TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Feb 94 08:48:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 69 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Don't Trust The Phone Company (Lars Poulsen) Cellular Telephone companies in Mauritius (Dirk Vanoucek) Help GMSK BER (F. Anwar) Toll Free Numbers - Query (Sudeepto Roy) Re: Calling 911 on a Cellphone When Out of Area (John Galloway) Re: More California / Caller ID Questions (Al Varney) Re: California CNID Questions (Lauren Weinstein) Re: The Dawn of A New Age (Bill Halverson) Re: 610/215 Split - Now I Can't Call 1-800- (Mike King) Re: Modems for 3002 Circuits (Barton F. Bruce) Re: How to Make a Sun Send Messages to a Pager or a GSM Phone (C. Kimball) Re: Landlines Pay Airtime To Call Some Cellular Phones] (Carl Moore) Re: Telephone Nunbers in France (Jean-Noel Marchalot) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Feb 94 14:03:35 +0100 From: lars@eskimo.CPH.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Don't Trust The Phone Company In RISKS issue 15.46, Tom Bodine reports the unsettling experience of being accused of making an obscene phone call, after the husband of the recipient of the call (his wife's best friend) used the "call return" feature at the end of the obscene call, and then reached his number. He speculates that his number was captured by the friend's telephone switch as the result of a failed call from his wife while the friend's line was busy with the obscene call. While such a feature interaction is possible (is the number supposed to be captured on a busy? I know it is on a no-answer failure), there is another way for this to occur: The perpertrator may have applied the call forwarding feature on his own phone prior to making the call, and left it there for a bit afterwards. In this situation, the number that was captured would not be the Bodines', but that of the perpetrator. The effect would be the same, however, except that if the call is a billable long distance call, the number would show up on the next phone bill, and in the case of forwarding it would be the perpetrator's number (since the last leg of the call is billed to the forwarding phone). I believe that there is no such interaction problem in the case of the "calling number identification" feature, since the number is delivered in real time and only when the call rings through. Thus, the call that would come in DURING the problem call, would only be recorded if the recipient had the "call waiting" feature, and in that case would not get busy, but ringback, and the CNID (if subscribed) would be delivered between the rings (call waiting tones)). I am forwarding this note to the TELECOM Digest where someone from AT&T or Bellcore will probably be able to look up whether the mechanism surmised by Tom Bodine is also possible. I hope that this technical information will go some way towards repairing relations between the families. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My memory is vague on this, but I think this same problem was reported here quite some time ago; or was it the same person with the same problem back then? I *know* something about this topic came up here. If Mr. Bodine insists he is not the party who made the obscene call, then I guess we take his word for it and find someone else to blame; but it seems quite a stretch of the imagination and an unusual combination of circumstances for things to line up as Lars suggests. I guess it could happen that way. At one time or another in my life I've received phone calls I did not like, and when I have used 'return last (obscene) call' and/or 'Obscene Caller-ID' to return the courtesies shown to me the people have -- well, to put it bluntly -- lied through their teeth and insisted they were not the responsible parties, even when I *recognized their voice* as being the same as that of the original caller. In the case at hand, does the victim claim that the anonymous caller's *voice* was the same as that of Mr. Bodine? This seems to me to be a variation on last week's discussion here about drug dealers and phones, i.e. why will rotary dial phones stop drug dealers and their customers from paging each other when all they have to do is go to Radio Shlock and buy a tone dialer? The fact is, they don't use this work-around because they are not too bright. Ditto people who make obscene calls in this day and age with all the gimmicks available on the phone network: Phreaks who know the phone network inside and out generally get their kicks in life by playing with the phone, not from obscene calls. People who make obscene calls generally are not sophisticated enough in how the phone operates to construct all the barriers to identification which Lars suggests. Here and there comes the exception, so I guess Mr. Bodine receives one 'Get Out of Jail Free' card (Monopoly game, copyright Parker Brothers) with my compliments. This is just IMO, you understand. Notice the absence of the /H/ in that net acronym. That's because I don't give humble opinions. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dirk Vanoucek Subject: Cellular Telephone Companies in Mauritius Date: 9 Feb 1994 10:15:49 GMT Organization: CCG Music Production Reply-To: Dirk Vanoucek I would appreciate any information about Cellular Telephone Companies in Mauritius. (NeXT)-E-mail: dirk@music.ruhr.de ------------------------------ From: cnbr73@vaxa.strath.ac.uk Subject: Help GMSK BER Date: 9 Feb 94 13:32:47 GMT Organization: Strathclyde University VAX Cluster Hi, I need am approximate relationship between BER and received S/N for GMSK modulation. Any pointer would do. Thanks for any help. F.Anwar e-mail cnbr73@uk.ac.strath Comms Div EEE Univ of Strathclyde ------------------------------ From: sroy@qualcomm.com (Sudeepto Roy) Subject: Toll Free Numbers - Query Date: Tue, 08 Feb 1994 18:42:05 -0800 Organization: Qualcomm Incorporated Hi! I need some information on Toll-Free (800) numbers : [1] Configuration/Type of 800 databases [2] Search/Sorting techniques applied on 800 database. Any and all information/pointers shall be highly appreciated. S. Roy Qualcomm Incorporated, San Diego, CA. ------------------------------ From: jrg@rahul.net (John Galloway) Subject: Re: Calling 911 on a Cellphone When Out of Area Organization: a2i network Date: Tue, 8 Feb 1994 16:56:23 GMT In article , John Galloway wrote: > When I call 911 on my cellular (having seen an accident just happen) > it appears that I get forwarded to a fixed site that just dispatches > the call to the proper 911 officem i.e. the first person answers "911 > emergency" but just asks where you are, and then the phone rings a > second time and you get another "911 emergency". > Whats going on? I then received this reply in email which I am passing along: From: zeta@tcscs.com (Gregory Youngblood) Date: Fri, 04 Feb 94 16:31:19 PST In-Reply-To: <9402040746.AA21194@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> Organization: TCS Computer Systems I can tell you what is going on ... unfortunately I can't reply easily to the net so I'm answering directly to you. In order for the cellular carrier to tell where you are they have to divide their system into several regions. Then each region has its own digit translation tables and that is how the calls get routed to the proper 911 office. The problem is that cell sites normally do not follow 911 center territories so even when the calls are divided like that it is hard to tell exactly where to send your 911 call. In the interest of time, most 911 centers are able to tell that you are calling from a cellular phone and in the more advanced 911 areas they even have special questions to ask you up front, such as confirming the cellular and then asking for your exact location. I hvae set up cellular digit translations both ways. I can tell you one thing, for a company that handles a very large area it may separate their cells into different areas (such as the case for a company that has a switch in an MSA area and does the switching for several RSAs) for various reasons (in this example it would be to keep track of activity for each market). Doing this makes it even harder to separate cells by 911 office because of the switches capapctity to handle different areas. The next problem comes from cell site physical locations and their coverage areas. When a cellular carrier is set up to route 911 to the closest center it is using the cell site that your call is on as the determining factor of where to send your call. However the coverage for a particular site may cover any number of 911 zones depedning on lcoation..so usually they have to try and route the 911 office that is in the most covered zone. This means if your in the wrong zone you get the wrong 911 office. All 911 offices in each state and maybe even across state boundries are usually linked in some fashion so that they can send your call to the right office right away. That sounds like what is happening in your case here. Your call goes to 911 office A, they see a flag that you are on cellular or other special circuit so they ask wehre you are. That tells them what 911 office to send you to so they route you to the proper office. Hope this helps ... feel free to post this if you'd like. Greg The Complete Solution BBS Allfiles List: Anonymous UUCP Calls Accepted 707-459-9058 (24hrs, v.32) ~/tcsbbs.lst Login: nuucp Password: nuucp Telemate Distribution Site zeta@tcscs.com Cellular Telephony Groups ------------------ internet jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us John R. Galloway, Jr 795 Beaver Creek Way applelink D3413 CEO...receptionist San Jose, CA 95133 Galloway Research (408) 259-2490 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Feb 94 04:04:07 GMT From: varney@ihlpe.att.com Subject: Re: More California / Caller ID Questions Organization: AT&T Network Systems In article ethan@medisg.Stanford.EDU (Ethan C. Tuttle) writes: > I have a technical/political question about CallerID in California: > Say someone calls me long distance from an LEC that supports Caller > ID. My understanding is that the long distance carrier would pass the > Caller ID info to my LEC, which would then forward those digits to my > CallerID equipment. EXCEPT, perhaps, in