TELECOM Digest Sun, 9 Jan 94 23:45:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 20 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Press Release re MCI Expansion (MVM@cup.portal.com) Phone Phreakers Down South (Charlotte Observer via vantek@aol.com) Dial 511 For Info (Atlanta Journal and Constitution via vantek@aol.com) Console Products (S. Wayne Lockhart) Telecom Service in Guam (Steve Kass) Source Wanted For Mini-PBXs (Tom Metro) All Wire Isn't The Same (John Warne) GSM Network Operators (Lars Kalsen) Unique Idea: Error Message for TDDs (Paul Robinson) Computer-Telephony Integration (Ray Mc Guigan) Network Sources of Telephony (Richard Weisinger) Long Distance CLID is Here! (Jack Winslade) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MVM@cup.portal.com Subject: Press Release re MCI Expansion Date: Sun, 9 Jan 94 13:54:04 PST (From the MCI Mail News "Bulletin Board" comes this press release:) Date: Tue Jan 04, 1994 12:02 pm CST Subject: MCI UNVEILS LONG-RANGE VISION: networkMCI Opens Nation's First Transcontinental Information Superhighway; Announces $20 Billion in Strategic Initiatives Washington, D.C., January 4, 1994--MCI today unveiled a sweeping strategic vision under which MCI and associated partners are expected to invest more than $20 billion to create and deliver a wide array of new branded services to teleconsumers, businesses, research facilities and government customers. "Our notion of the future of telecommunications and MCI is going to have a brand name: networkMCI," said Bert C. Roberts, MCI chairman and CEO. "This strategic vision is the sum of all our plans and opportunities in the new emerging markets with services that consumers, businesses and governments will want at their fingertips as we move into the 21st Century. As a core strategy, it leverages the tremendous opportunities brought on by the convergence of telephony, entertainment and the computer." Transcontinental Information Superhighway Today the company announced, as an initial element of the networkMCI vision, the inauguration of the nation's first trans- continental information superhighway. Often talked about as a key ingredient to keeping America competitive in tomorrow's world economy, the MCI superhighway's roadbed uses SONET fiber optic technology at speeds 15 times faster than any SONET network available today. MCI said that the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) is the first user of its New York to Los Angeles SONET fiber system. The NSFNET Backbone Service is the fastest and most powerful of the university, government and commercial networks known collectively as the Internet. "Some people may be surprised to learn that MCI developed these intercity links for the Internet six years ago," said Roberts. "The NSFNET service today reaches nearly 15,000 networks around the world that participate in the Internet." "The Internet doubles in size annually and now links over two million computers serving some six million users," said Vinton Cerf, President of the Internet Society. "When electronic mail interconnects are taken into account, nearly 20 million users conduct their business from labs, homes and offices over the Internet. MCI and its partners, IBM, Merit and ANS, pioneered the use of 45 megabit per second technology for the NSFNET Backbone Service. NSFNET now carries a volume of information that approximately equals the holdings of the Library of Congress EACH MONTH, and MCI's announcement indicates the potential to carry more than 50 times that much traffic." SONET, which stands for Synchronous Optical Network, is a high-speed transmission technology that MCI is using to hasten the widespread availability of broadcast quality videophones, electronic data interchange (EDI), long distance medical imaging, multimedia education, movies on demand, and a single-number Personal Communications Service (PCS) that will use the same pocket-sized telephone anywhere in the world. High-speed SONET technology was deployed in half of MCI's network at year-end 1993, far outpacing its long distance rivals. Under the development program announced today, SONET will be available throughout MCI's domestic network by the end of 1994 and on international routes across the Atlantic and the Pacific by 1995. The company said it will further increase carrying speeds on existing fiber from 2.5 gigabits (billion bits) per second to more than 10 gigabits per second by 1995. MCI Metro As another element of its long-range vision, the company announced the creation of MCI Metro, a wholly owned subsidiary that is expected to invest $2 billion in fiber rings and local switching infrastructure in major U.S. metropolitan markets. Through its metropolitan area facilities, MCI will connect directly to customers and begin providing alternative local telecommunications services. Referring to these connections as "digital on/off ramps" to the nationwide information superhighway, Roberts noted that they would be a vital addition to America's economic infrastructure for the 21st Century. Construction has already begun in Atlanta, with completion expected there by mid- year. Roberts announced the appointment of two key executives to lead this subsidiary. Executive vice president Gary M. Parsons will be chief executive officer of MCI Metro, and senior vice president Nate A. Davis will become its chief operating officer. The subsidiary owns properties and rights-of-way in several hundred cities. "MCI Metro will ensure the availability of superior local access