TELECOM Digest Tue, 1 Feb 94 09:37:30 CST Volume 14 : Issue 54 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC $crews Pac Bell in PCS Race (Van Hefner) More Information on CSInt'l Dial-Back Service (Wolf Paul) What is Datex-M? (Dave Pattison) Business Phone System Questions (Daniel Neil Roberts) BBS Getting Internet Mail (Marcus Blankenship) NT-Meridian vs AT&T (Jeff Bennington) Audio Compression -> apt-X (Lauren Weinstein) Telephone Service During the Quake (Lauren Weinstein) Clipper Petition (Dave Banisar) Discount Long-Distance Digest (Van Hefner) Administrivia: Mail to the Digest (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: vantek@aol.com Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 03:35:41 EST Subject: FCC $crews Pac Bell in PCS Race Pacific Telesis May Be Unplugged from New Market By Clint Swett, {The Sacramento Bee}, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jan. 31 -- A little known decision issued last month by the Federal Communications Commission has enraged Pacific Telesis and could hobble the company in its bid to become a major player in what promises to be the next generation of wireless communications. The FCC is expected to formalize a decision today to award a free license to Cox Enterprises to serve the lucrative Southern California market with Personal Communications Services (PCS). Two other companies also were awarded free licenses -- one to serve New York, which is considered the most lucrative franchise in the nation, and the other to serve Washington, D.C. PCS, a type of cellular phone technology, involves low-power wireless communications that some experts say will cost about half of what cellular does today yet offer more features. They predict that PCS technology could in a few years make wireless phones as common as standard phones are today. Cox, a media conglomerate based in Atlanta, was handed one of two licenses to be awarded in Southern California -- considered one of the crown jewels of the wireless communications market. The other will be sold at an auction scheduled for May. All the heavyweights in the communications industry -- including AT&T, the regional Bells and MCI -- are expected to join the bidding, driving the price for the remaining license toward $1 billion. What irks Pacific Telesis Group officials is that while it slugs it out for the lone remaining Southern California license, Cox paid nothing for its franchise. "It's not just unfair to us, it's unfair to any other competitor," said PacTel spokesman Michael Runzler. He said that by receiving a free license, Cox gains a huge advantage over its potential competitors, who must recoup the hundreds of millions they will spend on buying one of the coveted licenses. In addition, Cox gets a head start in deploying its PCS network because it already knows it has won a license, while other companies must wait for the May auction. Cox's windfall came as a result of an FCC rule called "Pioneer Preference." Under that rule, companies were invited to demonstrate innovative technologies that would further the advance of PCS. Of the 50 that applied, three were chosen and awarded lucrative licenses. PacTel was among the 47 that lost out. Cox, which owns cable television systems in San Diego, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara and Eureka, demonstrated a technology in which wireless phone conversations could be sent to and from devices attached to their cable lines. The signals would be routed through the lines to phone switching equipment and then out to the phone network. "I think we deserve that leg up based on the testing (and development) we did, " said David Andersen, Cox's vice president of corporate affairs. "Our device allows us to use infrastructure of existing cable TV systems to provide service in a cost-efficient and expeditious way." He said Cox has not determined when it will deploy its PCS technology. More than 2,000 smaller, less powerful licenses remain to be awarded throughout the country. But only two licenses for the 30 megahertz blocks of the radio spectrum -- which can carry the most information and handle the most customers -- will be issued for each of 49 major metropolitan areas. And Cox has one of four for California already sewn up. Winning 30 megahertz licenses in Southern California and Northern California is especially important for PacTel, said Michael Killen, a telecommunications consultant in Palo Alto. With one of the four licenses for those areas already gone, its chances have decreased, he said. Killen, who advises companies on strategies to follow when bidding for PCS licenses, said since PacTel has avoided branching into other geographic areas, it must retain leadership in its backyard. "The next growth area in the telephone business, the next generation of phone service, will be PCS," Killen predicted. "If they don't win that license they will be prohibited from competing for the next generation of growth business." In