California. Does the Caller > ID legislation in CA protect the privacy of those outside of the > state? As a Californian, do I get that Caller ID info from > out-of-state callers? Since GTE California and PacBell have not tariffed any form of CallerID, it is obvious that California telephones to not get Caller ID, regardless of the presence/absence of such information from the originator. Delivery of CallerID information in any of its forms (analog FSK on analog loops, "bulk" over RS-232 interfaces, IEs in ISDN BRI/PRI Setup messages, etc.) is an option controlled at the terminating interface -- just because the far end sent it to an IXC who then forwarded it to the terminating CO doesn't mean you get delivery. CallerID legislation in CA does nothing to protect or invade privacy of callers or called parties outside the state. It can only restrict what the LECs do as local service providers, and the IXCs as local/intra-state carriers (and of course, what any person inside the state is able to do). > More important, does (or will) PacBell actually forward the Caller > ID info? I don't yet have a Caller ID box to test. I tried to ask > PacBell, but all they seem to know about Caller ID is 'uh, no.' Delivery ("forwarding" in your terms) is controlled at the terminating CO. If it's a PacBell or GTE CO, you don't get CallerID. Other LECs in California may have other tariffs, permitting CallerID. > I am primarily interested in Caller ID as a cheap transport mechanism > for ANI. Ethan, there have been lots of proposals to use ANI (CAMA/FG-B/FG-D) as CallerID. I don't know anyone who has proposed the use of Caller ID delivery mechanisms as a method of delivering ANI. (Actually, ISDN supports both, but it clearly identifies the number as "Calling Number" or "Charge Number".) Unfortunately, I hear all sorts of stories about folks who think ANI and Calling Party Number are the same. When the difference is explained to them, they say "Oh, that's OK. I understand. I won't really DEPEND on the number being correct." But if you need ANI, you need it all the time (right?). Al Varney [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe it is right 'often enough' in a non-critical application that it serves the purpose. Whether it is the billing number or the calling number, the two (if not identical) show up in the same physical location often enough that a company which needed to verify addresses or calling party's name, etc could generally rely on either mechanism that was available to them. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: California CNID questions Date: Tue, 08 Feb 94 13:38:08 PST From: Lauren Weinstein > Does the Caller ID legislation in CA protect the privacy of those outside > of the state? As a Californian, do I get that Caller ID info from > out-of-state callers? As far as I know at this time, no California telcos are offering CNID to their California subscribers, so the question is moot at this point. I believe that if CNID *was* present, whatever came in from out of state would probably be displayed. The telcos are not prohibited from offering CNID here -- they simply chose not to do so since they didn't like the rules (e.g. per-line blocking, non-pub'd numbers blocked by default, etc.) > More important, does (or will) PacBell actually forward the Caller > ID info? I don't yet have a Caller ID box to test. I tried to ask > PacBell, but all they seem to know about Caller ID is 'uh, no.' Documents I've seen filed by PacBell indicated that since they were not providing CNID, and since by extension they were not providing the mandated mechanisms for California subscribers to protect their numbers on outgoing calls, they were planning to set the "unavailable" bit on calls sent out of the LATAs. I assume GTE was following a similar plan. This was sometime back and I haven't heard anything new lately on the subject. Every so often there are rumors of some numbers "leaking" out of California, but most likely this is due to misconfiguration rather than policy. It would be interesting to see some more formal statements about this issue from PacBell and GTE. > I am primarily interested in Caller ID as a cheap transport mechanism > for ANI. None of the discussion of CNID applies to ANI at all, which is a completely different system. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ From: wjhalv1@pacbell.com Subject: Re: The Dawn of A New Age Date: 8 Feb 94 22:40:02 GMT Organization: Pacific * Bell In article , <0003945654@mcimail.com> writes: Here is what the future could bring!!! > TCI, the nation's largest cable television company, is in talks to > launch a unique pilot project in conjunction with Pacific Gas and > Electric Co. and Microsoft Corporation to design a "smart home". The > home automation industry is expected to triple in size, from $1.7 > billion this year to more than $5.1 billion by the year 2000. > Here is the diary of a future homeowner! [FUNNY STUFF DELETED] The author is closer to the mark that he may realize. Here are three interesting, publically available facts: 1. Two years ago, Bill Gates spent a half-day with PG&E executives in San Francisco; he gave a presentation to PG&E employees ovre their Corporate TV network. 