facilities at reasonable cost," said Roberts. "During the last decade, MCI was instrumental in bringing the benefits of competition to the long distance marketplace. During the next decade, we must secure those same benefits for customers of local telephone service. In addition, these digital backbone facilities will strongly position MCI in the emerging markets of interactive multimedia and wireless PCS." networkMCI Roberts said that networkMCI is being introduced to the public via a national advertising campaign utilizing television, magazines and newspapers to explain the company's vision to consumers, businesses, investors and potential partners. "When we announced our global alliance with BT (British Telecom) last year, we said that the added financial flexibility would allow us to invest in America's infrastructure, economy and future," said Roberts. "With networkMCI, we have cast a strategy to deliver on that promise, and then some." MCI expects that other partner companies with complementary skills and resources will participate in projects within the overall networkMCI vision, through equity stakes, joint ventures or other business arrangements. "As telecommunications, computing and television converge, no one company will have the infrastructure and the skills to do everything alone," said Roberts. "Partnering is smart strategy for the 1990's, and MCI has proven repeatedly that it doesn't have to own and control another party in order to work together effectively." MCI cited a number of customer usage trends underlying the decision to make the additional multibillion dollar investments. The company has been growing more than twice as fast as the long distance industry as a whole, and is winning the lion's share of growth in the booming market for international calls to and from the U.S. Data traffic is another major growth factor, with business customers' usage of data communications expected to surpass voice by 1998. In wireless communications, the superior performance of the emerging PCS technology is expected to help drive the total number of wireless devices in the U.S. to 70 million by the turn of the century, which will increase network usage. "Beyond the long-term vision," Roberts continued, "there are a number of immediate benefits that networkMCI brings to the everyday, workaday MCI network. We have created this long-term strategy to meet the demands of a nation of teleconsumers who use telecommunications more frequently and in more ways than ever before. American businesses of all sizes want competitive advantage from their communications. And potential partners in this arena want to create new opportunities. With networkMCI, there will be a clear path to follow." MCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., offers a full range of domestic and global telecommunications services through one of the world's largest state-of-the-art networks. With annual revenue of more than $12 billion, the company is the second largest long distance provider in the U.S. and has more than 65 offices in 55 countries and places. ------------------------------ From: vantek@aol.com Reply-To: vantek@aol.com Date: Sat, 08 Jan 94 21:09:02 EST Subject: Phone Phreakers Down South Thought I'd pass this little story along ... Charlotte Observer, N.C. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jan. 7 -- Another Charlotte company has fallen victim to telephone hackers. Pic 'N Pay Stores Inc., the Charlotte-based shoe retailer, says it got stung for $17,000 by high-tech hijackers who got into the company's voice- mail and dialed anywhere they pleased. Pic 'N Pay filed suit last week against BellSouth Telecommunications Inc., parent of Southern Bell, which made and serviced the phone system in question. The suit in Mecklenburg Superior Court seeks reimbursement for phone bills the retailer had to pay to AT&T, Alltel and Sprint. Southern Bell spokesman Clifton Metcalf declined comment on the case Thursday but said the company works hard on security issues. The suit says BellSouth specifically told Pic 'N Pay its voice-mail system, installed in January 1991, was not vulnerable to fraud. A few months later, Pic 'N Pay noticed strange goings-on. One night, 13 of its 17 local trunk lines were busy, even though only four employees were in the building. Securing the system took a technician five minutes, the suit says. Pic 'N Pay attorney Larry Hewitt said some of the fraudulent calls were made from New Yorkers to the Caribbean. Unauthorized access through voice-mail systems is one common variety of telephone fraud. Altogether, the problem is estimated to cost U.S. businesses and individuals more than $1 billion a year. Pic 'N Pay Vice President Phil Myers said staffers caught the problem before it became severe. Others have been less fortunate. For a week in 1989, drug dealers using computers penetrated Piedmont Natural Gas Co.'s phone system and made hundreds of calls to such places as Colombia, Bolivia and Pakistan, costing the company nearly $70,000. When Piedmont refused to pay AT&T for the charges, AT&T sued. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount. r#QFP ------------------------------ From: vantek@aol.com Reply-To: Date: Sat, 08 Jan 94 21:09:31 EST Su ]qQbject: Dial 511 for Info Another news article to pass along ... The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News 9z ATLANTA -- Jan. 7--Within three months, consumers will be able to dial 511 to get information from an operator about classified ads and the Yellow Pages. The new service -- a joint venture between Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises Inc. and BellSouth Corp. -- was approved Thursday by the Georgia Public Service Commission. Want to buy a used pickup? Dial 511 and an operator will read any ads that help, or fax the information to you. You'll also be able to have the operator contact you as ads come in. "The simplicity of this is the great thing, and you have the added advantage of having an operator to help you," said Kristie Madara, a spokeswoman for BellSouth. "The plan is to not only be able to access this by phone, but eventually by personal computer." The venture, called Infoventures of Atlanta, will use the 511 telephone number the PSC awarded to Cox Enterprises in May. It's currently used to provide a range of information from sports scores to stock quotes for 50 cents a call. The new services will carry the same fee. The new services, which also would allow you to place electronic ads using 511, would be available to all consumers in Atlanta's local dialing area. If that dialing area is expanded -- as the PSC is considering -- the services likely would be expanded as well. "A lot of things are still in the planning stage right now, but I assume this to be the case," said James T. McKnight, vice president of information services for Cox Enterprises, which owns {The Atlanta Journal-Constitution}. Thursday's 4-to- 1 approval followed a sometimes heated public hearing and came over strong opposition from Williams Communications Inc., which was awarded a 711 number last month. Williams Communications, which is owned by Gov. Zell Miller's chief of staff, Virgil R. Williams, argued that: - If BellSouth financially subsidizes Cox Enterprises, then Cox has an unfair advantage over competitors in its use of the three-digit number. - The joint venture would restrain competition between Cox and BellSouth, eliminating service innovation. - BellSouth hasn't gone through the same application process for a three- digit number that Cox and others have. "We feel the objections are just an attempt to delay this," sai attorney Peter Canfield, who represented Cox Enterprises. "We believe that Williams, as a competitor, is trying to delay us from going forward." ------------------------------ From: lockhart@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (S. Wayne Lockhart) Subject: Console Products Organization: nbnet Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 23:37:30 GMT I am looking for products (hw/sw) that would run on a intelligent workstation (PC) and replicate the functionality of a Centrex or Meridian 1 Attendant Console. Please mail me direct so I don't miss any responses. Thanks, S. Wayne Lockhart lockhart@nbnet.nb.ca ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom Service on Guam From: skass@drunivac.drew.edu (Steve Kass) Date: 9 Jan 94 21:43:43 EST Organization: Drew Univ Academic Computing A friend of mine is moving to Guam soon, and I am looking for information for him. Does anyone know anything about telecommunications there? Information on Internet, phone service, television, radio, etc., on Guam and throughout the Marianas would be welcome. He will be coordinating many aspects of media at the University of Guam, and the information will help him with preparations here before moving. How to call Guam cheaply would also be nice to know (AT&T gives 70c/min through Reach Out Guam or something). Information about life on Guam in general is welcome, but should be send directly to my address, not posted here. Thanks! Steve Kass/Math & CS/Drew U/Madison NJ 07940/ 201-408-3614/skass@drew.drew.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Jan 1994 23:38:27 EST Reply-To: tmetro@vl.ci.net From: tmetro@vl.ci.net (Tom Metro) Subject: Source Wanted For Mini-PBXs On a few occasions I have browsed through magazines such as "Electronic Components & Test Instruments" (which are intended to provide a way for Taiwan and other Asian manufactures to reach an American, European, etc. audience) and I have ran across products called Mini-PBXs. These devices typically handle a few incoming lines and 4 to 6 extension phones. They sound ideal for a home or small business installation. They also look like something that would be priced in the $200 to $300 range. What I'd like to know is, are there American sources for these products -- either from US manufactures or imported? If not, why? I know that there are a variety of companies that make small PBX systems, but from what I have seen they haven't been that cheap and they also typically require special phones. I would also be interested to know about PBX cards for PCs that fall into this price range. Last time I looked there weren't any. Please respond by mail. I will summarize if there is interest. Thanks, Tom Metro tmetro@lynx.neu.edu Venture Logic tmetro@vl.ci.net Newton, MA, USA ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Jan 94 19:42:49 EST From: John Warne <19064001@SBACVM.SBAC.EDU> Organization: School Board of Alachua County, FL. Subject: All Wire Isn't The Same There has been discussion recently regarding crosstalk between pairs of wires in two-pair cable ("Two Phone Lines to One Phone Jack"). A recent BELLCORE bulletin pointed out that two-pair inside wire (AKA station wire or JKT) can be found to have been made in two quite different ways. The cross-sectional view of one wire reveals the plastic outer sheath is formed around the conductors in a cloverleaf-like pattern, holding a certain relationship