fact, when PacTel decided to spin off its cellular business into a separate company, one of the factors driving that decision was that cellular companies will be prohibited from getting the coveted 30 megahertz licenses in areas they already serve with cellular. "That 30 megahertz has so much spectrum and covers such a big area, whoever gets the 30 has incredible advantage over its competitors," Killen said. Runzler of PacTel wouldn't go that far, but did allow, "The 30 megahertz frequencies are what we're most interested in." The pioneer preference awards could face court challenges, industry experts predict. PacTel already has written a letter to the FCC, disputing the decision on the basis that the winners allegedly made improper contact with FCC commissioners. "Challenges could occur," predicted PacTel's Runzler, who said the company would await the FCC's final decision before making any further decisions. Another PacTel complaint centers on the loss of revenue to the federal government that comes from handing out licenses that could be auctioned off for more than $2 billion. "It's unfair to taxpayers who have a right to think that the deficit is going to go down," Runzler said. He said PacTel's pioneer preference application included a provision that all winners pay a basic price for the frequencies they receive. But Rodney Small, an economist at the FCC's division of frequency allocation, said the recent federal budget bill directed the FCC to award the pioneer preferences according to merit, and without regard to potentially lost revenue. ----------------- (Geez, what a rip-off! We are serviced by Cox Cable here in Eureka, CA and I'm pretty sure Cox isn't the least bit interested in serving US with PCS! We're also served by Pac Bell here as well, and I'm sure our area isn't 'lucrative' enough for them either. Why is it these 'pioneers' are being given the most financially lucrative cities to operate in? It's not like those areas really NEED improved, and expanded services. Great, my tax dollars are going to be spent on subsidizing a poor company like Cox Cable to provide state-of-the-art expanded communications services to a bunch of 'communications spoiled' areas like New York, L.A., and D.C. Meanwhile I get sub-standard, overpriced CATV service from Cox, and Pac Bell says that POSSIBLY we'll have ISDN service available in my area in late 1996! And their target dates are are always a bit on the optimistic side! Oh well, just another collapsed overpass on country's information superhighway). Van Hefner Vantek Communications vantek@aol.com ------------------------------ From: cc_paul@aaf.alcatel.at (Wolf Paul) Subject: More Information on CSInt'l Dial-Back Service Organization: Alcatel Austria Research Centre Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 13:00:49 GMT After Pat commented that the service he represents (Telepassport) has a monthly minimum usage charge, I sent a query to Michael D. Beatty of Communication Services International. Here is part of my query and his reply: Me: > 1. Your information file does not say whether there is some setup Me: > charge for an account with you, or some fixed monthly charge or Me: > monthly minimum usage charge. Pat Townsend pointed out that the Me: > US Fibercom TelePassport service he sells has a monthly minimum charge Me: > of $25, "use it or lose it"; does your service have such charges? MDB: Comments: there is no charge to set up an account, and a charge of MDB: $27.50 minimum per month for usage and to encourage such. I also pointed out to him, and will point out in this forum that in many countries a consumer would get charged for the initial call to the dial-back provider, even though there would never be a connection established. To use Austria as an example, only the newer digital switches have call supervision, on the older switches you get charged for a local call from the time you pick up the receiver, and for the long distance call from the time you finish dialling. Since you'd get charged for at least one full minute for such a call, using a dial-back service for individual short calls seems to be rather uneconomical. As Pat said, it's not for small-time users. Similarly, BTW, it is no longer cheaper to call the US from Austria using USA-Direct (at least the AT&T variety) than calling at PTT rates. (But at least there is no monthly minimum charge on an AT&T card). Regards, Wolf N. Paul, Computer Center wnp@aaf.alcatel.at Alcatel Austria Research Center +43-1-391621-122 (w) Ruthnergasse 1-7 +43-1-391452 (fax) A-1210 Vienna-Austria/Europe +43-1-2206481 (h) ------------------------------ From: pattison%xstacy.dnet.dec.com@nntpd.lkg.dec.com (Dave) Subject: What is Datex-M? Date: 1 Feb 1994 12:38:34 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Reply-To: pattison%xstacy.dnet.dec.com@nntpd.lkg.dec.com (Dave) Can anyone tell me anything about Datex-M? I know it's something developed by Deutsche Bundespost Telekom, and that it is