TELECOM Digest     Tue, 29 Mar 94 08:51:00 CST    Volume 14 : Issue 153

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Caller-ID Will be Available Nationwide (FCC News via Steve L. Rhoades)
    Competition in Calls From China (Laurence Chiu)
    Receive Junkmail and Get Paid Cash Scam (Brock Meeks via Graham Toal)
    Observations About Area Code Splits (Linc Madison)
    Warning: Private Payphone "Fraud" (Clive D.W. Feather)
    Average Call Duration (Bob Schwartz)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: srhoades@netcom.com (Steve L. Rhoades)
Subject: Caller-ID Will be Available Nationwide
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 19:24:12 PST


The following news release is from fcc.gov under /pub/Common_Carriers/
nrcc4002.txt  (lots of other neat stuff here too!)


Report No. DC-2571        ACTION IN DOCKET CASE     March 8, 1994
 
CALLER ID TO BE AVAILABLE NATIONWIDE; FCC ADOPTS FEDERAL POLICIES
                         FOR REGULATION
                       (CC DOCKET 91-281)

     The Commission has adopted a federal model, effective April 12,
1995, for interstate delivery of calling party number based services.
These services include caller ID, which is available today in many
states, as well as services that will permit businesses to serve
customers more efficiently and will permit increased security of
computer networks.

     The rules adopted today enable these services to become available
to consumers and businesses nationwide and require free, automatic,
per call blocking to protect privacy interests.  They also require
carriers to educate consumers about these services.
     
     The Commission also adopted rules to address privacy concerns
raised by the reuse or sale of information generated by automatic
number identification (ANI).  Specifically, the Commission found that
a federal model for interstate delivery of calling party number is in
the public interest, that calling party privacy must be protected, and
that certain state regulation of interstate caller ID must be
preempted.

     The availability of calling party number based service, including
caller ID, requires end to end interconnection of Signalling System 7
(SS7) networks between carriers, so that the calling party's number
can be transmitted from the calling party to the called party.
Interstate delivery of calling party based services is thus not
feasible until interstate SS7 interconnection and calling party number
delivery between local exchange carriers and interexchange carriers
becomes widespread.

     The Commission noted that a consistent, nationwide interstate
policy will contribute to economic growth as businesses employ the new
technology for a number of uses.  These uses may include pay- per-view
television, order/entry verification, voice messaging storage,
customized customer service, business fraud reduction, call routing,
emergency dispatch, health care services, telephone banking, home
shopping, dealer locator, and selective call message forwarding.

     While the technology for nationwide caller ID service is being
deployed and used on an intrastate basis, several regulatory and legal
issues have delayed its introduction nationwide.  Today's action
supports the efforts of carriers, standards setting bodies, states,
equipment manufacturers and others to provide caller ID in an
efficient manner.  In the federal model the Commission recognizes the
value and benefits to the public of this service and promotes the
transmission of the calling party number from the originating carrier
to the terminating carrier.

     The Commission has balanced the reasonable privacy expectations
of both the calling and called parties and removed obstacles to the
development of calling party based services posed by uncertainty and
non-uniform state policies.

     In today's action the Commission found that: 

     -- Common carriers using Common Channel SS7 and subscribing to or
offering any service based on SS7 functionality must transmit the
calling party number parameter (CPN) and its associated privacy
indicator on any interstate call to connecting carriers; (The CPN is
the subscriber line number or the directory number contained in the
calling party number parameter of the call set-up message associated
with an interstate call using SS7.  The calling party number parameter
includes an associated privacy indicator.)  In other words, local
exchange carriers (LECs) must transmit both the calling party number
and its associated privacy indicator to interexchange carriers (IXCs)
and vice versa;

     -- Carriers offering CPN delivery services must provide, at no
charge to the caller, an automatic per call blocking mechanism for
interstate callers. Terminating carriers providing calling party based
services, including caller ID, must honor the privacy indicator;

     -- The costs of interstate transmission of CPN are so small that
the CPN should be transmitted among carriers without additional
charge; and

     -- Carriers participating in the offering of any service that
delivers CPN on interstate calls must inform telephone subscribers
that the subscriber's number may be revealed to called parties and
describe what steps subscribers can take to avoid revealing their
numbers.  In the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this
proceeding, the Commission is seeking comment on whether more detailed
customer education rules should be adopted and whether the policies
adopted for interstate calling party number-based services like caller
ID should be extended to other services that might identify the
calling party.