between the conductors for the length of the cable (AT&T *used* to make their two-pair stuff this way), resulting in less crosstalk between pairs. The sheath of the other type (which AT&T is using now) does not hold the conductors in any particular alignment, but is a loose outer covering. This wire exhibits greater crosstalk when used for two telephone lines. You can detect the second type of cable easily -- it's smaller in overall diameter, the conductors slide within the jacket, and it simply *feels* cheap (editorial comment). In my opinion, the new stuff is junk, and, probably, at a higher cost to the purchaser. I have a roll of General Wire at the shop that is constructed in the "good old way," but several of our suppliers can't seem to find any more of it in their warehouses. I'd recommend the second pair in the new stuff be used only for backup in case the first pair is damaged in some way, and not used for a second service. Such is progress. John Warne Voice: 904-336-3522 FAX: 904-336-3744 Telecommunications Manager I-NET: 19064001@sbacvm.sbac.edu School Board of Alachua County CIS: 76424,2220 Fred C. Sivia, Jr. Support Center 3700-B NE 53rd Avenue Gainesville, Florida 32609 ------------------------------ From: dalk@login.dkuug.dk (Lars Kalsen) Subject: GSM Network Operators Date: 9 Jan 94 21:30:59 GMT Hi, Does anyone have a mailing-list with all the addresses of the GSM-network operators in Europe -- or maybe some of them. I would like to have the complete mailing-address and/or the fax-numbers. Please E-mail me the information if you have it -- or a copy by ordinary mail. Greetings from Denmark. Lars Kalsen Kingosvej 5 D 9490 Pandrup Denmark ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Jan 1994 22:46:19 EST From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: Unique Idea: Error Message for TDDs Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA By accident I found something new and unusual. Someone suggested that one of the things being done was to not use as prefixes any number that matches an area code touching the one in question, e.g. in the 301 area code there should not be a 302 or any of the prefixes from Pennsylvania that touch it (since before it was split, 301 touched Delaware). Well, to test it I tried the other area code in Virginia. The one touching 301 is Northern Virginia -- 703. The one in Richmond is 804. The system will not allow me to dial a number with 804 (from a 301 area-code number) unless I dial ten digits, in which case I get the "You must first dial a 1" recording. But I can dial the local area code, so I dialed 301-804 and then picked a random number -- 5000. 1234 and 1000 also give the same recording: "We're sorry, because of an area code change, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Dial again using area code 410. Please make a note of this change. The following tones are for TDD users: " Then, on a TDD device we have in our office, the message comes across "PLS USE 410 AREA". Unique idea -- putting a TDD message into an error recording -- and I'm surprised that I've never heard it done before. ------------------------------ From: ray.mcguigan@ashe.cs.tcd.ie (Ray Mc Guigan) Subject: Computer-Telephony Integration Organization: Trinity College Dublin Date: Sat, 8 Jan 1994 14:31:03 GMT A friend has a number of queries relating to computer-telephone integration. Specifically: Were IBM the first company to link a computer to a switch when in 1969 they linked their PABX 2750 to mainframes? Does anyone have the technical details of these links and any information on the types of applications which used them? Any general references to Computer-Telephony Integration would be greatly appreciated. Please reply to email if possible. Thanks, Ray Mc Guigan ray.mcguigan@ashe.cs.tcd.ie Dept of Computer Science Tel: (+ 353 1) 702 2361 Trinity College, Dublin. Fax: (+ 353 1) 677 2204 Republic of Ireland ------------------------------ From: weisingr@netcom.com (Richard Weisinger) Subject: Network Sources of Telephony Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Sat, 8 Jan 1994 14:55:22 GMT I'm looking for more information about Computer Telephony. Although a lot of the topics which show up in this group are related, I was wondering if someone could point me towards other sources. Thanks, Dick Weisinger weisingr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: jsw@ivgate.omahug.org (Jack Winslade) Subject: Long Distance CLID is Here Date: Sat, 8 Jan 1994 00:12:54 CST I had quite a surprise today when I was looking over the CLID log. I saw an entry of 513-247-xxxx. This is, of course, here in Omaha on the 402-896 prefix. I recognized the caller's name and number as being correct, so I can assume that LD CLID is now working in some cases over some LD carriers. About nine months ago on a CO tour, the CO tech said that this feature would be coming shortly. This is the first time I have actually seen this in action. Good day, JSW [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In Chicago we have had inter-LATA Caller-ID on an intermittent basis for about a year. It is sent here by some exchanges in other cities, but not by all or even a majority yet. Minneapolis comes to mind as one place where I've seen it a lot. Area code 612 numbers show up here when I get those calls. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #20 ***************************** ****************************************************************************** Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253