TELECOM Digest     Wed, 15 Jun 94 13:04:00 CDT    Volume 14 : Issue 287

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Still Another 800 Forwarding Service (TELECOM Digest Editor)
    Long Range Radio Modems (Dinesh Rehani)
    France and Germany to Buy Sprint (Clive D.W. Feather)
    Call Progress Tones (Scott Coleman)
    IXC's and InterLATA CID (Jeffrey W. McKeough)
    More Sneaky MCI Marketing (T. Stephen Eggleston)
    Oncor Slam (Rob Boudrie)
    Sprint, eh? (John R. Levine)
    Smooth Operator (Compass Voice Mail) (Eric A. Litman)
    Nine Track IBM Standard Labels (Aaron Jones)
    Assured Service (Bob Schwartz)
    International 900 Numbers (Joe Bowker)
    Problem With Telecom Archives pager.bin.uqx (Neil Weisenfeld)
    List of NACN Cities Wanted (Don Wegeng)
    Pac Bell to Offer Remote Access to Call Forwarding (Richard Kashdan)

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.
It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated
newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. 

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 edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick
Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax 
or phone at:
                    9457-D Niles Center Road
                     Skokie, IL USA   60076
                       Phone: 708-329-0571
                        Fax: 708-329-0572
  ** 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 partially funded by a grant from the              *
* International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland    * 
* under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES)   * 
* project.  Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-*
* ing views of the ITU.                                                 *
*************************************************************************

Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such
as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help 
is important and appreciated.

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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:22:47 CDT
From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor)
Subject: Still Another 800 Forwarding Service


After posting that message last week about 'My Line', I got a fax from
another firm offering the same service located here in the Chicago
area, and I will tell you about it today.

Arch Telecom is located in Northbrook, Illinois; a suburb of Chicago
and just a couple miles northwest of where I live. Steven Friedlander,
President of the Sales Group at Arch Telecom sent me a fax describing
their 800 service, and it appears to be quite similar to 'My Line'.
The major difference seems to be in the pricing, which also is quite
similar to 'My Line' but handled differently. Depending on your own
application it may work out better for you.

Arch Telecom includes a fraud protection/cost control feature. They
guarentee not to charge a customer for more than $50 if there is
fraudulent usage on the account, and they allow the customer to set
geographic restrictions on the outbound calling portion of their
service to further guard against abuse or misuse of the service.

Like 'My Line', the 800 service from Arch allows outbound calling via
an inbound call to your personal 800 number. 

Arch also offers voicemail for incoming 800 calls, and an additional
feature they offer which 'My Line' seems not to have is a toll-saver
arrangement. If you call your 800 number, it will answer immediatly
if there are messages in voicemail; otherwise if there are no messages
calls to your number will ring two times before answering. If all you
wish to do is check for messages you can hang up if you hear the ring
and save yourself the cost of the call.

Arch offers ANI/DNIS capture on all calls which make it as far as
the voicemail system, even if no actual message is left. You can also
get the time and date for any access made to voicemail via your
number.  I don't think 'My Line' offers this, at least as of yet.

In addition to message notification, where a call is made out to a
pager to to notify you of voicemail received, the Arch Telecom system
offers zero transfer and voicemail transfer, meaning you can receive
a call and while conversing transfer the call elsewhere, or to the
voicemail if you prefer.

Like 'My Line', calls to your 800 number can be forwarded instantly
to wherever you choose; you control the destination by calling your
own number and punching in new instructions which take effect at the
same time as you enter them.

For additional fraud protection, and to prevent nuisance callers from
reaching you, Arch Telecom's system allows ANI blocking and passing.
You can allow or deny access to your 800 number on a phone number by
phone number basis. You can block specific numbers or entire area
codes as desired.

Arch Telecom says they can route your incoming 800 calls based on the
caller's location. That is, callers from Chicago might get sent
through to the Chicago office while calls in Missouri might get sent
to the office in St. Louis, etc. 