     The Commission also adopted rules to limit the use of information
generated by ANI to call set-up, routing, screening, billing and
collection and other services by end users, with exceptions for most
law enforcement and emergency uses and for marketing by the ANI
recipient only.  The reuse or sale of ANI would be prohibited absent
affirmative subscriber consent, and carriers would be required to
educate callers regarding ANI services.  (ANI based services were
developed in the pre-SS7 signalling environment as the billing
telephone number of the calling party.  Because this technology
predates SS7 technology, ANI is not blockable in the same way as the
calling party number in an SS7 network.)

     In considering whether to extend its existing rules governing
disclosure of customer proprietary network information (CPNI) to cover
residential and single line business customers as protection of their
privacy interests, the Commission said it would seek comments through
a separate public notice to be considered in the context of the
Computer III Remand Proceeding.

     Action by the Commission March 8, 1994, by Report and Order and
Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC 94-59).  Chairman Hundt,
Commissioners Quello and Barrett, with Commissioner Barrett issuing a
separate statement.

                             - FCC -

     News Media contact: Rosemary Kimball at (202) 632-5050.
    Common Carrier Bureau contacts: Olga Madruga-Forti at (202)
634-1816 and Suzanne Hutchings at (202) 634-1802.


                        -------------- 

Steve L. Rhoades          Voice: (818) 794-6004
1000 Video Road           Internet:  srhoades@netcom.com
Mt. Wilson, Calif 91023   Finger me for PGP public key.

------------------------------

From: lchiu@crl.com (Laurence Chiu)
Subject: Competition in Calls From China
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 12:39:02 -0900
Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access


       I just got told by my wife that AT&T was offering discounts for
USA Direct Calls from China (if placed collect).  The rate would be
$1.70/minute which reflects a 20% discount.  Apparently these are
significantly cheaper than local calling rates.  If the call is billed
to a calling card there is a $3.50 surcharge but an additional 5%
discount. The USA Direct caller calls 10810 (from memory) and reaches
a Mandarin speaking operator in the US. As an aside when I tried to
get information on this plan by calling my normal AT&T customer
service number, I was put on hold for ten minutes and I eventually
hung up. I asked my wife to call the number in the ad she had seen and
reached a Mandarin speaking representative immediately.  Of course not
being telecom literate, I had to relay questions to her!

       Since I can call China for $0.59/minute in weekends on AT&T and
$0.49 via MCI (to one specific number) if I use their International
Friends and Family rate, it makes sense for our friends/relatives to
call us collect, we eat a minute charge and then call them back.  In
fact I am sure there are ways to avoid even the 1st minute charge but
I will leave that as an exercise for the reader :-)


Laurence Chiu             Walnut Creek, California
Tel: 510-215-3730 (work)  Internet: lchiu@crl.com 

------------------------------

From: gtoal@an-teallach.com (Graham Toal)
Subject: Receive Junkmail and Get Paid Cash Scam Revealed
X-Organisation: An Teallach Limited
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 20:12:23 GMT


This scam was discussed here before. Here is the latest update.

  Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 15:16:48 -0800
  From: "Brock N. Meeks" <brock@well.sf.ca.us>

CyberWire Dispatch//Copyright (c) 1994//

Jacking in from the P.T. Barnum Port:

Washington, DC --  Thwart the proliferation of electronic junk mail and
make yourself some cash as the same time.  Ask Me How!

Interested?  There's more.  You get a free Internet account,
accessible through a toll free number.  All you have to do is let poor
capitalist slubs pour junk mail into your free account and you get an
average of 6.5 cents for every message that you receive.  You don't
even have to read the stuff.

Remember, there's "absolutely no charge, periodic charge, hourly
charge or phone charge."  And for all your effort, you'll likely get
an annual check of $500 "and likely more," according to a company
called Electric Postal Service (EPS).

Such are the claims made by the mysterious EPS during a February
Internet E-mail blitzkrieg. All EPS said it required was that you
"send E-mail to our internet address at eps@world.std.com."  And be
sure to include you name and address, EPS said. Or there was an 800
number to call.

The EPS offer intrigued thousands of Internet users, who rushed to
forward their electronic application and sat back to waiting to
collect their piece of the Internet pie.

Fat Chance.  The EPS information never arrived.

A month-long Dispatch investigation has revealed that EPS is nothing more
than a shell company for a direct mailing scam run out of Canton, Ohio.

