TELECOM Digest Thu, 13 Jan 94 01:25:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 28 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson PacTel Announcement (Alex Cena) ISDN: Coming Soon to my House? (Robert L. McMillin) Shannon's Law (was Re: Hayes' New Modem) (Jakob Hummes) Communications Over Power Lines (Stewart Fist) Internet<->FIDOnet Mail/File Transfer (Jim Groeneveld) Unmetered Local Service (Lars Poulsen) New AT&T Bell Labs WWW Server (comp.dcom.cell-relay via Monty Solomon) Anyone Know Anything About GTE-4600 (Min Hu) Phonebook on CD-ROM/Internet? (Claes Gussing) New York Telephone Issuing "New" Rotary Phones (Kriston Rehberg) FCC Report on LD Carrier Growth (Stephen Goodman) Sprint VoiceCard - Maybe Not Such a Good Thing? (goodmans@delphi.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jan 94 12:27:00 EST From: Alex Cena Subject: PacTel Announcement From a PacTel Cellular Press Release: 01/12 PacTel Cellular announces plans for introducing digital cellular service; company signs contract with Motorola in preparation for launching CDMA system in Los Angeles. WALNUT CREEK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- PacTel Cellular today announced plans to invest nearly $250 million over the next five years to build its Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital cellular networks in California and Georgia. The company will launch its first commercial CDMA system in Los Angeles in early 1995. Digital cellular technology offers a platform for introducing many important new wireless services for business and consumers: text messaging, in-building coverage, voice mail notification, data communications, fax, and one-number calling. The advent of CDMA will help fuel the growth of personal communications services, as digital systems provide the capacity to serve the mass market and enable new customers to take advantage of the benefits of tetherless communications. As part of its digital deployment plans, PacTel Cellular announced it has signed a definitive agreement with Motorola to purchase CDMA network infastructure equipment for use in the greater Los Angeles area. The value of the Los Angeles contract is initially about $70 million and could reach $130 million by the year 2000. In addition to Los Angeles, PacTel plans to deploy CDMA in San Diego, Sacramento and Atlanta over the next three years, using Motorola infrastructure equipment. "We're committed to maintaining our strong leadership position in the wireless industry," said Sam Ginn, chairman and chief executive officer of PacTel Corporation. "By investing in this new digital technology, we're demonstrating our intent to build a high-quality cellular network that will meet our customers' needs cost-effectively. Our current investment in CDMA will allow us to reduce our cost structure significantly in the future." "Although new players are entering the personal communications marketplace, we don't believe their services will provide any advantages over our digital cellular technology," added Lee Cox, president and chief operating officer of PacTel Corporation. "Given our 10 years of experience building, operating and marketing cellular service in L.A. -- one of the country's most demanding markets -- we feel that we're well positioned to compete successfully against the new entrants." PacTel will begin installing the Motorola equipment in early 1994, with pre-commercial service slated to begin by mid-year. The company intends to conduct comprehensive testing before launching commercial service. By the end of 1995, the digital network will completely cover PacTel's Los Angeles market, a region of nearly 11,000 square miles, making this the largest CDMA infastructure deployment contract announced to date. "Motorola is pleased to have won this commercial contract to deploy CDMA throughout an entire city -- one of the largest in the United States," said Jack Scanlon, senior vice president and general manager, Motorola Cellular Infastructure Group. "We are confident Motorola's CDMA technology will provide the basis for significant improvements in call quality and new calling services for PacTel customers. CDMA will redefine cellular service during the second half of the '90s." "We welcome Motorola's strong commitment to CDMA technology," said Craig Farrill, vice president of technology planning and development for PacTel Corporation. "Based on our work together over the past four years, we feel confident that Motorola will support our goal of delivering a technically superior network, quickly and economically." "By combining CDMA digital technology with Motorola's advanced networking capabilities, we'll be able to provide cellular customers with an array of highly portable personal communications services," Farrill explained. "For example, customers will have control over how and when their calls reach them, whether they're in their home markets or traveling." Under the agreement, PacTel will purchase Motorola's new SC(TM)9600 digital base stations, cellular base station controllers, and digital switching platforms manufactured for Motorola by DSC Communications Corporation. Due to CDMA's dramatic capacity increases, the Los Angeles network eventually will be able to serve about four million customers, or more than 25 percent of the region's entire population of 15 million. PacTel will offer dual-mode phones which can operate on its new digital network as well as the existing analog system, providing customers with a smooth