They offer online, up to the second call detail if you have a PC and
a modem ... and who among the TELECOM Digest readers woudn't have one!
You can call in and view your phone activity and billings on a 'real
time' basis for analysis. You need 'PC Anywhere' for windows software.

MONTHLY RATES AND PER MINUTE CHARGES:

Arch refers to their service as 'Vision 800'.

The monthly recurring line charge is $20.00 for an Arch Telecom 800
number, but according to what I received, that charge is presently
being waived, at least for new customers. 

   For comparison, 'My Line' charges $8.50 plus $9.50 if you want 
   voicemail. 

Per minute charges are rated by band, with the USA divided into six
bands. Charges are further calculated by time of day and day of week.
For example, the closest points (band one) are charged 23.9 cents per
minute weekday business hours. Far away points (band six) are charged
28.8 cents per minute. Evening rates range from 19.7 cents per minute
to 23.7 cents per minute. Night and weekend rates range from 16.8
cents per minute to 19.9 cents per minute. 

    For comparison, 'My Line' charges 25 cents per minute, all times.

So if your usage is primarily evenings and weekends, then Arch Telecom
is less expensive. Bear in mind the monthly recurring charge difference
between Arch and 'My Line' is only one dollar ($20 vrs. $19 per month)
however if you don't want the voicemail part, 'My Line' does let you
opt out and get by for $8.50 per month instead. As far as I can tell
by reading what I got from Arch, voicemail is part of the package and
not optional. 

If your usage is primarily during weekday business hours, then Arch
rates are about equal to 'My Line' for many calls, and slightly
higher on others. From the table they sent me and based on my own
calls as an example, I think Arch would be about a penny per minute
higher during the day on average. Evenings and nights are always cheaper
on Arch, sometimes by as much as five cents per minute.

But, Arch also gives discounts on total dollar usage per month. If you
use more than $50 per month, they give a five percent discount off the
total. If you use more than $350.00 per month, the discount is ten
percent. This in effect would bring the cost of daytime calls down to
equal 'My Line', or maybe even a little less. 

Overall, it looks to me like Arch Telecom is aiming for business
customers with a higher volume of traffic. Whether your calling pattern
is mostly days, mostly nights/weekends, etc is an applications problem
you have to solve. That's not to say that 'My Line' would not like some
large business customers as well, but the pricing (per month recurring
without voicemail and per minute charges) probably would be a little
more appealing than what Arch is asking. Again, you have to analyze
your own application and if you can make Arch pay off in the long run
based on your own configuration and calling patterns, then go for it.

Arch has a second plan which may be more to your liking:

They average out the calls at rates of:

     24.5 cents per minute during the day;
     20.5 cents per minute during the evening, night and weekend hours.

On this plan there is no monthly charge or installation charge, but
there is a $5 per month minimum usage requirement. For a very low
volume user, this might be much more in line with what you want to
pay; this plan certainly is better than 'My Line' but it is unclear
to me if it includes all the fancy features described above which apply
to 'Vision 800'.  If Arch is giving automtic forwarding of calls and
voicemail essentially free under this second plan (I do not know that
to be the case or not), then obviously it is a better deal than 
'My Line' with its $8.50 per month and optional $9.50 per month deal
and per minute charges of 25 cents flat rate.

One other point not touched on clearly in the fax I got from Arch
was the pricing on outbound calls. 'My Line' gets 55 cents for the
first minute and 25 cents each additional minute on calls outbound
via your 800 number. I *assume* -- might be wrong -- that Arch charges
the same rates for outgoing calls that they charge on incoming stuff
per the figures shown above. If so, then the question is are you going
to be making more outgoing calls via that number (eliminating the use
of a conventional calling card) than you are going to receive incoming
calls ... if so, Arch again is best in pricing. If not, then maybe 
'My Line' is your best deal.

This message has already gotten quite long, and there are parts of the
Arch Telecom service I have not even touched on such as the interactive
voice response service, the fax on demand, and other neat things.