ATM-based, but I'd like more information, such as for instance service details, AVAILABILITY and pricing. Thanks, Dave Pattison pattison@xstacy.enet.dec.com ------------------------------ From: neilr@netcom.com (Daniel Neil Roberts) Subject: Business Phone System Questions Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 00:31:06 GMT I have been suddenly put in charge of finding a phone system for one of our offices in Florida and hoped that I could get some advice from this group about evaluating systems. In general, I want the following: -About 30 extensions and 16 incoming lines with capacity to grow at least double. -Hands free operation on all extension phones, display on about 12 of them. -All of what I take to be the standard goodies such as call groups, follow-me forwarding, a good operator console, smart "holds", etc. I won't bore you with the details of my requirements as dictated to me, but I was wondering if any readers here could reccomend particular vendors or models or tell me which ones to avoid. For reference, they have apparently been given a quote for a TelRad digital key pbx and a digital Legend (Merlin) AT&T system, both including voice mail. Both of the quotes were delivered without any formal requirements analysis that I am aware of, and both of them are in the $23k to $25k range. I don't know if these prices are even within a mile of reasonable yet ... Any advice will be appreciated, email is fine. D. Neil Roberts neilr@netcom.com CI$:17051,1073 neil@mcs.com Child Health Systems,Inc. 1909 S. Highland #100C Lombard, IL 60148 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 16:26:22 PST From: blankenm@seq.oit.osshe.edu Subject: BBS Getting Internet Mail A friend and I are looking into setting up a BBS that we would like to have access to Internet e-mail. Just something where once/twice a day we connect to a host and send/get messages out the gate. Is this possible/available/done anywhere else? If this is not, just how much overhead is required to hook up with a full connection? Leased line? Marcus Blankenship Alpha-Telcom Inc Payphone Tech. Grants Pass, OR [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No leased or other special lines are needed. There are BBS software packages available -- many for free -- which have a UUCP-style interface built into them which allows the BBS to call and exchange mail/news with some other site. Waffle is one such program, and there is a newsgroup devoted to it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jgb@mcm.com (Jeff Bennington) Subject: NT-Meridian vs AT&T Reply-To: jgb@mcm.com (Jeff Bennington) Organization: Mellon Capital Management Corp., San Francisco Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 04:42:41 GMT My company is about to choose either an AT&T Generic 3i or a Northern Telecom Meridian-1/Option 11 PBX as a replacement for our Isotek/228 switch. If you have personal experience with either PBX (ups, downs, gotchas, etc.) and/or integration experience with an Octel ASPEN (Branch XL) or VMX-200 voice messaging platform with either of these PBXs please let me know. Also, if you've worked with PacTel/Meridian, or AT&T and can comment on their service/support, please let me know. Please reply via email: jgb@mcm.com Many thanks! Jeff Bennington, Systems Administrator jgb@mcm.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 Jan 94 19:03:00 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Audio Compression -> apt-X A realtime (hardware-based) digital audio compression system that has seen considerable acceptance in pro-audio applications (especially due to its comparative tolerance to multiple encode/decode cycles) is the "apt-X" system from Audio Processing Technology (APT). They have a wide line of related products including Mac/PC-based cards. Some of their products have already been used to allow, for example, a BBC music program presenter to operate from his home on a regular basis over ISDN circuits. APT can be reached at +1 (213) 463 2963. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jan 94 23:53:00 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Telephone Service During the Quake It's worth noting that most telephone service during the L.A. quake was amazingly stable. At no point were either GTE nor PacBell services with which I have to work disrupted on any of many lines, except for circuit overload conditions on both companies' switches (and such overload could hardly be unexpected under the circumstances). Getting dialtone took patience, and the PacBell Canoga Park CO service area (just a few miles from the epicenter) required multiple attempts to complete even local calls during some periods, especially the morning of the day *after* the quake when, apparently, everyone in the area (including me) was attempting to reach every manner of plumber, electrician, and the like. So, while power failed for most of the day, and water was severely disrupted in some areas, phone service