transition to CDMA technology. During the pre-commercial phase in Los Angeles, PacTel plans to use Motorola's prototype and pre-commercial dual-mode CDMA handsets. PacTel previously announced agreements to purchase a total of 50,000 dual-mode phones from OKI telecom (30,000 phones), Hyundai (10,000 phones) and Maxon (10,000 phones). The company expects to complete similar CDMA agreements with other subscriber equipment manufacturers in the near future. Some of PacTel's wireless competitors in Los Angeles have recently deployed other forms of digital technology. "We know from our ongoing market research that customers place the highest priority on voice quality and network coverage," commented Cox. "Since we're more interested in offering the best digital technology than being first to market, we've chosen a carefully managed process of testing and refining our network. We think it's clearly worth the wait for CDMA and the long-term benefits it offers." To expand its customers' cellular coverage when they're traveling in the United States and Canada, PacTel is a member of MobiLink (SM), an alliance of 15 cellular companies. MobiLink has set common service standards to ensure consistent cellular quality and service nationwide. The MobiLink national network already reaches nearly 85% of the population of the United States and Canada and expects to cover virtually all of North America through licensing agreements. With MobiLink, PacTel Cellular customers using dual-mode CDMA phones will enjoy nationwide coverage with a single handset. In 1989 PacTel was the first cellular carrier to field test CDMA, which is based on technology developed to provide secure communications for the military. Its wideband channel, advanced receiver technology and sophisticated encoding scheme result in a signal that is highly resistant to interference and eavesdropping. Some of CDMA's advantages over existing analog technology include improved voice quality, broader coverage, enhanced privacy, capacity increases of at least tenfold, and the potential for expanded wireless data and messaging services. Since 1990, PacTel and Motorola have been testing CDMA using PacTel's San Diego network in conjunction with Qualcomm Inc., and a group of other carriers. PacTel Corporation, based in Walnut Creek, operates cellular, paging, vehicle location and international wireless ventures in a number of the world's best markets. PacTel Corporation and PacTel Cellular are subsidiaries of Pacific Telesis Group, a worldwide diversified telecommunications corporation based in San Francisco. On December 3, following the third-largest initial public offering in U.S. history, PacTel Corporation began trading on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges under the symbol PTW. Subject to final approval from the Pacific Telesis board of directors and certain other conditions, Pacific Telesis plans to spin off PacTel as a completely independent company in the first half of 1994. Motorola is one of the world's leading providers of wireless communications and electronic equipment, systems, components and services for worldwide markets. Products include two-way radios, pages, personal communications systems, cellular telephones and systems, semiconductors, defense and aerospace electronics, automobile and industrial electronics, computers, data communications and information processing and handling equipment. Sales in 1992 were $13.3 billion. CONTACT: PacTel Corporation Susan Rosenberg, 510/210-3910 or Motorola Scott Wyman, 708/632-4691 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jan 94 06:53 PST From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: ISDN: Coming Soon to my House? The thread about quantization and signal/noise on a POTS line has me thinking that maybe all this will be increasingly obsolete. According to the 800 number posted recently on this forum, my switch is set up to handle ISDN! A friend who is an authorized Pac*Bell digital services reseller arranged for some techs to come out and do a site survey; this means they'll check the line loss to see whether the existing copper can support ISDN without an additional signal boost. According to my friend, ISDN is currently tarriffed in California under a provisional business class of service, which means that I'll pay probably a little more per month ($35, I recall) than I might if there were an ISDN available under a residential service plan. Nonetheless, it does seem quite reasonable given the potential benefits. The ISDN they're selling will be two B and one D channels. If things go well and they can install this service, I'll let you all know how this goes. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: hummes@osf.org (Jakob Hummes) Subject: Shannon's Law (was Re: Hayes' New Modem) Date: 12 Jan 1994 19:07:24 GMT Organization: Open Software Foundation In article , goldstein@carafe.tay2. dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) writes: > In article hummes@osf.org (Jakob > Hummes) writes: >> ...But there is an absolute limit (Shannon's Law). The >> question was about the transmission over a *real* phone line. And that >> means there exists *noise*. The limit of bps is proportional to the >> logarithm of the signal to noise ratio. Unfortunately I don't remember >> the constant factors. > Shannon's law is, in plaintext, > BPS(max) = Bw * log(2)((1+S)/N) > That is, take the signal-to-noise ration (adding 1 to signal, so a > negative SNR has some information present) and represent it as a power > of 2. Multiply by bandwidth (in Hz) and you get BPS. Of course, not! But now I remember Shannon's Law (you have placed wrong the brackets): BPS(max) = Bw * log(2)(1+(S/N)) The addition of 1 is needed to unable a negative BPS-rate, which would be nonsense. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And of course Murphy's Law says that when you are attempting to copy something down in plain ASCII text for transmission to a computer network you'll always get some one or more parts of it bass-ackwards to confound the readers even more than they are already. That error might have been Goldstein's or it might have been mine. Regrets extended. Your editor, Murphy.] ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jan 94 05:07:03 EST From: Stewart Fist <100033.2145@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Communication Over Power Lines? James H. Haynes writes: > Then there are articles in magazines from time to time, and maybe > commercial products you can buy, that use the 120v house wiring for > conductors; but in that case the interest is in communicating just > within the building, or maybe to nearby houses connected to the same > transformer. I don't think you'll get carrier frequencies to go > through a power transformer and on to the high-voltage side and back > through another transformer to the 120v side on another circuit. Back in my old paper files somewhere I have a product-test article from an American computer magazine about a LAN system that did just that (I can't find it). From memory, the author said that the system worked quite well at a relatively low speed, but was limited in distance to the first transformer in the street. It seems to me that today, with adaptive filtering and the ability to handle higher frequences -- plus digital echo-cancellation, etc. -- these systems may be worth examining again. You'd need a bit of collision detection, but for small businesses and home use this might be the cheap way to tie together a few PCs and a printer. A Sydney, Australia, company called TCG Pty Ltd (fax +612 319 3629) makes a simple one-way power-line-carried system called 'ILID' which uses the data control of light circuits in supermarkets to transmit optical signals to addressable shelf displays. The transmitter sends out data packets through the power lines, the light tubes in the store then translate these to optical packets, which are then received by small photocell-powered LCD screen displays on the shelves. It gives them a simple way to update prices. ------------------------------ From: groeneveld@cmi.tno.nl (Jim Groeneveld CMI-TNO Leiden NL) Subject: Internet <- > FIDOnet Mail/File Transfer Date: Wed, 12 Jan 94 10:50:18 MET I found your address in mailings concerning the subject Internet<-> FIDOnet. So that's why I'm addressing you presently with some Q's. I would like to have some information on transferring mail between Internet/Bitnet and FIDOnet: 1. are there other, more direct forms of addressing a mail from FIDOnet to Internet and Bitnet? I know the form "uucp at number" with the first separated message line "To: internet_address". With this form of addressing it is not possible for a point (using Dutchie) to add the addressee to his/her node list. Only uucp gets added (the first time). In the Dutchie documentation there is a remark in which the form "uucp#internet_address" is stated. Is that a valid form? It would allow different internet addresses being added to a FIDOnet node list at a point. 2. With the form "uucp at number" what gateway FIDOnet numbers are available in the US and Europe? Must they all be called "uucp"? 3. What gateway(s) is/are used when sending from Internet/Bitnet to FIDOnet using the address form First.Last@Pp.Ff.Nn.Zz.FIDOnet.org ? 4. What happens if the Pp.Ff.Nn.Zz do not match First.Last? 5. What is the average transfer time from sender to recipient? A day? 6. How should (binary) files be transferred? UUEncoded or so? 7. Are FIDOnet users (especially points) able to order files from the SIMTEL collection or other public file systems? If yes, how? I hope this doesn't bother you too much, Regards, Y. (Jim) Groeneveld, TNO Institute for Preventive Health Research, department of Application of Technology in Health Care, (IPG-TNO, TTG) P.O.Box 124, 2300 AC Leiden, NL, (+31)71-181810 groeneveld@cmi.tno.nl, groeneveld@tno.nl ------------------------------ From: lars@Eskimo.CPH.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Unmetered Local Service Organization: CMC Network Products, Copenhagen DENMARK Date: Wed, 12 Jan 94 13:35:33 GMT A. Padgett Peterson (padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com) wrote: >> everywhere I go I see regional carriers attempting to eliminate >> "flat" and "unmetered" plans. As telecommuting and information >> highway access begins to take hold, the elimination of unmetered >> local service is the biggest threat to individual connectivity that I >> can imagine. About two years ago, I asked telecom readers for information about local rates, because I had the same fear. My results indicated that flat-rate local calling is readily available everywhere. In article dave_oshea@wiltel.com (Dave O'Shea) writes: > though I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see some alternative > local loop providers selling a "flat-rate"-type service to people who > are priced out of the market by the LEC's. I rather doubt it; residential flat rate local calling is justified as a giveaway of