994 16:12:59 EST From: Douglas Scott Reuben Subject: Cell One/NY Billing Errors, Also DC Just got my bill from Cell One/NY, and noticed the "airtime for voicemail" problem (where calls to voicemail are billed airtime) is still occurring. These calls do NOT look like voicemail calls; rather, they are itemized as "INCOMING". They are NOT free -- they are billed full airtime rates! They seem to occur randomly -- I distinctly remember making a number of calls to my voicemail on Feb 15, yet only SOME are showing up (all of them usually do), and only SOME of those are being billed airtime. (Note that NONE of these are voicemail calls frm my carphone, which do incur airtime). I must have like $100 worth of "INCOMING" charges which are really FREE voicemail calls, and the thing that is so insidious about all this is that I am sure that if anyone else does have the same billing problem, they may very well *never* notice it because they have fewer voicemail calls than I do, and figure "Oh well, guess I got a lot of incoming calls this month ..." and just pay the bill without careful scruitinization (which no one should have to do anyhow). So if you have voicemail with CO/NY, CHECK your bills for suspicious "INCOMING" calls! On a different note: CO/DC (and I believe Chicago as well) have been added to the NACN. CO/NY customers who travel to DC (and Chicago?) can get calls and features in these markets, with the usual McCaw-is-occassionally-brain-dead caveat that calls will NOT bounce back to voicemail if you don't answer your phone. (Like, err, do they anticipate sort of addressing this issue within the next DECADE or so? ;( ) And of course for some reason NY doesn't have No-Answer-Transfer (other Ericssons do, right?) which is user-selectable, so that obviously won't work in DC or Chicago either. (Altghough DC and Chicago customers who have NAT should be able to use the feature in NY -- it won't do much good, for the same reason calls can not bounce back to voicemail on the NACN. Calls will just come to NY, and if unanswered, they will NOT transfer ... nice, eh?) Finally, Call-Waiting is STILL not working on any of the Motorola EMX 500/2500 switches locally connected to the NY system. These are CT/W. Mass (00119), ComCast NJ (00173,00575,01487), Philly PA (00029, on the NACN!) and northern Delaware (00123, also on the NACN!). They've tried for months to get this working, and it still won't. If you are on the phone in any of these markets, callers will get bounced to voicemail right away, and you will have no idea that they called. I would think that at MINIMUM it could be set to get a busy signal as an interim sort of solution, so that callers would try to call you back, but so far, they can't even manage that. So, if you are expecting a call, you are basically stuck if you want to use your phone at the same time -- you need to check your voicemail after you get off the phone to be sure you didn't miss any calls. Neat revenue generator there, eh? :( This does, however, allow customers who wish to switch to NYNEX (WHY?!, they are worse ... MUCH worse!) or Bell Atlantic Mobile to EASILY get out of their annual service agreements, or even their agreement to stay online for "X" months else they have to pay the $400 commission the dealer gets from CO/NY for a new ativation (which is why you can get a pocket phone for $29). Just call up CO/NY, and say "Hey, when I signed up, both the dealer and/or your service reps authoritatively told me that when I roamed to CT/NJ/DE/PA that I could get call waiting, and that I wouldn't have to check my voicemail all the time. This was one of the main reasons why I signed up with you! I noticed that this was not working over six mnths ago, and you have had plenty of time to correct the problem, which you have not done. As a result, you are not fulfilling the terms of our agreement, and due to your failure to correct these problems in any semblance of a timely manner, I am repudiating our agreement, and refuse to pay any "penalty"/cancellation charges." They may make a fuss over this, but their legal department will tell them you are essentially correct. Make sure you emphasize that one of the main reasons why you signed up was because you traveled to the above markets a lot and wanted to be sure you could always get calls. Tell them "Had I known then what I know now, I would have gone with NYNEX instead, becuase their system does indeed work this way, while yours, despite your explicit assurance, does not." I think they will fix this quickly enough if they have to eat a few $400 commissions! :) And, as a matter of fact, as long as you are a customer of *any* NACN system and want to get out of your contract, you may be able to pull this as well. Simply say you signed up becuase you travel to Philly and/or