Bait and Switch
===============

After weeks of waiting, no information, electronic or otherwise, has
ever appeared from EPS.  Instead, those requesting information were
sent a curious mailing from an outfit called "Suarez Corporation
Industries" headed by one Benjamin Suarez.

The Suarez information arrived in an envelope annotated "Important:
The information you requested."  Inside an "approved letter of
requisition" tells how you can receive a new book called "Seven Steps
to Freedom II -- How to Escape the American Rat Race."  The book
supposedly tells you how to birth a corporate creature called a "Net
Profit Generation System" (NPGS).

Such a deal!  An NPGS can produce $30,000 to "over one million dollars
a year" in income, Suarez says.  The catch?  The book and associated
software only costs you $159.  But that's a steal, Suarez says,
because if you buy the book and software separately, they cost you
almost $200.  But hurry, the offer expires within ten days, because
Suarez doesn't want "an order to be wasted on the curiosity seeker."

Small problem: The supposed authorization letter contains no date, no
authorization code, no bar code. Nothing to determine when it was
received or when the supposed 10 day expiration clocks starts to tick.

Oh... and the "Seven Steps"  book ("not sold in stores") doesn't show up in
the Dialog "Books in Print" database.

Suarez claims in his letter to be one of the richest people in the
nation, "one of the truly rich" unlike those that are "only paper
rich" because they count stock.

Published reports put Suarez Corp. Industries (SCI) worth at only $100
million, with some 630 envelope stuffing employees.  What Suarez is,
however, is a slick direct mail baron.  The letterhead from SCI lists
a host of "divisions" all of which operate out of SCI's headquarters
in North Canton.  One of those divisions is "CompuClub Software and
Computer Services."

Dispatch called SCI's main number to ask if EPS was, in reality, one
of the infamous Suarez, Net Profit Generation System companies.  After
a few rounds of questioning, a Suarez operator admitted that EPS was,
indeed, an NPGS, "a subsidiary of CompuClub."  She wouldn't answer any
further questions about EPS. Calls to CompuClub weren't returned.

What's the real story on Benjamin Suarez?  Let's flip this latest
Internet scam on its back and gut that soft white underbelly. (Gloves, 
please ...)

The Rap Sheet Two-Step
======================

Suarez, it appears, is attempting to pull off some kind of Internet
P.T.  Barnum routine.  He's infamous for his questionable direct
marketing scams.  And he has a mean streak.  His record speaks for
itself.

In February, Suarez agreed to quit all operations in the state of
Washington, agreeing to pay more than $70,000 in refunds to some 4,500
consumers there who bought jewelry, cutlery and other products from
his companies since 1992.

The Washington State attorney general's office brought suit against
Suarez, alleging his company violated the state's prizes and
promotions laws by selling fake diamonds under the company name
Lindenwold Fine Jewelers (also a Suarez "division").  One tactic that
apparently pissed off the attorney general was an offer that gave a
"free gift" of a cubic zirconia to customers along with an offer for a
"discount" on the cost of getting it mounted.  That arrangement
violates Washington law: If a recipient must spend money to use an
award, you can't use the term "free prize."

Blaaaahhh!!!!  Thank you for playing, Mr. Suarez.

The suit so enraged Suarez that he began running negative campaign ads
slamming the attorney general who was, at the time, running for the
governor's office.  Suarez even offered to pay the attorney general's
opponents up to $50,000 to front his own hit-squad negative campaign
ads.  They declined.

In a second case in Washington, Suarez offered the same rhinestones,
claiming they were worth more than $100.  Natch, said former Attorney
General Ken Eikenberry, the real value of those stones were about
$2.65 a pop.  Eikenberry called the promotion, a "blatant deception."
In that suit, Suarez settled out of court by paying $15,000.

According to court records and published reports, other charges
brought against Suarez by the state of Washington in 1992 include: (1)
Making false promises of saving. (2) Making deceptive price represen-
tations.  (3) Conducting charitable solicitations without registering
with the secretary of state.  (4) Failing to state the odds of winning
a sweepstakes.  (5) Distributing a simulated check that doesn't have
the phrase: "This is not a check" plastered on its front.

For all those charges, Suarez is no prohibited from doing business in
the State. Seems he's moved his operation to the Internet.

The attorney general's office says Suarez is also involved in lawsuits
in Indiana and Ohio, but could give no details.

Suarez, in previously published interviews with the {Seattle Post-
Intelligencier}, defended his company, saying he offers a money-
back guarantee and has a return rate of less than two percent.