One thing though is certain -- this I do know:  the days of the old
style 800 number, good for incoming calls only are over with. Remember
how here in the Digest we used to discuss the fact that (back then)
only Cable and Wireless was offering 'forwardable 800' ... and
remember how AT&T charged so much for their 'Ready Line', to say 
nothing of their more conventional, dedicated line 800 service?

And what about those poor fools using the MCI shared-line, insert
a PIN number after getting answered numbers?  Wny would *anyone*
bother with MCI, Sprint or AT&T 800 service these days when new and
exciting services like Arch Telecom, 'My Line', Cable and Wireless
and others are around?

For more information on Arch Telecom's 800 services, you can contact
them as follows:

Steven Friedlander  stevenf624@aol.com
Arch Telecom
3330 W. Dundee Road #C-8
Northbrook, IL  60062
Phone: 800-ARCHTEL
       708-509-ARCH
Fax:   708-509-1182


Mention that you read about their service in TELECOM Digest.


Patrick Townson

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

Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 06:57:32 MST
From: Dinesh Rehani +44 400 81999 <REHANI@UTCDSV>
Subject: Long Range Radio Modems


I have been trying for over a year to get BT to install a 64kbps grade
line (the BTspeak is KiloStream) to my office without any success so
far, and without much hope for the next half year or so.

I am therefore looking at alternative means of obtaining 64kbps
capability. I recall having seen (not "read") a spate of articles
recently regarding radio-modems.

Would someone enlighten me on these please? I intend to have Cisco
routers on each end, and the two nodes I need connected are about 60
miles as the crow flies ...


Thanks and regards,

dinesh rehani   rehani@utcdsv.sinet.slb.com

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

Subject: France and Germany to buy Sprint
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 08:21:48 +0100 (BST)
From: Clive D.W. Feather <clive@sco.COM>


According to the BBC today, the France and German PTTs are to take a
20% stake in Sprint (similar to British Telecom's share in MCI).


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 

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

From: genghis@ilces.ag.uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman)
Subject: Call Progress Tones
Date: 15 Jun 94 13:57:05 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana


The following chart summarizes common call progress tones as well as
the DTMF frequency combinations. I asked about these earlier, but all
I got were "tell me what you found" responses, so this post is for
those guys.  ;-) Also, if anyone spots any errors, please feel free to
correct them.  Pat, I'm sure this will make a good addition to the
Telecom Archives. I know I wish it had been there when I looked a few
weeks back. ;-)

BTW, the source is the October '93 issue of Circuit Cellar INK
magazine in an article on a telephone interface for a home automation
system.

                          Call Progress Tones

Function                Frequency               On Time         Off Time
      (Hz)   (seconds) (seconds)

Dial   350 + 440  continuous
Busy   480 + 620  0.5  0.5
Ringback  440 + 480  2  4
No Such Number  200 to 400   continuous FM @ 1 Hz
Left Off Hook  1400 + 2060 +  0.1  0.1
   2450 + 2600
Congestion  480 + 620  0.2  0.3
Reorder   80 + 620  0.3  0.2
Ring Back PBX  440 + 480  1  3

                        DTMF Tone Combinations

  697 Hz  770 Hz  852 Hz  941 Hz
1209 Hz    1    4    7    0
1336 Hz    2    5    8    *
1477 Hz    3    6    9    #
1633 Hz    A    B    C    D



Scott Coleman    tmkk@uiuc.edu
President ASRE (American Society of Reverse Engineers)

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

Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 01:25:54 -0400
From: jwm@student.umass.edu (Jeffrey W. McKeough)
Subject: IXC's and InterLATA CID
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst


Having read the text of the FCC's Caller ID decision, I am curious to
know if any carriers have announced their schedule for transmitting
CNID between LATAs.  The FCC has mandated April 12, 1995 as the
effective date by which all carriers must comply, but it seems
possible, especially given reports of sporadic CID delivery, that
capable carriers may go nationwide before that deadline.