by both companies was, overall, a bright spot. HOWEVER, it is about time that the telcos start informing the public the proper manner to get dialtone in load situations. Yes, during an emergency, the best policy is to stay off the phone unless you really need it. But often the people who DO need it *think* their phones are "broken" because they don't get an immediate dialtone when they pick up the handset. They keep picking it up and hanging up, losing their place in the queue each time. It needs to become general knowledge that in the vast majority of cases, if your line is still hooked up at all (and that can be determined by the presence of sidetone) you may need to *wait* for dialtone. Maybe it'll take 30 seconds. Maybe it'll take a minute or two or even longer. But most of the people who thought they were unable to place calls due to "broken phones" simply didn't know that they needed to wait. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Organization: CPSR Washington Office From: Dave Banisar Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 15:59:20 EST Subject: Clipper Petition [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My thanks to Monty Solomon and others who sent this identical message from other places where they saw it. We'll just go with the original instead. PAT] Electronic Petition to Oppose Clipper Please Distribute Widely On January 24, many of the nation's leading experts in cryptography and computer security wrote President Clinton and asked him to withdraw the Clipper proposal. The public response to the letter has been extremely favorable, including coverage in the {New York Times} and numerous computer and security trade magazines. Many people have expressed interest in adding their names to the letter. In response to these requests, CPSR is organizing an Internet petition drive to oppose the Clipper proposal. We will deliver the signed petition to the White House, complete with the names of all the people who oppose Clipper. To sign on to the letter, send a message to: Clipper.petition@cpsr.org with the message "I oppose Clipper" (no quotes) You will receive a return message confirming your vote. Please distribute this announcement so that others may also express their opposition to the Clipper proposal. CPSR is a membership-based public interest organization. For membership information, please email cpsr@cpsr.org. For more information about Clipper, please consult the CPSR Internet Library - FTP/WAIS/Gopher CPSR.ORG /cpsr/privacy/crypto/clipper ===================================================================== The President The White House Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: We are writing to you regarding the "Clipper" escrowed encryption proposal now under consideration by the White House. We wish to express our concern about this plan and similar technical standards that may be proposed for the nation's communications infrastructure. The current proposal was developed in secret by federal agencies primarily concerned about electronic surveillance, not privacy protection. Critical aspects of the plan remain classified and thus beyond public review. The private sector and the public have expressed nearly unanimous opposition to Clipper. In the formal request for comments conducted by the Department of Commerce last year, less than a handful of respondents supported the plan. Several hundred opposed it. If the plan goes forward, commercial firms that hope to develop new products will face extensive government obstacles. Cryptographers who wish to develop new privacy enhancing technologies will be discouraged. Citizens who anticipate that the progress of technology will enhance personal privacy will find their expectations unfulfilled. Some have proposed that Clipper be adopted on a voluntary basis and suggest that other technical approaches will remain viable. The government, however, exerts enormous influence in the marketplace, and the likelihood that competing standards would survive is small. Few in the user community believe that the proposal would be truly voluntary. The Clipper proposal should not be adopted. We believe that if this proposal and the associated standards go forward, even on a voluntary basis, privacy protection will be diminished, innovation will be slowed, government accountability will be lessened, and the openness necessary to ensure the successful development of the nation's communications infrastructure will be threatened. We respectfully ask the White House to withdraw the Clipper proposal. ------------------------------ From: vantek@aol.com Date: Tue, 01 Feb 94 01:14:47 EST Subject: Discount Long-Distance Digest DISCOUNT LONG-DISTANCE DIGEST is a weekly moderated internet mailing list available to all individuals involved in, or interested in becoming involved in, the discount (reseller) long-distance industry. The Digest mostly focuses on different companies which are resellers, wholesalers, or