Life On the Laugh Track
=======================

For Suarez, adversity and conflict are his Rice Krispies and whole milk.  A
newspaper database search finds:

            *  The Idaho attorney general making Suarez
               change its jewelry-marketing pitch.

            *  FDA challenged a Suarez company claim of certain
               "health benefits" he advertised that arose from a
               2,000-year-old secret recipe for Himalayan bread.
               Suarez successfully defended his right to
               advertise the alleged health benefits.

            *  The U.S. Post Office files suit against Suarez in
               1986, stemming from certain marketing tactics for
               his book on how to recover money from the government.

All in the Family
=================

For the Suarez boys, blood is thicker than lawsuits.  In 1990, a
company called Consumer Direct, run by Richard and Luann Suarez, was
hammered by the Federal Trade Commission for making false claims about
a product called the "Gut Buster," an exercising device.  The company
was also sued by government agencies over marketing tactics for a line
of diet plans and pills.

Seems only five minutes a day with the ol' Gut Buster had you buffed
and ready for Muscle Beach.  But the FTC didn't buy off on the hypefest.
Instead, the FTC insisted that there was no "competent and reliable 
evidence" to prove such claims.

You'd think with all these hard knocks, these guys would learn. What's
the motivation?  Do the math.  Some 2.4 million Gut Busters were sold,
according to FTC files, for total revenues of $55 million.  (Minus a
couple of slap-on-the-wrist fines.  Question: Who's going to box their
ears for scamming the Net??)

Suarez headquarters were swamped with hundreds of reports of injuries
to Gut Buster users when the springs on the damn thing broke. "Approxi-
mately 1,000 people have reported injuries caused when the Gut Buster
spring broke and snapped back to hit them as they exercised," the FTC
testimony reads.

Search and Verify
=================

All this will come as no surprise to Benjamin "Gary Hart" Suarez. In
his rogue mailing, it clearly states: "These facts are all verifiable
by you, if you wish to investigate."

Thanks for the tip, Ben.  It's been real.

Meeks out ...

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 18:43:33 -0800
From: LincMad@netcom.com (Linc Madison)
Subject: Observations About Area Code Splits


I was looking at David Esan's 1/15/94 NPA-NXX list and noticed quite a
number of surprising numbers.  There were a couple of instances where
I hope the answer is that a previously-effected split is not yet
reflected in the number of exchanges shown for the old area code.  For
example, 212 shows 639 exchanges, and 168 for 917.  I hope that the
total for 212 still includes the prefixes now in 917 and/or the Bronx
prefixes now in 718.  Colorado's 303 is also one I hope is wrong: it
shows 601 prefixes against 184 in 719.  Atlanta's recent split
apparently isn't yet (fully?) reflected: 404 shows 590 and 706 shows
308.

Even if my suspicion about the number for 303 is correct, it still
shows that the split was very poorly designed: at best, the split is
417/184, worse than a 2:1 margin.  Clearly, a much larger portion of
the state should have been moved into 719.  The split in Dallas also
should have been done more tightly -- 214 now has 585 exchanges
against 291 in 903, again more than 2:1.  Clearly, areas not local to
Dallas should not have been left in 214.  The split in Houston would
have been difficult to tighten, but it was also a worse than 2:1
split.  As for the 917 split in New York City, I recently read an
article from someone who has a cellphone that has remained in 212, and
his carrier stated that it has no plans to switch it to 917.  I
thought that the point of 917 was that *ALL* cellular and pager
numbers in New York City would be moved to 917; deviation from that
plan would seem quite unwise.

The splits in areas like Detroit were performed much more judiciously:
313 will have 364 prefixes to 356 in 810.  If I'm correct about
Atlanta, its split is 282/308, which is quite good, although it would
indicate that Atlanta was not nearly as ready for a split as other
areas.  Perhaps the source material on Atlanta has deleted some but
not all of the old exchanges from 404.

There are also some historical splits that look quite silly.  For
example, in Ontario, 705 and 807 between them have only 381 exchanges.
In Massachusetts, 413 has fewer than one third the number of exchanges
of either 617 or 508, and is one of the least populated NPAs.  In New
York, 607 and 315 between them have only 448 exchanges.  Some splits
that don't make sense from a telephony viewpoint have clear political
and economic roots: Marin County logically belongs in 707, but has
remained in the overpopulated 415.  Upper Peninsula Michigan doesn't
warrant its own area code, but the geographic logic is clear.