The decision also asked for comments regarding other CID-based
services, including Return Call, and Repeat Call.  From the looks of
the report, it would seem that the arguments that led to nationwide
CID with per-call (*67/1167) blocking would tend to argue for the use
of these services on a nationwide basis as well.  The only difficulty
that comes to mind would be the use of Return Call to numbers that had
blocked CID delivery.  The most sensible compromise (IMO) would be to
preserve both parties' privacy by allowing Return Call on blocked
numbers without revealing the actual number to the party invoking the
Return feature, as NYNEX does in MA.  Is this current practice in most
states?  (I believe that it is not true for MN.)

BTW, while paging through the archives (via Gopher), I came across a
post by someone who intended to switch to the first carrier that
offered interLATA CID.  Am I correct in believing that the IXC of the
caller, and not the recipient, would be the one delivering the
information?  If so, such a switch would only guarantee that the
individial's outgoing LD calls would deliver his CID to the recipient,
and not vice versa.


Jeffrey W. McKeough   jwm@student.umass.edu

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

From: nuance@access.digex.net (T. Stephen Eggleston)
Subject: More Sneaky MCI Marketing
Date: 15 Jun 1994 03:00:06 -0400
Organization: Nuance Data Systems, Alexandria, VA    22304


Well, this one took the cake.

MCI sent a "check" for 25.00, which when cashed switched my service.
Nothing unusual here, but they sent it to my teenage daughter.  She
has NEVER had a phone in her name.

She came to me and told me she was going to the bank.  Someone sent me
a check, and all I have to do is sign it.

Again, she is a kid, living at home, and has NEVER EVER had a phone in
her name.

I was tempted to let her do it, and see what legal goodies I could
pull, but decided I had too much of a life to play games with "The
Phone Company."

I did, however, call my carrier (Sprint) and told them about the
"dirty trick."  They said that if I would send them the entire package
with a brief note explaining this, they would credit my account the
25.00.

Not of great importance, but what are these folks going to stoop to
next?

"Hey little girl, want a piece of candy, just initial this box!"

Talk about sleaze ball marketing!

And people complain about Amway and Jehovah's Witnesses ...

MCI, the C&S of the Phone Business!

$include flameshield.  But Then Again, I Could Be Wrong


Steve Eggleston                         Internet:nuance@access.digex.net
Nuance Data Systems  (703)823-8963           CIS:72040,713


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note" I doubt that MCI *knew* she is only a
child. I am sure there was a data entry error somewhere from some other
list where they obtained her name.   PAT]

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

From: rboudrie@chpc.org (Rob Boudrie)
Subject: Oncor Slam
Date: 14 Jun 1994 22:58:11 -0400
Organization: Center for High Performance Computing of WPI


A visitor to a club I'm in recently used the coin unit to call long
distqance from MA to NJ.  The phone labeled AT&T, and the readback
from 1-700-555-4141 confirms an AT&T connection.

But, this person made two card calls and received a bill from Oncor
(at $7 for the one minute call and $12 for the five minute call).

Anyone know any way this could happen?  Is there such a thing as 
slamming an individual call on a phone defaulted to AT&T?


rob boudrie    rboudrie@chpc.org

PS: please copy reply to email as I am an intermittent reader of this group.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Read the tag on the phone carefully. All
*coin calls* (which is what 1+ would be from a payphone; the caller would
have to deposit coins in the box) everywhere in the USA are handled by
AT&T. They are the only company set up with equipment in the telco central
offices to handle coin collections. Now zero plus calls from a coin phone
are a different matter. They can go to whatever carrier happens to have
that pay phone assigned to them. The tag on the phone should have said
something like 'operator services to this phone are provided by Oncor'. 
In some cases, the tag is identical to all others except after the 
phrase 'provided by' a tiny slice of paper with the word 'Oncor' was
pasted on top of whatever had been there before. This is done when the
phone starts out one way and zero plus gets defaulted elsewhere at some
point in time. This sounds to me like the default was changed but the
tag on the front was not. Usually this is the job of the coin collector
when s/he comes around to get the money from time to time. 