2. Two months ago, TCI announced their plans to complete a fiber ring around the SF Bay area and directly compete with Pacific Bell in porviding voice-dialtone. 3. Two years ago, MCI and PG&E filed a tariff with the CPUC that, in effect, allows MCI to get fiber anywhere along PG&E right-of-way, in exchange for PG&E's ability to get some amount of bandwidth as compensations for the use of their right-of-way. Under the public terms of the agreement, MCI will pay PG&E to do the construction, and PG&E will get to put the value of the contruction into its ratebase. (For all you non-regulatory-types, the rate-base is what PG&E uses to calculate how much revenue it needs each year. In effect, when the rate-base goes up, your electric bills go up ...) Now, I haven't actually _seen_ the announcement the article's author bases his story on, but then again I don't know who the author is or what _private_ info he has access to. Bill Halverson Pacific Bell 415 542 6564 wjhalv1@pacbell.com ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: Re: 610/215 Split - Now I Can't Call 1-800- Date: Tue, 8 Feb 1994 13:19:15 PST In TELECOM Digest V14 #61, dhorvath@sas.upenn.edu (David Horvath) wrote: > With all the advertising about the 610/215 area code split, you'd > think they'd get it right -- I'm now in 610 (even my new cellular > phone reports 610). But I can't make a lot of 1-800 calls. I have > AT&T on one line and Sprint (remember the modem offer) on the other. > Same problem on both. Your outbound IXC is irrelevant to making 800 number calls. [...] > general message was that they don't take calls from our area. Gee, > they took calls from us back in December. > A call to 611 ultimately resulted in a call back that it was AT&T's > problem and has been reported to them. Now what? Besides Pat's solution, try this; it seems to work in many areas: Call 1-800-959-2000. You'll get [insert telco here] "800 trouble desk." Press 1 to report a problem. You'll then be instructed to enter the 7D part of the 800 # you're trying to reach. They'll do an SS7 lookup, tell you which carrier is responsible for the number, and then transfer you to the 800 trouble desk for that carrier. Good luck! Mike King mk@tfs.com ------------------------------ From: Barton.Bruce@camb.com Subject: Re: Modems for 3002 Circuits Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society Date: 8 Feb 94 16:25:49 -0500 Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , henderson@mlnaxp.mln.com writes: > Can anyone recommend a pair of modems, in the 9600bps range, that will > work on 3002 circuits? Sure. Why you would be doing this in this day and age is another question, but if those are the circuits you are stuck with ... (the IXC portion of interstate circuits is EXACTLY the same whether it is 3002 or 56kb DDS-II (ASDS in ATTese). The ZyXEL modems can do leased lines as well as dialup. The 1496-E (Economy??) model will ONLY do two wire in leased lines mode and easily will go to 16.8kb. Street price probably just over $250. The E+ will do 19.2kb and probably costs ~$100 more. Their full blown 1496+ (somethimes called the 1496S+ model) with the LCD front panel does two and four wire leased and does dialup two wire, of course. It can use dialup to automatically backup the leased line, and on programmable timers will periodically retry the leased line before resuming spending your $s on the dialbackup. Probably in the $500-$600 range. Can do v.29 or whatever compatibility if you need end to end compatibil- ity with existing obsolete leased line 9.6 modems of other brands. Any of those ZyXELs make great general purpose modems when you decide to not use them on leased lines. OTOH, there ARE some 28.8kb modems out there (no ZyXEL yet) if you can use the speed. The high end of many brands do both dialup and leased line. ------------------------------ From: cek@sdc.cs.boeing.com (Conrad Kimball) Subject: Re: How to Make a Sun Send Messages to a Pager or a GSM Telephone Date: 9 Feb 94 07:00:08 GMT Organization: Boeing Computer Services (ESP), Seattle, WA In article jdb@sunbim.be writes: > I'm looking for something quite special: > We would want to have our Sun, (which is running critical > applications), dial-out to a semascript pager to tell the sysadmin > something is wrong. Typically, we have some sort of contool, which > send a certain fixed message for a certain error-situation. This > messages would then in fact be send to a modem that dials up a > semascript pager, and passes on the error. > In our dreams we would like to go even further, and have the Sun dial > up a GSM telephone, and have the Sun speak to the sysadmin saying that > there is a problem. (pre-recorded fixed messages). In this case, we > thought of have a modem that directly dials up a GSM mobile telphone. > But there are some problems to be solve with this: for example, a GSM > will not give a Carrier Detect, only a connect signal. Anybody dealt > with this kind of problems before? > Does anybody out there know of software that