Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA29605; Fri, 3 May 1996 13:53:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 13:53:16 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605031753.NAA29605@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #215 TELECOM Digest Fri, 3 May 96 13:53:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 215 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Information Wanted on Tymnet (Tom Reynolds) Re: Information Wanted on Tymnet (Steve Coleman) Re: Information Wanted on Tymnet (Joel M. Snyder) An Intelligent Phone? (Dale Robinson) New-Fangled Phones on a Two-Party Line (Pat O'Neil) Billing ISDN/Modem Calls to Calling Card (Eric Pylko) NewBridge MainStreet Boards Wanted (Christopher Bernat) Alphabet on the Phone Keypad (Zev Rubenstein) Re: Intimidating Cellular Phone and a Phony Police Officer (Tye McQueen) Re: Big Problems With AT&T WorldNet Service (Douglas Kaspar) Re: Big Problems With AT&T WorldNet Service (geneb@ma.ultranet.com) Re: Big Problems With AT&T WorldNet Service (Alan M. Gallatin) Re: Information Wanted on Finland Telecomms (Yves Blondeel) Re: Information Wanted on Finland Telecomms (larsendg@mcgraw-hill.com) Re: Is NYNEX Deceptively Advertising *66? (Brian Brown) 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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.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: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. 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A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. 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: Tom Reynolds Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Tymnet Date: 3 May 1996 02:42:03 GMT Organization: MCI DSE - Development > A competitive service started around 1970-75 called 'Tymnet' pronounced > 'Time Net'. It operated much the same way and it came down basically > to a 'do you prefer MCI, Sprint or AT&T' sort of thing. Either one > you picked had about the same rates; each served a few slightly differ- > points than the other when you got out in the boondocks, etc. The spelling was because the founder was named LeRoy Tymes. Funny the flavor comparison, Tymnet is now a part of MCI. > At some point, Tymnet jumped into it with an offering of their own > which was quite competitive. I do not recall which company owned > Tymnet, although I beleive there are some very old files in the > Archives which discusses it and makes a comparison study between it > and Telenet's PC Pursuit. Actually, we olny sold directly to corporate accounts. The mass market edition was a company reselling the service. (Sorry, the name of the company escapes me.) > At some point Tynmet either went out of business or changed its name > or was bought out. Three times ... MacDonnald Douglas had already bought the company when I came on board eight years ago. They sold us to British Telecom, who changed the name of the company three times in one year. BT sold the portion of the network in the Americas to MCI. It's still a global network; BT operates much of the world, MCI operates the Americas. Customers may be from BT, MCI, or the global joint venture, Concert. >I know the very same phone numnbers from the Tymnet > days are still in service as dialups, and to a large extent by AOL. > The fastest baud rate you can get on any of those older dialups is > 1200. You get to pick that or 300, your choice ... ... also the We have higher speeds, typically it's the online service that chooses to limit their customers to our lower speed numbers. You see, something happened to the old model of how access was sold. The online services grew much larger and much faster than most of the "experts" predicted. Instead of selling surplus access at night and on weekends, online services started driving modem deploymnet. When you aren't selling surplus, you have to charge more. (This also explains why AOL is building their own network, and CIS is expanding theirs.) > I cannot imagine who would use it at 300/1200/2400 baud when there are > now so many other methods of connection at speeds much greater. LOTS of old PCs out there, with old applications. They just keep on going, till one day someone buys a new one, and they experience a shock as they try to configure the fast new PC with Win95 and a fast modem to do what the old slow DOS PC did. Also, lots of credit card terminals that still only do 300. (Fast ones rolling off the line today do 2400. > It has nothing to > do with Tymnet, which was a competitor with a similar program for small > PC users, who I have no idea where