Delaware a lot, and specifically wanted call-waiting, which you of course are not getting. A bit of a stretch, but it may work! (BTW, I do like CO/NY and think they provide pretty decent service. It's just frustrating that I have to sit here and go over all of our bills with them to make sure we weren't charged for voicemail calls, or for that matter to keep having to check my voicemail while in Philly after I have been on the phone for a while -- I have better things to do with my time.) Doug dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One good thing here is that if you have something waiting in voicemail, the cellular phone gives three little tone spurts (sort of like the stutter dial tone if you are on a land line) when you press SEND. So instead of actually having to place a call to voicemail (with the resulting charges and waste of time) you can just press SEND. As soon as you are on the air, either you will hear those three short tone spurts or you will not. If you don't then don't bother calling voicemail. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kbaw@world.std.com (Kathleen M Billus) Subject: New Book Announcement Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 21:44:57 GMT The Internet Connection: System Connectivity and Configuration by John S. Quarterman and Smoot Carl-Mitchell ISBN 0-201-54237-4, 1994 Published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. "... it's a book I would buy even though I am very experienced at all this. It would be good to have a reference like this on the shelf. ... pulling together a lot of practical information into one place ..." Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die "The book is very clear and very easy to read. It brings the reader into the Internet at a good pace. It has enough details to be able to configure machines, but not enough to scare away nervous newcomers." Michael Barrow, Boston Computer Society Internet How do I connect to the Internet? What equipment do I need? What software do I need? How do I configure it? What forms need to be filled out? Where do I send the check? Where do I find this information? "The Internet Connection: System Connectivity and Configuration" is *the* reference guide that will explain how to become a part of a community where global communication, resource discovery, and resource sharing are brought to your desktop through the Internet. This book serves as the central source of information about the Internet from technology questions to administrative questions. Access to the Internet, the global network of networks, is becoming a must for business today. Expanding at an accelerated rate, and promising to be the foundation for future "information superhighways," the Internet is changing the way individuals and corporations communicate. "The Internet Connection: System Connectivity and Configuration" is the first clear and concise reference for system designers, system administrators, as well as individuals trying to gain access to the Internet. HIGHLIGHTS: o Gives step-by-step instruction on connection to the Internet for system designers, system administrators and their managers. o Offers assistance in setting up naming, mail and news systems o Explains the use of common Internet services such as archie, WAIS, and Gopher About the Authors: John S. Quarterman is Senior Technical Partner of Texas Internet Consulting, which consults in networks and open systems with particular emphasis on TCP/IP networks, UNIX systems, and standards. Smoot Carl-Mitchell is Managing Partner of Texas Internet Consulting. He has consulted on numerous projects including network design, installation, and debugging. He, along with his partner, also gives seminars on networking issues related to the growth, development,and use of TCP/IP. Co-authors of "Practical Internetworking with TCP/IP and UNIX", a comprehensive tutorial reference, Quarterman and Carl-Mitchell also publish *Matrix News*, a monthly on-line and paper newsletter about cross-network issues. * Available wherever fine technical books are sold. * For direct orders to Addison-Wesley, please call 1-800-822-6339 and have your credit card handy. * To be included on the Addison-Wesley on-line information server, please send an email message to awbook@aw.com. The subject line should be 'information' and the body of the message should be 'send information'. Adding your name to this listing will enable us to keep you informed of all new titles. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 19:49:03 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cell One Switches To11-Digit Dialing Effective March 1, 1994, Cell One/Boston has switched to eleven-digit dialing (from 10) for long distance calls outside of A/C 617 or 508. ------------------------------ From: b17news!dvtaylor@ingr.com (Doug Taylor) Subject: Dying Telephones Reply-To: b17news!dvtaylor@ingr.com (Doug Taylor) Organization: "Imaging systems, Intergraph Corp, Huntsville AL" Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 21:41:34 GMT We have had three phones die at our house in the last few months. Phone number one was a cheap GE wall phone with a built-in digital answering machine. It lasted over two years and then died about five months ago. The answering machine was still working, but not the phone. Since we had other phones in the house (described below), we didn't replace it until ... Phone number two was an expensive Toshiba cordless, also with a built-in digital answering machine. It lasted less than three weeks. Again, the answering machine still worked, but not the phone. We were able to trade this one back in for ... Phone number three was again an expensive Toshiba cordless, but without a built-in answering machine. Instead, we got a separate AT&T digital answering machine. This phone died today while my wife was using it. The other three phones in the house have been there forever. Phone number four is a very cheap phone we keep out in the garage. Phone number five is a good, solid rotary phone. Phone number six is a good, solid, old, office push-button phone. All three of these continued to work just fine. The dead phones did not work on other phone jacks inside our house. Got any ideas why the phones keep dying? Only emailed responses are likely to reach me. Doug Taylor dvtaylor@ingr.com MailStop IW17D1 (205) 730-6875 (w) Intergraph Corp. 730-9550 (fax) Huntsville, AL 35894-0001 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 12:42 EST From: Stephen Goodman <0003945654@mcimail.com> Subject: Pager Scam Resurfaces FYI for the readers of TELECOM Digest! !!!PAGER SCAM ALERT!!! Be aware that the pager scam using area code 212/540-XXXX has resurfaced. If you receive a page to call this number, DON'T return the call. The 212/540 is translated to a 900 number and you/we can be billed $50.00 or more per call. Please pass on to your employee base, noting that this scam recurs occassionally. sgoodman@mcimail.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'm sure our readers ** in the metro New York City area ** appreciate the reminder, but bear in mind that ** no one ** outside the NYC area (212/718, maybe 914/516 ?) can reach this number even if they were paged. '540' is a very local, restricted prefix for the simple reason that the telco in New York has no way to collect on calls outside their area. Dialing 212-540-anything from Chicago for example on MCI gets an intercept saying 'MCI does not complete calls to 976 numbers at this time' ... and via AT&T it just goes to a re-order. I'm not certain, but I think if it is dialed via 10xxx or 1+ , it won't even leave the local CO if outside of NYC and environs. So if anyone chooses to copy out your message and post it as a warning in a company newsletter, etc, I hope they'll include my note as well. Essentially outside of NYC, this is a non-issue, and in my opinion, New Yorkers are entitled to whatever they get themselves into! It is even doubtful if the operator of this scam is breaking the law, as sleazy as it may be. Yes, he is requesting that you call a premium- priced phone number, but so do countless other advertisers on radio and television each day. No one is making you call the number and the presumption is you should know where you are calling before you dial. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 10:19:32 -0800 From: garciae@tahoma.cwu.edu (Ernie Garcia) Subject: Jobs Offered - Telecom Analysts Organization: Central Washington University Central Washington University invites applications for: TELECOMMUNICATIONS ANALYST I: $2143-$2728 TELECOMMUNICATIONS ANALYST II: $2355-$3011 Enjoy the sun and rural life of Ellensburg, Washington, population 13,000. Our Telecommunications Analysts are responsible for various project related work, including analysis of equipment malfunction, configuration revisions and installations. Requires minimum of two years of telecomm training and two years experience in CENTREX and or PBX systems for the I-level; two additional years of routine Analyst I-level work for the II-level position. At least one year experience must be with Northern Telecom SL-1/Meridian 1 PBX, including Northern Telecom training certifications. For application materials, contact Central Washington University, Personnel Services, Ellensburg, WA 98926. Phone: (509) 963-1202. OPEN UNTIL FILLED. CENTRAL IS AN AA/EEO/TITLE IX EMPLOYER. WOMEN AND MINORITIES ARE ENCOURAGED TO APPLY. Ernie Garcia VOICE:(509) 963-3046 Central Washington University FAX :(509) 963-1385 (CaTS) Computing & Telecom. Services Ellensburg, WA 98926 email: garciae@tahoma.cwu.edu OR garciae@hebron.connected.