does one of these two > things, or does anybody have some tips, or thoughts he or she would > like to share with me? (Like which modems could we use, etc) > The software may be commercial or public domain. I don't know what a semascript pager or a GSM telephone is, but here's a Bourne shell script I wrote a while back when I was playing around on my Sun with a similar idea. In this case I was calling a pager that expected me to use a touch-tone keypad to enter the number to be called back, though it should be trivial to extend the idea to send any arbitrary message that can be keyed in from a touch-tone keypad. I don't know how you would do voice. The script uses the freely available "expect" program to drive a modem via the Sun "tip" utility. It sends Hayes "atdt" commands to the modem to mimic pressing the touch-tone keys on a real telephone. Hope this helps. #!/bin/sh Usage(){ echo "usage: `basename $0` pager_number callback_number" >&2 exit 2 } case $# in 2) PagerNumber=$1;CallbackNumber=$2;; *) Usage;; esac NonDigits=`expr "${PagerNumber}" : '.*\([^0-9]\)'` if [ -n "${NonDigits}" ]; then Usage fi Length=`expr length "${PagerNumber}"` case "${Length}" in 4) PagerNumber="9986${PagerNumber}";; 7) PagerNumber="9${PagerNumber}";; 8) : ok;; *) Usage;; esac NonDigits=`expr "${CallbackNumber}" : '.*\([^0-9]\)'` if [ -n "${NonDigits}" ]; then Usage fi Length=`expr length "${PagerNumber}"` case "${Length}" in 0) Usage;; *) : ok;; esac expect - << expectEOF send_user "spawning tip ...\n" set pid [ spawn tip dialers ] send_user "sleeping 5 ...\n" exec sleep 5 send_user "sending atv1 to ask for verbal (text) responses from modem ...\n" send "atv1\r" expect "OK" send_user "sleeping 1 ...\n" exec sleep 1 send_user "sending atm1 to turn on speaker to monitor the call ...\n" send "atm1\r" expect "OK" send_user "sleeping 1 ...\n" exec sleep 1 send_user "sending atdt${PagerNumber}; to dial pager ...\n" send "atdt${PagerNumber};\r" expect "OK" send_user "sleeping 10 ...\n" exec sleep 10 send_user "sending atdt${CallbackNumber} to send callback number ...\n" send "atdt${CallbackNumber}\r" expect "OK" send_user "sleeping 3 ...\n" exec sleep 3 send_user "sending ath0 to hang up the phone ...\n" send "ath0\r" send_user "sleeping 5 ...\n" exec sleep 5 exec kill \$pid close wait expectEOF --------------- Conrad Kimball | Client Server Tech Services, Boeing Computer Services cek@sdc.cs.boeing.com | P.O. Box 24346, MS 7M-HC (206) 865-6410 | Seattle, WA 98124-0346 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Feb 94 17:50:45 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Landlines Pay Airtime To Call Some Cellular Phones] Replying to V2ENA81%OWEGO@zeta.eecs.nwu.edu: > Back to the original thought of the post, I always thought that the > only pay exchanges in all of the NYC area codes was 976. This has > nothing to do with 1-900, by the way. There is that infamous 540 prefix. > If someone can explain how there could possibly be a phone number > shortage, especially with the elimination of both 1 + 7D and the > recent expansion of area code second-digit assignments please send me > E-mail or post here to the Digest. I have always believed this to be > an urban legend, especially in light of the elimination of 1 + 7D in > the past ten years and the more recent second-digit area code allowance. The "second-digit area code allowance" IS the coming solution to the phone number shortage, and in preparation for this, either the 1+7D goes or you end up with some ambiguities which can only be resolved with a time-out. (For the same reason, those few places which still have used NPA+7D for long distance will have to insert leading 1 there.) > ...718 (Queens/Bronx/Bkln). You forgot Staten Island. (By the way, Bronx joined 718 late, having stayed in 212 back in 1984.) ------------------------------ From: marchalo@aur.alcatel.com (Jean-Noel Marchalot) Subject: Re: Telephone Nunbers in France Date: 9 Feb 1994 11:44:52 GMT Organization: Alcatel Network Systems, Raleigh NC Reply-To: marchalo@aur.alcatel.com In article 18@eecs.nwu.edu, Earle Robinson <76004.1762@CompuServe.COM> writes: > Richard D G Cox said that the change in French phone numbers is put > off due to complaints from users. This I doubt, since almost no one > in France is aware of any impending change. There is almost complete > ignorance of such questions in France, in part due to the few people > who have access to Internet. Never heard about something called Minitel? Any idea about the penetration rate compared with Internet? (probably an order of magnitude larger). > Anyway, France Telecom does what it wants. There's no competition > and the French just bow and obey. Sure, now they are still really lucky to enjoy a network that has evolved in 15 years from one of the most backward to one of the most advanced in the world. There must be some mysterious mechanism, beyond competition, that made sure that France Telecom would be a little responsive to the users' needs and the users do more than "bow and obey"? Jean-Noel Marchalot ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #69 *****************************