they went or when, just that they > are not around now. PAT] We're still around, and bigger than ever. We're the XStream product line of MCI Data Services, the Concert Packet Network, and the Concert Frame Relay Network. Tom Reynolds MCI Data Services Dial Access Network Operations Center ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 May 1996 22:08:48 GMT From: scaf@pro-net.co.uk (Steve Coleman) Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Tymnet On 29 Apr 1996, Kendall Shaw wrote: > There was a company called Tymnet who offered a service which was > popular with computer users, whereby you would call in and then > be able to call out to internet service providers or other services. > I think it was an X.25 network. > What has become of that? I thought it became Sprintnet, but when I > called sprintnet they said they have no such service and they were > never Tymnet. Tymnet was purchased by BT and become part of their Packet Switching portfolio in the early 1990's. Outside of the UK, BT's asychronous dial service retained the name Tymdial and surprise, surprise operated over the purchased Tymnet nodes. In the UK a similar offering was marketed as Dialplus and ran over Telenet equipment. The charges for this asynch' service were usage based and the maximum speed offered was 2400bps. A dedicated option was also available. Around 93/94 the access speed was increased to 9600bps and the product renamed BT GNS Dial. GNS (Global Network Services) held responsibility for the companies packet switching products together with fast packet services like Frame Relay. This group are now part of the BT/MCI global alliance called Concert. A call to your local MCI rep' should move you a step closer to finding the products current status in the US. I have a sneaky feeling that the network was originally owned by MacDonald Douglas. However my old product notes do not appear to support this hunch. Hope this helps you though. Steve Coleman University of North London http://idun.unl.ac.uk/~hfa9colemas ------------------------------ From: Joel M Snyder Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Tymnet Organization: Opus One - +1 520 324 0494 Date: 1 May 96 10:02:22 -0700 Organization: Opus One, Tucson, Arizona In article , fgoldstein@bbn.com (Fred R. Goldstein) writes: > There were three big packet-switched network operators in the USA in > the late '70s. Telenet ... Tymnet... > The third of the big three was Graphnet, run by Graphic Scanning Inc. The big three were actually two: Telenet (now Sprint) and Tymnet (now MCI), which dominated the industry. Then came a host of smaller networks: Uninet (which got bought by one of the big two), CompuServe (which is still around and big), ADP Autonet (which is still around), and AT&T (which marketed it's network under about five different names. I would not put Graphnet in the running, personally. Joel M Snyder, 1404 East Lind Road, Tucson, AZ, 85719 Phone: +1 520 324 0494 (voice) +1 520 324 0495 (FAX) jms@Opus1.COM http://www.opus1.com/jms Opus One ------------------------------ From: Dale.Robinson@DWNPLAZA.NCOM.nt.gov.au Date: Fri, 03 May 1996 21:46:38 +0930 Subject: An Intelligent Phone? Pat, With the different long distance billing plans available, I wonder if anyone has make an intelligent phone to exploit this? I would like a phone that would: Select the least-cost billing plan for any given time of day. (ie. if Telco Y is cheaper than Telco X between 9 -> 10pm, then the phone would place the call with Y). Maintain log of calls made and cost of them, for bill comparison. Detect caller-id and perform some given action based on it. (ie. refuse call, divert call to mobile call, record message). It's only a wish list, and I could write something to do all the above on a computer, but isn't technology about being unintrusive? Cheers, Dale ------------------------------ From: Pat O'Neil Subject: New-Fangled Phones on a Two-Party Line Date: 3 May 1996 12:48:55 GMT Organization: Hughes Network Systems I'd like to install a wireless telephone for a friend who is on a two-party pulse-dial line. How do I insure that: 1. The phone will ring only when my friend's number is called. 