excess capacity that must be there in order to serve the business community during "prime time". Alternate providers would tend to establish rate structures that discourage residential customers so that they don't have to build local plant to serve the low-volume customers. > One of the big reasons that long distance rates seem to "bottom out" > somewhere in the 10 cents/minute rate, even for the most humongous > customers is that the LD carriers have to pay most of that to the LEC > for the local loop. Perhaps as the RBOCs are able to recoup something > for those millions of unbillable hours of local connect time, this > will ease up. There is no inherent reason that a telco under rate cap (de)regulation will lower the access charges charged to IXCs just because they obtain a new revenue stream somewhere else. On the other hand, a rational rate structure would charge the IXC exactly the same as a local customer for what is essentially a local call at each end of the long-distance call. >> threat would be to the infant telecommuting industry and the home >> office which relies on unlimited local service and the best means for >> achieving the Clinton/Gore "20% reduction in commuting" would go up in >> smoke. > If an employee is worth telecommuting, even a $4/hour connection > charge is fairly minor in the face of, say, a $65,000 salary/benefits > package. Even if you get charged that for eight hours a day, it's minor. > Most employees who would best benefit from telecommuting are the ones > who are well into long-distance calling areas. Many telecommuters will have a local call to an internet carrier's local Point Of Presence. Eight hours at $4/hour is $32 a day. This is at least the equivalent of another hour's salary. Hardly negligible. >> only advantage that I can see for the consumer would be that with >> metered service, the subscriber would have a right to a call detail >> listing the individual calls by called number, time, and duration. Hahahaha hahaha ha ha ... he ho hummmm ... Here in Denmark, local calls have been metered for many, many years -- by the pulse method. Itemized billing is NOT available, and there would be an uproar from office workers -- on privacy grounds -- if the telco were to start itemizing bills. Itemized billing, like flat rate local calling -- is a feature of the American telephone system; it has ended up that way mostly by accident. Certainly there is no logic that says subscribers have the right to an itemized bill. (There may, however, in many jurisdictions be a PUC regulation saying so.) Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@CMC.COM CMC Network Products Phone: (011-) +45-31 49 81 08 Hvidovre Strandvej 72 B Telefax: +45-31 49 83 08 DK-2650 Hvidovre, DENMARK Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 02:37:17 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New AT&T Bell Labs WWW server FYI. From: hgs@allegra.att.com (Henning G. Schulzrinne) Newsgroups: comp.archives Subject: [comp.dcom.cell-relay] New AT&T Bell Labs WWW server Date: 10 Jan 1994 14:42:25 +0100 Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ Sender: x920031@rubb.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de Message-ID: <2grm01$kk4@rubb.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> Archive-Name: auto/comp.dcom.cell-relay/New-AT-T-Bell-Labs-WWW-server A new WWW server at AT&T Bell Laboratories is now available for use: http://www.research.att.com/ Note that this is NOT an ftp server. Its current offerings include: - a bibliography of about 3000 entries covering computer networks and performance evaluation, about 1700 of which have abstracts; some entries have links to PostScript copies of the paper. (Click on the highlighted title to retrieve the paper.) The database can be searched by specifying words contained in title, author, abstract, etc. For example, 'Smith 1992' will extract all papers (co)authored by Smith in 1992. Submissions of BibTeX records for the database are strongly encouraged, with abstracts and keywords if possible. [Implementation: The database is stored in BibTeX format, with a fully inverted index. A special BibTeX style file translates the selected entries into HTML, with some postprocessing for accented characters and the like.] - Calls for papers for special issues of IEEE JSAC, one of them on the Internet. Submission guidelines are there, too. - A FAQ (HTMLified) for the Internet MBONE. Henning Schulzrinne (hgs@research.att.com) ------------------------------ From: Min Hu Subject: Anyone Know Anything About GTE-4600 Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 3:22:43 GMT Hi, Recently, my friends and I required two large PBX system GTD-4600 made by GTE. I am planning to ship them to China. But I have following unclear spots needed to be sorted out. Any help will be greatly appreciated. 1. If these system will be compatible to Chinese telephone system? 2. What is the market value of GTD-4600 system? (made in 1985 and 1987 with fully equiped lines of 8500 and 5000) 3. How diffcult the de-installation and installation of the system will be? Should I pay big bucks to hire contactor to do job? Or I should risk to bring some very experienced Chinese enginers to do the de-installation and installation? 4. The working voltage for the battery charger of the present system is 110-240 v with 60 Hertz, while the Chinese working power suply is 220 v with 50 Hertz. Will the present charger be able used over there? 