TELECOM Digest Mon, 14 Feb 94 12:22:00 CST Volume 14 : Issue 84 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Is NYNEX Tinkering With 411 Yet Again (Barton F. Bruce) 200 "Exchange" Within 1-900 Numbers (Randy Finder) AT&T Says That They Can't Resolve my Calls' Origin (Eric De Mund) Re: AT&T Tape-less Answering Machine (Hui Lin LIM) Re: V&H Report - 15 January 1994 (Fred Heald) Re: Telephone Number History (Ed Ellers) Re: A Small Town in Wyoming (Paul Buder) Re: CLASS/Caller-ID/Bellcore/CCITT/ANSI Documents Sought (Al Varney) Four-Digit Dialing (was Re: A Small Town in Wyoming) (Fred Goldstein) Re: Internet Costs and Software Are Free (Andrew C. Green) Re: Calling 911 on a Cellphone When Out of Area (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Re: Dispelling a Myth From the Past (Ed Ellers) Re: Digital Cellular Phones (jskene@delphi.com) Re: Don't Trust The Phone Company (Gregory S. Lauer) 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: Barton.Bruce@camb.com Subject: Is NYNEX Tinkering With 411 Yet Again Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society Date: 14 Feb 94 02:25:37 -0500 Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. A hotel using DHL/ANI-7 screening to ensure 0+ calls are NOT billed to them now has a problem with 411 being intercepted and the operator is asking for a credit card for LOCAL 411 access! She claims it is screening code 69. Apparently nothing has been changed on the Hotel's phone lines, and it is something NYNEX is in the midst of implementing to 'fix' the 411 automatic call completion problems of recent months. When NYNEX originally allowed 411 callers (for 35 cents more + the cost of the call) to complete the call to the requested number, Boston Hotels were caught unprepared, and the NyNEX product manager flew in from White Plains to 'chat' with an unhappy room of Hotel folks. Guests were getting more service than they were paying for. Her suggestion for a quick fix at that time was to route all 411 traffic to the screened trunks many already had for 10xxx compliance. That worked. Maybe four days ago, any 411 calls on these screened trunks now are NOT ALLOWED and route you to an operator who demands a calling card! Note well that 1+ calls still go right through, as they should. The Hotel SMDR/Call-Accounting can deal with 1+ and 411 calls. It is only the 0+ where you can't control what the operator is asked to do that *MUST* be billed elsewhere. Moving 411 traffic to UNSCREENED trunks now seems to be ok, and they no longer give the caller the option of automatic completion. OTOH, MOST of the trunks are now screened and the few that are not are primarily for staff use and are NOT adequate to handle a large amount of guest 411 traffic. So what is happening? Repair finally allowed as how some changes were in the works to further automate 411 and 411 with credit card use. But again NYNEX has done something unannounced that trashes service and then denys any knowledge until one digs and digs to get info. Does anyone know anything further about this? This happened starting last week in Cambridge, and rumor has it that folks in Dorchester have been hit, too, and that from a repair person saying "you might like to know, but PLEASE don't say I said so". ------------------------------ From: naraht@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu (Randy Finder) Subject: 200 "Exchange" Within 1-900 Numbers Date: 14 Feb 94 11:39:24 -0400 Organization: Carnegie Mellon Computer Club I was watching a show one late night and saw a TV ad for a product with a 1-900 number. What made me notice was that the number was 1-900-200-QQQQ. ^^^ I know that "normal" area codes can not have phone numbers with an X00 in them, but how wide are the available seven digit combinations for 1-900 (and 1-800) numbers. I presume that 1-900-555-QQQQ is going to get you 900 number information/ available for movies and TV to use as fakes, but is for instance 1-900-000-0000 available? Randy Finder ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 23:31:19 -0800 From: Eric De Mund Subject: AT&T Says That They Can't Resolve my Calls' Origin Reply-To: Eric De Mund Organization: Netcom Online Communication Services People, AT&T calling card calls from my office in California to my parents in New York results in a telephone number other than that of my desk phone appearing on my AT&T calling card bill as the calls' origin. When I telephone that number, I get an internal recording telling me that that number isn't in service. (I work for a DOE/UC laboratory in Berkeley.) I called AT&T and asked them about it. Front line and second line customer service tell me that there's nothing that can be done to resolve the calls' origin. Is this true? Thanks, Eric De Mund ------------------------------ From: limhl@sgp.hp.com (Hui Lin LIM) Subject: Re: AT&T Tape-less Answering Machine Date: 14 Feb 1994 08:33:06 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard Tan Ken Hwee (law00057@leonis.nus.sg) wrote: > I was wondering if someone would be so kind as to let me know how much > (ballpark) the AT&T Tape-less Answering Machine costs? The one that > uses RAM? It sells for about SIN$220 or about US$130. Is this an ok > price or should I wait until I go to America to buy one? I'm aware of > the voltage difference and will get a transformer for that. The last time I checked prices at Fry's Electronics in Palo Alto they were similar, but you would have to pay taxes there. OTH you will have to pay taxes here soon. The major difference is that over there you get a wider choice of machines (including at least two from Sony) ... Hui-Lin Lim - Singapore Networks Operation, Hewlett Packard Singapore telnet: 520 8763 phone: +65 279 8763 fax: +65 272 2780 mail: limhl@hpsgm2.sgp.hp.com DESK: Hui-Lin Lim/HPSGIT X.400: S=Lim G=Hui-Lin OU1=corp OU2=unix OU3=x400 O=HP C=US A=ATTMAIL P=HP DDA-Type1=HPMEXT1 DDA-Value1=limhl@hpsgm2.sgp.hp.com ------------------------------ From: justfred@netcom.com (Fred Heald) Subject: Re: V&H Report - 15 January 1994 Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 09:34:05 GMT varney@ihlpe.att.com wrote: > In article de@moscom.com (David Esan) writes: >> You may wish to obtain certain NANP documents from the current >> Administration, Bellcore. In particular, the newest information in >> IL-94/01-001 and IL-94/01-002 would be useful. The former is "Status >> of Numbering in the NANP Served Area" -- the latter is "Opening of 710 >> Numbering Plan Area (NPA) Code". Whoa -- since when did they come up with NPA = Numbering Plan Area? And are they going to fabricate an equally ridiculous (actually, it's pretty clever) meaning for NXX? Fred Heald justfred@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well actually Fred, I've heard NPA used as an abbreviation for 'Numbering Plan Area' for many years. It is used that way in this Digest all the time; always has been. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Telephone Number History Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 05:57:53 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Sheldon W. Hoenig : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There were some exchange names which seemed > to be common everywhere, while others were unique to some community. Many > places had PLAza, and we had a WABash here in Chicago. But some we had here > I have never heard of in other places: GRAceland, MULberry, TUXedo, > INTerocean, VICtory, EDGewater and IRVing are a few which come to mind. PAT] We used to have one in Louisville (home of Churchill Downs) called DErby, and it was actually in the area including the racecourse. Unfortunately this was at a time when we had 2-4 numbering; when AT&T started its mass conversion to 2-5 in the 1950s they wouldn't allow a prefix to be kept in this way, so the DErby numbers were all changed to MElrose. A few years ago we got some new NNXs in the 33x series, but too far across town to do Churchill Downs any good. Ed Ellers, KD4AWQ ------------------------------ From: paulb@teleport.com (Paul Buder) Subject: Re: A Small Town in Wyoming Date: 14 Feb 1994 02:58:41 -0800 Organization: Teleport - Portland's Public Access (503) 220-1016 cl@nde.unl.edu (carlene lanham) writes: > My question is this: is it possible to configure these new digital > switches for four-digit dialing? We're a small town where we occupy > only the 848-2xxx, 3xxx, and 41xx's. It would make things easier for > everyone. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sure it is possible. The switch is just > told to expect four digits only if the first digit is 2 through 9; to > expect eleven digits if the first digit is 1 and some variable number of I lived in Acton, Massachussetts back in the late 70's. They had five digit dialing there. The adjacent towns were local calls. The calling pattern was 5 digits for Acton, 7 for adjacent towns, 8 (1+) for the rest of 617 and 11 for everywhere else. This was possible with Acton as 263 and Concord as 369 for example because there were no numbers in Acton of the form 263-69XX. I may have the prefixes wrong, it's been a long time. paulb@teleport.COM ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 09:56:42 CST From: varney@ihlpe.att.com Subject: Re: CLASS/Caller-ID/Bellcore/CCITT/ANSI Documents Sought Organization: AT&T In article wynship@cats.ucsc.edu writes: > I am an undergraduate in Computer & Information Sciences at University > of California, Santa Cruz. I am studying CLASS services and would > appreciate it if anyone could direct me to the following documents: > + Bellcore specs for CLASS services. Call Bellcore on 1-800-521-2673 (or 908-699-5800) from a DTMF phone, wade through the Menu Monster to order a publication and ask for a Catalog of Technical Information. It will list TRs/SRs associated with CLASS and their prices. There are probably 50 documents dealing with CLASS services, including some that deal with CLASS just via ISDN. There are paragraphs describing the documents, so you can select just those of interest. Typical prices are $30 (Calling Number Delivery) through $75 (Automatic Callback). Those interfacing with what is commonly called CallerID over loop-start lines should have SR-TSV-002476, "CPE Compatibility Considerations ..." (don't know the price, but should be about $25). This is an update of the obsolete SR-NWT-002024. > + CCITT "Recommendations" regarding CCITT Common-Channel > Signaling System No. 7. (Especially those relating > to the above -- is caller-ID info. transmitted as > part of a TUP or an ISUP? If the former, is it > transmitted as part of an IAM or something else?) TUP is covered in Q.721-Q.724, ISUP is Q.761-Q.764. Both support sending Calling Party information. TUP messages: IAM with Additional Information (different than a plain IAM) General Forward Setup Information (typically response to Backward Setup Request) ISUP messages: IAM Information (typically response to Information Request) Pass-Along (containing an Information message) SCCP protocol could, in theory, also carry this information DUP (Data User Part, X.61) messages can also carry this information in a wide variety of messages, both in "connections" and the facility registration messages. > + ANSI specifications regarding Signaling System 7. American National Standards Institute, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street New York, New York 10036 The ISUP documents are in T1.113-1992. A new version should be available in early 1995(?), after 1994 approvals. This document discusses how Calling Party Number is carried, and how "privacy" is indicated. T1.112 and T1.114 cover the SCCP and TCAP protocols used to implement some CLASS services (such as Auto Call-Back). T1.401 covers the analog line interface. Services such as CLASS are covered int the T1.6xx series. Al Varney ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 10:35:59 -0500 From: goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com Subject: Four-Digit Dialing (was Re: A Small Town in Wyoming) The ability to dial four-digit (or five-digit) numbers was characteristic of step-by-step exchanges. There are a few left in the country, though NYNEX reports that they are finally rid of theirs. Many small-town independents, and possibly some Bells, still have them. They last forever if taken care of, unlike, say, Crossbar which wears out after 40 or so years. In my book "ISDN In Perspective", I put in a diagram showing how numbering plans were done in the olden days of electromechanical circuit switching. It shows an exchange, prefix 924, whose local extension (line) numbers were in the 3xxx and 7xxx range. The exchange had 5-digit dialing for local numbers. It could also make local calls to adjacent exchanges 858, 385, 492 and 879. It was all done by wiring the switch train correctly. If you dialed "43" or "47", it continued down its own numbers. If you dialed "85", it went to the 858 switch, which only received the last five digits. If you dialed "87", the 879 switch got five digits. If you dialed "3", the 385 switch got six digits. If you dialed "49", the 492 switch got five digits. This type of plan places some restrictions on prefix assignments. The dialed-digit string has to be unambiguous. So the 924 exchange couldn't open numbers in the 92 series, or "492xx" would route to the 492 exchange rather than 924-92xx numbers. It is however generally legal to dial the whole locall number (924-3xxx) since the switch would absorb the initial digits. When these switches were replaced, the phone company generally forced seven-digit dialing, much to the chagrin of some locals who felt that their small-town charm was dwindling. Fred R. Goldstein k1io goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 10:36:04 CST From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: Internet Costs and Software Are Free Brian Behlendorf (bbehlen@soda.berkeley.edu) writes: > ...I'd be more worried about email users subscribing to high-volume > mailing lists than getting unsolicited email ads, which don't happen > much anyways and probably won't. Indeed. I think when unwanted correspondence arrives, the degree of negative reaction varies according to the communication used and the degree of personal contact involved. With unsolicited postal junk mail, people usually toss it out without further thought. Telemarketing phone calls are more intrusive, but with a live person on the other end, one is usually a bit restrained when telling them to get lost (at least initially). But heaven help the person who posts inappropriate advertising on the Net; the response from readers is downright vicious. The mind boggles at what people will say in reply to unsolicited personal E-mail sales pitches; the physical and psychological buffer provided by the keyboard, as opposed to having a live person on the other end listening to what you say, can make for the kind of remarks usually generated when someone cuts you off in traffic. Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. NOTE! Ignore any "From" headers above 441 W. Huron Direct all replies to acg@dlogics.