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 13:28:33 -0600 From: mark_brukhartz@il.us.swissbank.com (Mark Brukhartz) Subject: Re: Los Angeles Phone Fire There were strong winds and intense thunderstorms across northern Illinois on the day of the Hinsdale fire. The monitoring station ignored the first alarms because the weather was causing periodic false alarms in the area. Once they suspected trouble in Hinsdale, they were unable to reach a wide area around Hinsdale by telephone. The Hinsdale office was a regional hub for inter-office and inter-LATA calls, and there was no backup hub. The station personnel reached a supervisor in northern Indiana, who made the 45 minute drive to Hinsdale. He is said to have stood at the door and asked passers by to contact the fire department. The Hinsdale switching office lies just beyond Hinsdale's quaint suburban downtown, where stores are largely closed on Sundays. Pedestrians had to be few and far between. Once the fire department arrived, they asked the supervisor to cut the power. That critial step took a couple of hours. The switches for the utility feed, generators and batteries were distributed around the building. The supervisor couldn't reach them through the smoke, and they weren't clearly labelled for the firefighters. No water was applied to the fire for these hours. During the delay, the fire got close to the large underground cable vaults. The fire chief ordered the cables cut to prevent a spread. That extended the subsequent repair time. Hinsdale Hospital had Centrex service, and thus lost internal phone service service when the switch burned. They restored limited communications with portable radios, and soon installed an NT Meridian PBX. By the way, my home is served by the Hinsdale switch. We had no dialtone for almost a month. During that time, radio equipped personnel manned the street corners 24 hours per day to take emergency calls. Mark [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for telling it just the way it happened. Reasonable people might disagree on some of the chronology just as you described it, but the fact is the fire burned a long time before anyone notified the fire department, procedures put in place by Jim Eibel (VP at Illinois Bell) stunk to high heaven and yes, there was no dial tone in Hinsdale for a month. Some other communities got dial tone back after a *mere two weeks*. Cellular service (both A and B) and pagers were out here for about two weeks. 911 was out for several days in many western suburbs. You see, Hinsdale was the hub for it all. Cellular service for northern Illinois; long distance switching for AT&T/Sprint/MCI/whoever; extremely important and critical circuits for the Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control at Ohare Airport; 911 service for several communities; plus local service for Hinsdale and a couple nearby communities of course. It all went through Hinsdale, and Hinsdale burned down ... what the fire did not destroy, the firemen did in the process, ie. the cables which had to be cut. The place was almost gutted top to bottom. They tried to save the switch -- Lord knows they wanted to save it if they could, but a couple weeks into the restoration when they got the switch up and running it was so corroded from water damage they had to junk it as well and order a new one post-haste which got diverted from wherever it was intended for and sent to Hinsdale on a rush basis, adding another week to the repairs. What's past is past. Please, whoever controls these things: don't let it happen again. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tom@travis.csd.harris.com (Tom Horsley) Subject: Re: Bell South ISDN Announcement Date: 24 Mar 1994 18:30:41 GMT Organization: Harris Computer Systems Division > BELLSOUTH ANNOUNCES LARGEST GEOGRAPHIC DEPLOYMENT OF ISDN IN THE NATION > CONTACT: > Karen M. Roughton of BellSouth Telecommunications, 404-529-6514 > BellSouth National ISDN HotLine, 1-800-428-4736 I get phone service from BellSouth, and despite the constant series of ISDN announcements from time to time (I seem to recall attending a meeting at work about ten years ago with phone company marketeers talking about the benefits of the soon to appear ISDN service :-), I have yet to call the local business office and find anyone on the other end of the phone who ever even heard of ISDN, much less knew anything about the price of a connection ... If fact, could someone who has done this post a typical transcript of a conversation? How many times do you have to say "Could I speak to your supervisor?" before getting to someone who has heard of ISDN? I'll have to try calling the BellSouth hotline and see if I get anywhere. Tom Horsley email: tahorsley@csd.harris.com