5. How this system compare with AT&T system? Will it equivalent to some models by AT&T, say 2ESS or 3ESS? 6. Any suggestions? MIN ------------------------------ From: ebcguss@ebc.ericsson.se (Claes Gussing) Subject: Phonebook on CD-ROM/Internet? Reply-To: ebcguss@ebc.ericsson.se Organization: Ericsson Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 05:15:16 GMT Hi there, I was wondering if one can get the phonebook on CD-ROM in the U.S? I know this wouldn't work in Sweden, since we have some law about keeping personal data on automatically readable media (as the phone- book wouldn't be, with OCR ...). I thought maybe in the U.S. this would work. A CD-ROM carries 650 Mbyte of memory, so some 5-10 disks should carry the whole U.S! Also, I was wondering if is possible to find a phonenumber on some Internet-site with automatic reply. Maybe something like: To: phonebook@some.site.us Subject: me@my.site.se Reply-to: State: Texas City: Dallas First_Name: John Last_Name: Doe Business: Company: Street: Box: Zip: 76543 Phone: where one can leave a few blanks. The last input, 'Phone:', if you know the number, and want's to know who it belongs. If there are more than i.e. 100 matches, one gets a reply saying "insufficiant description". Another search-argument could be state, city and a business, i.e Hotels, Restaurants, etc. That way one could achieve a sort of yellow-pages on-line! This site could be realized with a computer and a CD-ROM setup like presented above. Comments? Claes ebcguss@ebc.ericsson.se ------------------------------ Subject: New York Telephone Issuing "New" Rotary Phones Reply-To: krehberg@vnet.IBM.COM Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 02:43:48 GMT From: V2ENA81%OWEGO@zeta.eecs.nwu.edu (This is paraphrased from the AP Wire) New York Telephone (now NYNEX) in New York City has elected to install rotary-dial phones, on request, in communities and areas where other drug fighting measures have failed. They are installing them because they say that rotary phones can't be used on the pager services that these drug dealers use to communicate. (Begin Commentary) What I would like to know is, doesn't NYNEX realize that these people will simply walk into their local Radio Shack and pick up a personal tone dialer designed specifically for dialing touch tones on these "new" rotary-only lines? Is anyone going to tell NYNEX that it is simply wasting its and its customers' money? I believe the phones also won't receive calls anymore (that service exists even here in sleepy Binghamton), but changing to rotary dialers are ridiculous! Kriston J. Rehberg Internet External :krehberg@vnet.ibm.com Associate Programmer/Analyst FSC Internal RSCS :V2ENA81 AT OWEGO ENSCO, Incorporated FSC Internal AFS :v1ena81@legend.endicott Loral Federal Systems Co, Owego, NY Tel: 607-751-2180 :Tieline: 662-2180 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Telco knows very well what you are saying is correct. It makes these adjustments (rotary dial, no incoming service, no coin-paid calls during overnight hours) to accomodate the neighborhood organizations in their fight in the 'war on drugs' and to appease the local politicians who decide on municipal ordinances regards payphones who in turn are trying to appease their voters. Telco is making nothing on the deal except for community goodwill from the part of the community which seems to be the largest and noisiest. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 00:32 EST From: Stephen Goodman <0003945654@mcimail.com> Subject: FCC Report on LD Carrier Growth TELECOMMUNICATIONS REPORTS [TE11] via NewsNet Monday January 10, 1994 The number of long distance lines "presubscribed" to MCI Telecommunications Corp. grew at a faster rate during the one-year period ending in June, 1993, than in any comparable period in the past three years, according to an FCC report. "Long Distance Market Shares," a quarterly report published by the Commission's Industry Analysis Division, noted a 103% annual increase in MCI's presubscribed lines, from 19.19 million in June, 1992, to 21.17 million in June, 1993. During the same period AT&T's presubscribed lines grew by 0.4%, from 101.38 million to 101.77 million. Sprint Communications Co. L.P.'s lines grew by 2.3%, from 8.42 million to 8.62 million. Copies of the report are available for review at the Industry Analysis Division reference room, 1250 23rd St., N.W., Washington, and can be purchased by calling 202/857-3800. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 01:00:12 EDT From: GOODMANS@delphi.com Subject: Sprint VoiceCard - Maybe Not Such a Good Thing? I was intrigued by the Sprint commericals on their voicecard and called them to get more information. I was quickly turned off from it after speaking with one of their reps: To use it you dial an 800 number;announce your SSN plus 1 digit; announce the programmed number (ie call joe) I don't know about you but I don't want to announce my SSN to the world, especially in a crowded airport! Also: the surcharge per call is $1.00, its limited to domestic calls only, charged $5 a month, have to be a Sprint Dial 1 customer, and the list is limited to 10 people. It does not have any of the features the AT&T and MCI card have: information services (weather, news) and conference calling. What does everyone else think? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #28 ***************************** ****************************************************************************** Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253