Although I can't exactly lay claim to a crystal ball, I'll post in a
separate article some predictions about area codes that will split soon
and others that will probably *never* split in my lifetime.


Linc Madison   *   Oakland, California   *   LincMad@Netcom.com

------------------------------

Subject: Warning: Private Payphone "Fraud"
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 02:29:32 BST
From: Clive D.W. Feather <clive@sco.COM>


The following appeared in uk.telecom recently:

   From: alon@ibmpcug.co.uk (Alon Risdon)
   Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 13:21:48 GMT

 SECTION: Business & City Page      
 DATE: 12-03      
 HEAD: One penny worth 20 in phones
 BY: MARY FAGAN, Industrial Correspondent of 
    The Independent Newspaper in London

THOUSANDS of owners of private payphones are facing financial loss
because the phones mistake some one penny coins for a 20p piece. More
recent penny coins are copper-plated steel rather than bronze and,
according to BT, have a different density that allows them to be
mistaken for 20p.

Although the plated coins have been in circulation since late
1992, the problem of people using them for cheap telephone
calls has only recently come to light. BT said: "It is fraud, but
it is not a problem for BT. The people who are losing out are
those with private payphones."

The company estimates that there are up to 70,000 private payphones,
many in pubs and shops. Some large families also use them to avoid
running up huge bills. BT charges the owners for the use of the line,
but does not get any of the coins inserted by those who make the
calls.

BT said that it had been aware of the problem for some time and was
adjusting payphones free of charge by changing the software.  The
spokesman said the adjustment itself was no problem, but that the
company did not necessarily know all those who operated private
payphones. BT said that one reason the problem affected private rather
than public payphones was that they were often cheaper and less
sophisticated or robust. It added that the Royal Mint was careful to
warn in advance of changes to coins that could affect public
telephones and other coin-operated equipment.  University unions,
which often obtain revenues from campus services including payphones,
are likely to be among the main victims. The union at Surrey has asked
the National Westminster bank on the campus to be wary of students
asking for large quantities of pennies or asking cashiers to sort out
new ones from old.


Clive D.W. Feather     | Santa Cruz Operation   
clive@sco.com          | Croxley Centre         
Phone: +44 923 816 344 | Hatters Lane, Watford  
Fax:   +44 923 210 352 | WD1 8YN, United Kingdom


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The problem of one coin successfully
imitating another happens from time to time in automatic coin collection
devices. Back in the early 1970's there was quite a problem here with
people cheating the Chicago Transit Authority subway turnstiles. It
seems CTA tokens were almost identical in size, shape and weight to
the Brazillian centavo coin, a virtually worthless thing by our stand-
ards here. It took a hundred or more of the darn things to equal just
a few cents in United States money. When it was discovered these foreign
coins were accepted by the subway turnstiles suddenly there was a big
rush to purchase them from coin dealers and such here. Of course the
excuse the buyers gave was they used them in 'costume jewelry' and such.
The CTA started putting heat on the coin dealers to quit selling them,
but there was nothing legally they could do to force the dealers to
stop (other than use old-fashioned Chicago style political pressure
by city hall) the sales, and eventually the Transit Authority had to
change the size of their tokens and rework the turnstiles to accept
the new tokens instead of the old ones.  CTA lost a couple million
dollars before they got it under control.   PAT]

------------------------------

Subject: Average Call Duration
From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz)
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 94 14:56:45 PST
Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California


Does anyone have, or know where I can find, information on averege
hold time which to me means average call duration (length of call)
(number of properly billable minutes? Are they listed by industry
group?  My long distance bill shows a rate with a series of discounts.
The discounts equal 30.33% which would put their Intrastate rate at
about .09 for day calls! Problem is that I don't see this rate echoed
by their competitors. It's too good to be true (sort of).  The average
call duration however is about 3.03 minutes.

I thought the national average hold time to be more like 2.6 minutes.
If they inflate the call duration there goes the benefit of my
discounts! Oh yes, another important detail, this is a switched
service.  Also, thought I'd check another premise; does anyone in
California see Intrastate rates for switched traffic at or about .09?


Thanks, 

Bob Schwartz                                       bob@bci.nbn.com
Bill Correctors, Inc.   +1 415 488 9000   Marin County, California


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Intrastate rates are peculiar things,
aren't they?  Very odd in how they are calculated, a very much left
to the whims of the state PUCs, which frequently are nothing more
than tools of the local Bell company. If you can figure this out Bob,
an article here in the Digest would be welcome.   PAT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #153
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