2. My friend's toll calls will be billed to him, and not to the other party on the line. Anyone have any suggestions? Pat O'Neil Hughes Network Systems Germantown, Md [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can't insure those things, which is why under FCC regulations it is *completely forbidden* to put any sort of attachment or phone on a multi-party line other than the nice black POTS phone telco gives you when you sign up for that asinine service. If your friend can afford a cordless phone, then they can afford single party service. I am making the assumption here that there are no physical limitations imposed by telco, i.e. lack of pairs in the area, etc. If so, then please excuse my response, but this is the first time I ever got a message here from someone with party-line service (in this day and age) who wanted to make improvements in their service without first getting to the core problem of the whole thing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: pylko@kodak.com (Eric Pylko) Subject: Billing ISDN/Modem Calls to Calling Card Date: 3 May 1996 10:30:05 -0400 Organization: Eastman Kodak Company I want to setup a LAN with a dial-out terminal server. I also want the Macintoshes to be able to use the ISDN and modem lines to dial out from the terminal server. The catch is I don't want to pay for the calls. I haven't purchased any hardware or software yet, so does anyone know of a solution that will allow people to dial out, yet bill all calls to a calling card or credit card? I've talked to a few vendors, but they don't seem to have anything like that. Thanks for any info/leads. Eric Pylko Phone: (716) 253-1611 Network Engineer Pager: (716) 975-1792 pylko@kodak.com Fax: (716) 726-7283 ------------------------------ From: Christopher Bernat Subject: NewBridge MainStreet Boards Wanted Date: 3 May 1996 15:15:56 GMT Organization: National SUPPORT Center Hello everyone, We are looking for six LGE boards for the Newbridge MainStreet 3624 Channel Bank. PLease call me at 800-672-3683 or email me at rjohnson@scsn.net. Thanks, Ron Johnson ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 May 1996 08:32:58 -0500 From: zev@wireless.attmail.com (zev) Subject: Alphabet on the Phone Keypad I did some digging on the ITU standards for the alphabet on the phone. The standard is an ITU-T (T for Telecom) standard, number E.161. I also found out that there is a current effort to change the standard for ATM kepads to bring them in alignment with the telephony standard. That standard is X3.118, and it may be changed to move the Q and Z to 7 & 9 (respectively) as early as next week. Zev Rubenstein zev@attmail.com Independent Telecommunications Consultant ------------------------------ From: tye@metronet.com (Tye McQueen) Subject: Re: Intimidating Cellular Phone and a Phony Police Officer Date: 3 May 1996 01:58:38 -0500 Organization: Texas Metronet, Inc (login info (214/488-2590 - 817/571-0400)) wwalker@qualcomm.com (Bill Walker) writes: > I don't know about your state, but in California, 911 (landline or > cellular) is for reporting emergencies that threaten life or property. > Since the impersonator wasn't threatening you with bodily harm, I > submit that a call to the local police station would be more > appropriate. Indeed. Many 911 systems have significant problems with things as bad as callers asking for the time of day or whether the ball game has been cancelled. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On the other hand, in the city of > Chicago, if you dial the number of a local police precinct to > ask them about something or report some incident, they always > tell you dial 911 if you want to speak to a police officer. It > seems a shame really. Here in Skokie, 911 brings a *huge* response > in the form of manpower and vehicles but a call to the seven- > digit number is handled more appropriately as a non-emergency. PAT] Chicago is unusual in that having charged each of its very numerous phone subscribers something like $1.00 per month for 911 development for years, they have one of the premiere 911 centers in the country. You can watch little police car and fire truck icons move around maps of the city on huge overhead monitors in realtime. In one area I worked with, they had to add a recording, something like: "You have reached 911 Emergency. If this is not an emergency, please hang up and dial 456-7890 now. Otherwise please stay on the line. [Repeats in Spanish]". If their was an unbusy operator, they would answer immediately and you would get no recording. If all were busy, the one with the least "hot" call would quickly find a "breaking point" and answer the call to make sure it wasn't "hotter" than the call they were on. They also (as with most 911 centers) have several buttons that do useful things like forwarding the caller to a recording: "911 is to be used _only_ for emergency calls. For non-emergency calls, ...". Oh, and 456-7890 was answered by the same operators but only after emergency calls were handled and it offered a different recording. This