If the phone in your club is *semi-public*, which is quite likely, then
the club pays a monthly fee for it to be there even though telco gets
all the coins and no commission is paid. If that is the case, then whoever
in your club is responsible for the phone got to pick the carrier. I would
suspect that person was approached by a sales rep for Oncor and told that
they would receive a better commmission on long distance calls than what
AT&T/local telco was willing to provide, so they made the switch. On the
other hand, if the coin phone in your club is 'public', or commissionable,
then telco is technically the 'subscriber' to the phone, and telco
is required to distribute its long distance zero plus traffic from coin
phones on an even-handed basis, assigning some phones to AT&T, some to
Sprint, etc ... in the case of coins deposited in the box, (what would
be one plus traffic) as stated above, AT&T gets that by default since
they are they only company equipped to handle it.  

This probably explains the confusion. The tag was not correctly updated
to match the realities of where the phone was assigned for zero plus
calls, and a call to *1* plus 700-555-4141 will correctly yield AT&T as
the carrier for those (coin paid) calls.   

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

From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine)
Subject: Sprint, eh?
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 23:17:00 EDT


The current {America's Network} (formerly TE&M, a rag read by most
telco engineering managers) reports that Sprint's Canadian affiliate
is now cranking up an advertising campaign for Canadian customers.

By a huge stroke of luck, spokesbeing Candice Bergen, who is married
to French filmmaker Louis Malle, speaks fluent French and is doing
both the English and French commercials.  Competing carriers in
Quebec sniff that there's more to capturing the Quebec market than a
few commercials in French.

Speaking of French, I hear that Sprint today in the wake of their
failed talks with EDS announced a multi-billion dollar investment by
the monopoly carriers France Telecom and Deutche Telekom.  Sprint
will sell 20% of the company over several years for $4.2 billion in
cash.  A joint Global Partnership will market combined services
worldwide, and they may invite an Asian carrier or two to join.

AT&T promptly complained, not without reason, that it's unfair that
the European monopoly carriers can invest in U.S. carriers, but AT&T
can't buy into Europe.


Regards,

John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com

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

From: elitman@proxima.com (Eric A. Litman)
Subject: Smooth Operator (Compass Voice Mail)
Date: 14 Jun 1994 10:54:12 -0500
Organization: Proxima, Inc.


Has anyone on this group used Compass Technology's Smooth Operator
PC-based voice mail system? I am in the market for a system, and am
going through the merits of a PC-based system as opposed to picking up
an aftermarket Octel system.

Apparently, Compass was purchased by Octel a few years ago, and now
sells one of their products as the Call Performer. Notes on this would
be welcome, as well.


Eric Litman                   Proxima, Inc.              vox: (703) 506.1661
Director, Network Services    McLean, VA                elitman+@proxima.com

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

From: aoj@access3.digex.net (aaronjones)
Subject: Nine Track IBM Standard Labels
Date: 14 Jun 1994 17:47:55 GMT
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA


Hi there,

I'm trying to deal with Bell Canada's SYGMA (Bell's Computer Systems
Group) to exchange information on 9-track magnetic tapes.  They
require that the tapes that we ship to them have (drum roll please) ...

   "Standard IBM Labels"

Bell SYGMA has said that we should contact IBM for the format of these
labels. I've tried to do so and failed most miserably (sigh).  I did
get to talk to a rather large number of nice people at IBM, but
unfortunately none of them were able to help me.

BTW, these are labels written to the tape media rather than little
adhesive stickers on the side of the reel. ;-)
 
Any and all help with this would be greatly appreciated.
 

Adv-thanks-ance,

Aaron Jones  Ph: (416) 213-2040 
InterAccess Consulting  Fax:(416) 213-5760
Toronto, Ontario Email: aoj@digex.net

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

From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz)
Subject: Assured Service
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 12:39:19 PDT
Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California


According to an article in {Teleconnect Magazine} a couple of months
ago Assured service is costly and often identical to Basic service.