aggregators of long-distance services supplied by other companies (AT&T, Sprint, MCI, WilTel, ITT, Etc...). It is mostly geared towards people who are independent agents of these companies, or are still looking for a company to become an agent for. This is a growing industry that is picking up rapid speed as of late. To subscribe to DISCOUNT LONG-DISTANCE DIGEST just send you name and internet address to: telconet@aol.com. In the 'SUBJECT:' field of your e-mail print: 'SUBSCRIBE DIGEST' to be added to the list, or: 'UNSUBSCRIBE DIGEST' to cancel your subscription. Submissions to the Digest can be sent to the same internet address. Each issue is sent out Late sunday night/early monday morning. Upon recipt of your request for addition to the list you will be sent our FAQ, which includes a list of many resellers, aggregators, wholesalers, etc.. and info on their sales programs, prices, and how to become an agent for them. This list has been running on AOL for a couple of months now, and I am just starting to make it available via internet. Please excuse the slowness of our mail system, since America Online has numerous outages, interruptions in service, duplicated mailings, lost mail, and many other problems that I will not get into. This Digest is NOT available as a USENET Newsgroup. I, myself, am an independent agent for Business Network Communications, a reseller of AT&T, WilTel, and MCI services. BNC agents are especially welcome, and I'd like to see the list act as a support vehicle for BNC agents as well as provide non-biased news on other vendors. I have no personal axe to grind and only wish to share information on this industry with other internet users. I personally was helped a great deal by other internet users and would like to help others looking to get into this industry. BTW, I would like to thank Pat for the great job he does with TELECOM Digest. It's helped me a great deal. I couldn't start to duplicate the kind of job he does here. Van Hefner Vantek Communications [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks very much for your kind words of encouragement. Like Avis, the rental-car people, I try harder. Best wishes for the success of your Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 08:44:22 CST From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Administrivia: Mail to the Digest As most of you know, some changes were made around here about a week ago, and a new computer is now installed in place of the old machine which served us well for a few years. The trouble is, the new one required lots of minor, somewhat obscure, long-forgotten scripts to be slightly re-written. A few such scripts were those used by telecom for filtering and sorting incoming mail, issuing the autoreply message and similar matters. Well, nothing goes right the first time. The only thing you can count on for sure in conversions like this is trouble, and I have seen my share. It became obvious several days ago that I was losing a certain amount of incoming mail due to the way the new machine 'thinks' about certain instructions pertaining to 'awk' and other things in the scripts used. On a daily basis, the sysadmin here has been working with me to debug things and it appears the mailer is just about back to normal in terms of volume of mail received. Last week I suspect I was getting only 15-25 percent of the mail (based on historical data as to what I usually receive) with the remainder vanishing in the stream as it made its way through the incoming filters and into the files where it belongs. As bugs were exterminated, that percentage increased but new bugs took the place of the old ones, etc ... now this morning when I woke up and connected to the site, the incoming queue was stuffed once again. If you did not get the usual autoreply message to something you sent last week, it is quite likely your mail was not received *by me* even though it may well have (and probably did) reach the site. Please bear in mind the volume of mail has become so heavy (I am not complaining; I am actually very gratified) that there is *no way* I can tell what got here and what did not unless I actually read it and see it myself. If it were not for the filters in place to handle daemons, subscription requests and other stuff, the mail would be even slower getting into print than it is already some days. Had we removed the filters for several days while the debugging was underway, then I would have gotten all the mail, but the mistakes would have taken much longer to find. So it is the old 'rock and hard place' analogy. I am certain dozens of letters were lost in transit over a period of a few days and extend my apologies, but there was (and still is, as the work goes on) no other way to correct the problems than to watch them as they occur. Gradually things are getting back to normal here. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #54 ***************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253