site used a Tie phone system. Best office phone system I've ever seen. I've heard they aren't made anymore. *Sigh* I wish I could multiplex calls at work like that system let you. Have one on the speaker phone, get a muted tone anouncing a new one, tap a button and you could hear both calls and switch the mic between them. Never miss a word and no one even notices. No need for a hurried "please hold" trying to catch the new call before it rolls to voice mail. Tye McQueen tye@metronet.com || tye@thingy.usu.edu http://www.metronet.com/~tye/ (scripts, links, nothing fancy) ------------------------------ From: Douglas Kaspar Subject: Re: Big Problems With AT&T WorldNet Service Date: 3 May 1996 03:18:17 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I have been using my software for approximatly thirty days. Just recently I discovered that I was having problems with my modem not disconnecting. I called the customer care number at 10pm and had to wait approximatly 20 minutes on hold. I then worked with a live body. This individual couldn't fix my problem. I received a callback at 10am today. I wasn't able to get back to them until 9:30pm. I got right through to a tech and got my problem resolved. I wonder if your local ISP could handle 500,000 new users within six weeks? ------------------------------ From: geneb@ma.ultranet.com Subject: Re: Big Problems With AT&T WorldNet Service Date: 3 May 1996 05:12:22 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Reply-To: geneb@ultranet.com In , Greg Eiche writes: > Does anybody have any insight in the problems that AT&T WorldNet has > been having in registering new accounts? I tried to register for a > new account today with the software they just sent me, and was > unsuccessful. When I called AT&T's tech support, I was told that > their server was overloaded with people trying to sign up and that > they were having major problems. I couldn't help but laugh when I > recalled all the reports that AT&T was going to give the ISPs a real > run for their money. It's quite amazing that the world's largest > telecom can't get it right!! I, for one, plan to stick with my local > ISP ... Except for the fact that no "local ISP" could handle thousands or tens of thousands of registrations PER DAY either. It's when you get a *busy* signal calling AT&T Worldnet that you should feel free to laugh ... Gene ------------------------------ From: amg@netbox.com (Alan M. Gallatin) Subject: Re: Big Problems With AT&T Worldnet Service Date: Fri, 03 May 96 03:15:24 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services In article , conlin@shout.net (Roger Conlin) wrote: > Glad to hear from somebody using this. I've been waiting forever for > the software. Got some little postcard finally saying it was on the > way, but it's still not here. I can echo your experience with a local > ISP, and was hoping for some better service with Worldnet. Glad to > see somebody else try it and find out it actually works, than sign up > and find out that AT&T can't handle the business. Well, I never thought I'd hear (see?) myself saying this, but I'm quite happy with Worldnet (don't be deceived by my non-Worldnet e-mail address ... it's all a front :-)) Getting registered was certainly the most painful of my internet related experiences ... dozens of attempts over several days until a succesful trip through the registration process took place. However, since then, it's been a pleasure. My modem connections have been strong, stable and consistent, with network throughput being above average as compared to my past experiences. As for the good, bad and ugly of the Worldnet software, I really can't offer an opinion. I'm a content user of the Win95 DUN :-)) One question for "those in the know" re: Worldnet: Did AT&T set up POP's all over the country or are the local phone numbers forwarding into one central modem bank? I ask this because I've noticed a peculiar quality to the "ringing" tone whenever I call ANY of the Worldnet POP's. Alan M. Gallatin http://www.netbox.com/amg EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, PLEASE USE: amg@netbox.com IN PLACE OF amg@pobox.com ------------------------------ From: Yves Blondeel Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Finland Telecomms Date: Fri, 03 May 1996 14:33:44 +0200 Organization: Brussels Free Universities VUB/ULB Reply-To: yblondee@vnet3.vub.ac.be Johannes Kiehl wrote: > Can someone from Finland please give me the name (and maybe a phone > number?) of the national telecomms company? (I understand there's a > telecommunication monopoly in Finland?) Telecom Finland's