Are there ever any situations under which Assured service is necessary?


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


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wouldn't that (if they were identical
or not) depend on who was giving the 'assurances', and whether or not
a technically sophisticated person (like most Digest readers I assume)
felt they could accept such guarantees and 'assurances'?  PAT]

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

From: Joe Bowker <bowker@mse1.enet.dec.com>
Subject: International 900 Numbers
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:14:31 EDT


I thought I was safe from my teenage sons from using 900/976 numbers,
but I was wrong. I have had my 900/976 numbers blocked for my home
phone for some time now. I recently got hit for about $135 worth of
international calls to adult enterainment services in the Dominican
Republic and Sao Tome.

Although the guilty party has been caught (eleven year old son) and is
being punished and I don't think he'll do it again (if he wants to see
the ripe age of twelve).

I would like to spread the word that these slime balls are coming up
with new and inventive ways to get around the call blocking.

My questions for the net are:

1. Has anyone ever succesfully had this type of charges reversed? (LD
carrier is Sprint) If so how did you manage it? Sprint is stonewalling
me and refuses to write them off.

2. How successfully can one get the local CO to block this sort of
call, without making it impossible to use the phone for all international 
calls?

3. Have there been any recent court/legal cases that may be relevant?
If I challenge the charges, do I have any chances of winning? Or will
it be just a delaying action that annoys the LD carrier and eventually
I will end up paying?


Joe Bowker    EMail: bowker@mse1.enet.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corp    508-858-3021 


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let's repeat together the long-standing
rule, expresssed time and again: each person is responsible for the
use(s) made of his instruments. Period. You are legally going to have
to pay. Sprint may or may not decide as a matter of goodwill to write
off the charges; and a write off it will be since they have no recourse
against the telco which accepted the inbound traffic. 

For those not in the know about this, here is what is happening: the
business of international calls is a lucrative one. Although they do not
cost much more than domestic long distance calls, they are priced much
higher. As a result, anyone who can generate a lot of international calls
(by 'a lot' I mean many, many thousands of dollars worth of them per month)
can solicit and will receive -- with pleasure! -- a commission from the
international carrier handling the traffic. Now, how do you stir up lots
of international calls?  Simple ... you advertise in the media in one nation
telling the citizens there to call for something they want in another country
and you tell them why it is better to do it that way. You appeal to the
interests of those people. Care for a couple examples?  Newspaper adver-
tisements in Spain and Italy encourage those people to call a number in
New Jersey, USA for consultation with an astrologer. On the flip side of
the coin, newspapers in the USA, such as the {Advocate} and {Windy City
Times}, to name two examples, run advertisements encouraging gay guys to
meet other gay people for hot chat by dialing a number in Guyana or in
Bonaire, Netherland Antilles. 

Now you ask, why would a person place an international call to do that?
The advertisements explain why: "No premium or 900 charges! No charges on
your credit card! All you pay is the regular toll!"  If you have ever used
a 900 service and paid three dollars per minute, or had charges like that
billed on your credit card, then obviously the savings are quite apparent.
The toll charge is only 50-75 cents per minute. Now your next question
quite logically follows: If all the caller has to pay is the toll charge,
and the telco gets that, then how does the 'information provider' -- the
dude with his conference bridge setup handling all that hot chat -- get
paid?  How do the astrologers in New Jersey get paid?  He gets paid a 
commission, or kickback by the international carrier. They get five or
ten cents per minute of traffic sent their way. The telecom administration
in the foreign country gets a piece of the action also which helps a lot
in getting their outstanding balance cleaned up with AT&T. 'Everyone'
benefits: the IP gets rich, the telcos make out like bandits, and the gay
guys or dirty old men or whoever in the USA call those numbers get much
lower phone bills. 'Everyone' that is, except the parents of eleven year
old boys who are curious about life ...:)     

Its not just Sprint, or those hooligans at Telesphere (or whatever name
they are going by now) involved. Would the Mother Company -- AT&T, the
Grand Dame of telcos -- engage in such dealings?  You betcha!  Madam Bell
runs electronic houses of ill-repute also ... what's that number in 
Colorado which can only be reached by using the AT&T network? Then there
is that advertisement which ran in the underground newspapers for awhile
showing these dudes with boots and leather, whips and chains and a caption
saying, "Make new friends using AT&T ... reach out and touch the one you've
been seeking ... call <10288-011-international number in Netherland Antilles>
 ... no premium charges!  Just regular toll charges apply on your call." 