Harris snail: 511 Kingbird Circle Computer Systems Delray Beach, FL 33444 ------------------------------ From: Brian J. Cecil Date: 24 Mar 94 13:13:20 EST Subject: Re: Hush-a-Phone > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Over the years, AT&T really brought > on a lot of their own problems that they are having today didn't they. > Imagine how much different things would be today had AT&T taken much > less miltant stance with the Carterphone/Hush-a-Phone cases and with > MCI in its early days. It is likely the whole industry would be > entirely different. And yes, AT&T did once sue the publisher of the > plastic directory covers with a claim that such 'unauthorized > attachments' might cause people to complain to the phone company about > the quality of the directory. They lost that case also. PAT] What the FCC was doing was allowing AT&T to have a controlled monopoly in orderto get a centralized phone system in the USA. They realized that if there was one phone company, that company would be able to build a high quality nationwide phone system instead of the numerous mom and pop systems that were scattered all over the country. Because of this, the FCC went along with some stupid arguments that AT&T brought before them. I believe that if the FCC did not protect AT&T and this monopolized network in its early stages, our phone system would not be as advanced as it is today. Of course the monopolized phone company is a thing of the past, and it was good to break it up when they did. However, I believe the government will be using this strategy again with the National Information Highway. Brian Cecil [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, there is no doubt in my mind that the superior telephone service we enjoyed in the USA for many decades (and still have to a large extent) would not have been possible had things gone any other way in the early days. The credit for the many wonderful things about the Bell System which we counted on goes to Theodore Vail, Chairman of AT&T at the start of the twentieth century. He is the person who coined the phrase, 'One System ... one way of doing things ...' and the unspoken words appended to that, '... my way ...'. Ted Vail was one tough old bird -- even Alex Bell hated him -- but AT&T clear up to the early 1980's was the way it was because of Vail's influence and decisions. Too bad things turned out the way they did though. Surely something less drastic would have been workable also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kmp@tiac.net (K. M. Peterson) Subject: Re: New Area Code 562 Date: 24 Mar 1994 16:39:44 GMT Organization: KMPeterson/Boston Have I been asleep? Is this the first NXX areacode/NPA? K. M. Peterson email: KMP@TIAC.NET phone: +1 617 731 6177 voice +1 617 730 5969 fax [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Good morning! Wake up and smell the coffee cooking ... no it is not first. Alabama was the first to get one with 205 being split, and a couple others have been assigned. The one in California is third or fourth in what will soon be a flood of them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lincmad@netcom.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Area Code 562 Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 01:47:14 GMT Dave Niebuhr (dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov) wrote: > 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.) ^^^ ^^ PAT, I'm surprised you missed the typo in the correction to your typo! As you might be aware, area code 708 is not in New Jersey. Linc Madison * Oakland, California * LincMad@Netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ah shucks, twarn't nothing ... I guess he meant 908. Yeah, I might be aware of 708. I think that is where I live. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: amg@panix.com (Alan M. Gallatin) Subject: Re: Area Code 562 Date: 24 Mar 1994 17:01:29 -0500 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In a previous article, dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) wrote: >> Four area codes in one metro area. Can anybody beat that? >> [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.) 708 (as most Digest readers will know) is Illinois ... * 908 * (as most Bellcore people will know :-)) is Mid-Jersey :-)) amg@panix.com Alan M. Gallatin amg@israel.nysernet.org amg@jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, this is getting to where it isn't even funny any more. Thirty years ago I knew every area code and where it was located. Now I can't remember half of them ... and wait until next year when all those strange ones start popping up everywhere. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #146 ****************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253