Web site = http://www.tele.fi/ There has NEVER BEEN a telecommunications monopoly in Finland. (simplifying reply) Yves Blondeel yblondee@vnet3.vub.ac.be ------------------------------ From: larsendg@mcgraw-hill.com Date: Fri, 03 May 96 11:26:31 EST Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Finland Telecomms Telecom Finland (known as Tele, in Finland) offers telecommunications services to business and residential customers at the local, national, and international level, as well as mobile communications, and data and text transmission. Since the 1880s the Local Telephone Companies (LTCs) have been serving Finland's widely dispersed cities and smaller population centers. There are some 40+ separate companies. The majority of the LTCs are subscriber-owned and are run on a nonprofit basis. Most are limited companies, though one company operates as a municipal utilities and others operate as cooperatives and associations. In 1921, the Association of Telephone Companies in Finland (ATC Finland) was formed to coordinate the operations of the LTCs. All the LTCs are members of ATC Finland. The LTCs presently account for over two million subscriber lines -- approximately 73% of the total main lines in Finland. Phone Numbers: Telecom Finland Tel: +358 0 2040 6474 Fax: +358 0 2040 2032 ATC Finland Tel: +358 0 228 111 Fax: +358 0 605 531 Regards, David Larsen, Analyst, Datapro Information Services Group, U.K. ------------------------------ From: brianb@cfer.com (Brian Brown) Subject: Re: Is NYNEX Deceptively Advertising *66? Date: Fri, 03 May 1996 15:12:15 GMT Organization: ConferTech, International > The second flaw is that so far as I know, *66 has no knowledge of other > lines in a hunt group to which it could refer its user. If you (and > hundreds of other people) call a company which has a listed number with > let's say a couple dozen additional lines in sequence, the only thing > *66 knows about is the main, listed, first-in-the-group number that you > (and everyone else) dialed. And while yes, that line will become free > like the others, it will also be the first one to get seized by other > callers in the interim while *66 comes looking for you to make its > report and offer to try the connection again. There might be lines in > the hunt group available. I am not certain if retries are just dialed > again (thus the call might hunt down to a vacancy somewhere) or if it > just goes back and looks again first only to report that number XXX > has 'become busy again'. Actually, your second flaw is deeper than this. When you refer to "first-in-the-group" numbers, you are thinking about trunk termination in an analog sense. That is, in a small company, for example, you may have five analog phone lines and a hunt group programmed to go to the first available in the hunt order. Most large-scale setups have digital lines coming in, generally in the form of T1s. These T1's are almost never provisioned with a one-to-one correspondence of phone number and trunk. The DNIS is outpulsed for each call, telling the T1 termination equipment where to route (or in the case of IVR, what program to run) for that call only. Therefore, a busy service bureau, for example, TicketMaster, may have one main number which everyone calls, and which terminates across several circuits in one huge trunk group. It is not the case that each of these trunks in each of these circuits has a number associated with it. The trunk group can be set up such that only one number goes there. As far how the *66 feature deals with complicated trunk group scenarios, that question is still unanswered. (Help here) I would assume that some SS7 signalling paradigm would allow the requesting switch to subscribe to messages from the DNIS termination switch which indicate that lines are free. But, once again, in a fight for these free lines, odds are you will lose. On another note, we designed, and even started implementing, an IVR application at my company which, after hours, would use unutilized trunks and allow bulk-dialing to the same number to win contests, buy tickets, etc. We decided it was not fair, and may have been an inappropriate use of our company's facilities. This methodology, however, where you dial one number, enter your destination number, and then wait as 96 ports all go off hook and try to reach the destination, seems the most feasible, since it increases your odds. Call progress detection is used to connect the first off-hook line to your inbound line. Brian Brown ConferTech, International ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #215 ******************************