Hot chat over the long-distance telephone is a lucrative business, especially
when an established carrier is willing to handle the mechanics for you. 
Your options in the future?  Get one of those Radio Shack toll-restrictors
and block out the individual numbers you don't want called. Either that, or
take that eleven year old and slap him silly. :)   PAT]

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

From: weisen@alw.nih.gov (Neil Weisenfeld)
Subject: Problem With Telecom Archives pager.bin.uqx
Organization: NIH Div of Comp Rsrch and Technology
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 14:41:43 GMT


Has anyone successfully decoded this software from the Telecom-Archives 
(I think in /telecom-archives/technical)?  I transferred it as text,
uudecoded it, de-bin-hex-ed it, but the resulting stack just won't run
under Hypercard 2.1.  I've done the process a million times, making
sure that the uuencoded stuff gets correctly transferred as text (and
doesn't have something stupid happen like paragraph filling).  It
still gets "Filesystem Error -50".  Has anyone had more luck (er,
skill)?


Regards,

Neil Weisenfeld, Computer Engineer       Internet: weisen@nih.gov
Nat'l Insts. of Health, 12A/2033         Voice:    +1 301 402 4030
Bethesda, MD  20892                      Fax:      +1 301 402 2867

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

From: dlw@eng.mc.xerox.com (Don Wegeng)
Subject: List of NACN Cities?
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:14:31 EDT


Does anyone know of an Internet accessible updated list of cellular
phone systems that are members of McCaw's North American Cellular
Network?  In a couple weeks I plan to travel across several states via
car, and I need to provide instructions on how to contact me.  NACN
will auto-deliver calls, but of course that only works if I'm in an
NACN area.  When I'm in other cities I need to provide roaming port
numbers, etc.

This would seem like something that the Cellular One WWW server could
easily provide, but it's not there (http://www.elpress.com/cellone/cellone.
html).

I know that there are roaming handbooks that contain this info, or I
could inquire with my local provider before I travel, but an electronic 
list would be easier and/or cheaper to access, and probably more up to date, 
too.


Thanks,

Don    dlw.xkeys@xerox.com

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

From: rkashdan@netcom.com (Richard Kashdan)
Subject: Pac Bell to Offer Remote Access to Call Forwarding
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 21:17:17 GMT


Pacific Bell submitted Advice Letter 17006 to the California PUC on
June 6 requesting authorization to offer the Remote Access to Call
Forwarding service.  They request that the tariff go into effect on
July 16, 1994.  This type of Advice Letter usually goes into effect
automatically on the requested date without needing any formal
approval process by the PUC.  The only thing that might stop or delay
it would be legitimate protests that the PUC staff might decide to
take seriously.

Remote Access to Call Forwarding already exists in some other states.
The customer is given an access phone number (one per ESS switch) and
a PIN.  They can call that phone number from anywhere and when it
answers, touch tone in their own phone number, their PIN, and a
command to re-program their call-forwarding feature to either start
forwarding calls to wherever they now find themselves (or any other
number), or deactivate call forwarding.

The price will be $1.50 per month for business service, $1.00 per
month for residence.  This is in addition to the normal charges for
the call forwarding feature.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Illinois Bell/Ameritech offers this
service for free. If you subscribe to Call Forwarding, you can request
a PIN to use via a certain telephone number which allows you to remotely
turn on or off call forwarding and change the destination, etc.  PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #287
******************************