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Regards the viciousness of email (and in this regard, many Usenetters are as vicious as they come) I think a few large organizations which are discussing the possibility (well, the eventual probability) of commercial email blitzes on the net have already been tipped off about the (to put it mildly) 'negative' reaction which some netters will generate, and that a relatively limited number of netters will generate a disproportionate amount of hate mail as a result. Consequently, they will probably employ DRDR, that is, 'do not read, do not respond' techniques. Negative mail will go to dev/null unanswered to avoid the need to use up *their* resources in attempting to reply to people they assume won't purchase whatever is being sold anyway. They'll only answer positive mail received, the thinking being that sooner or later the vicious ones will get tired and go away. PAT] ------------------------------ From: fieldday!sewilco@kksys.mn.org Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 00:06 CST Subject: Re: Calling 911 on a Cellphone When Out of Area Organization: Esix Test Unit 1 John Galloway (jrg@rahul.net) wrote: > The dispatcher, even with Enhanced 9-1-1 could never know where your > cell-phone is without asking. Maybe what cell-site you are using, but > in the fringe those sites can cover a large area. The smallest cellular cell is too large, as the calls have to be processed by very sharp lines. An urban freeway is only a block or two wide, and minor problems may be passed to your state highway patrol or a county sheriff. This depends on whether that freeway is a federal or county highway (or private toll road?) and what the agreements are between such agencies in your area. No present cellular system can deal with the narrow division between areas such as an urban freeway and an adjoining city street, much less where the middle of a city street is the dividing line and how far from your location you are looking. That call will be handled by someone who has been woven into the web of agencies who deal with such boundaries for each call. Indeed, even the right agency may have to dispatch according to internal divisions such as precincts, dispatch regions, or current location of special equipment. Scot E. Wilcoxon sewilco@fieldday.mn.org +1 612-825-2607 ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Dispelling a Myth From the Past Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 06:04:49 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) David A. Kaye writes: > Pre-divestiture there were numerous situations where the local BOCs > were only partly owned by AT&T, such as Pacific Telephone (now Pacific > Bell). It was 90% owned by AT&T and publicly traded on the NYSE. If > any revenues had been mixed between AT&T Long Lines and the local BOC > you can *bet* that the other 10% stockholders would have *screamed* to > the Securities and Exchange Commission over it. And don't forget Southern New England Telephone and Cincinnati Bell Inc., both of which had a minority of shares owned by AT&T. But didn't all the LECs -- both independent and Bell System -- get to keep part of the billed charges for long distance calls? ------------------------------ From: jskene@delphi.com Subject: Re: Digital Cellular Phones Date: 14 Feb 1994 08:26:25 -0500 Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation Digital cellular phones digitize your voice in the phone itself, then compress the signal by a factor of 3-20 before transmiting to the base station. This allows a given radio bandwidth to carry more channels, resulting in less congestion. Other benefits include better voice quality (see below), future high-speed data capability, more secure conversation, and more immunity from toll fraud. One characteristic of digital cellular, however, is the small added delay in the coding process, which causes echo to be heard by the cellular subscriber. This echo can be eliminated through the use of a high-quality echo canceller. Echo cancellers are now being developed specifically for digital cellular, and can feature background noise cancellation also, providing even better call quality compared to analog systems. Some service providers will offer you a dual-mode phone, which can operate either in analog or digital modes, allowing you to use the older as well as newer networks. Future cellular networks are expected to be all-digital, due to the bandwidth efficiency, network control, call quality and fraud resistance they offer. jskene@delphi.com ------------------------------ From: gsl0@gte.com (Gregory S. Lauer) Subject: Re: Don't Trust The Phone Company Organization: GTE Laboratories, Inc. Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 14:04:56 GMT In article , CRN@VAX3.ltec.com wrote: > The TCAP (Transaction Capability Application Part) of SS7 is used > what makes the 'return last call' feature work. It boils down to > queries and responses between the originating and terminating switches > (is the terminating party idle?; if not notify me when he is; etc.). > TCAP defines a parameter called the 'call forwarding active parameter' > which indicates if any call forwarding features are active on a line. > If call forwarding or selective call forwarding is active, than > 'return last call' is denied. Here in Lincoln, we have DMS-100's, > GTD-5's, and a 5ESS; that's the way the feature worked when it was > tested in our network. On the other hand if 'Call Forwarding Don't Answer' is used to forward the call, the 'return last call' feature will not be denied and the call will be forwarded if/when the phone is not answered. Greg Lauer ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #84 *****************************