Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA03252; Mon, 6 May 1996 15:54:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 15:54:13 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605061954.PAA03252@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #220 TELECOM Digest Mon, 6 May 96 15:54:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 220 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson RF ICS for Wireless Comm. Deadline 5/15 (Takao Inoue) Re: No More 10-ATT-0 (Gabe M. Wiener) Re: An Intelligent Phone? (Dave Keeny) Re: Information Wanted on Tymnet (Ben Combee) Re: The Right to Television Signals (Robert P. Shannon) Re: Non-LEC Payphones (Matthew Stone) Re: Further Notes to Those Who Ordered Clocks (Mike Morris) Re: Bits Don't Go High to Some 800s (Steve Forrette) Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper (Mike Morris) Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper (And a Bit More Telco History) (Gabe Wiener) 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. 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. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, 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. 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: inoue@ece.orst.edu (Takao Inoue) Subject: RF ICS for Wireless Comm. Deadline 5/15 Date: 6 May 1996 17:43:32 GMT Organization: Oregon State University We are pleased to announce a five day intensive course in RF ICS for Wireless Communications. Please apply or contact us ASAP if interested. The deadline is 5/15 to participate. Looking forward for your participation. Info also at http://www.ece.orst.edu/~inoue/RFICS96/ for recent updates. RF ICS FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATION A 5-Day Intensive Course June 10-14, 1996 World Trade Center, Portland, USA This course will cover practical aspects of RF design for wireless applications. The course is intended to give engineers a wider perspective and practical understanding of RF design, testing, measurement, and implementation for wireless systems. The topics covered are RF Transceiver design, front-end RF circuits, Mixers, LNA's, IF vs. Zero If vs. low-IF, Homodyne RF Front End Design, Frequency Synthesizers, CMOS, Bi-CMOS, and GaAs RF Circuits, and RF measurement and testing This course is sponsored by OCATE and Oregon State University. For registration info and a workshop brochure, call OCATE at 503-725-2200. SPACE IS LIMITED. REGISTER ASAP (BEFORE MAY 15th) To Get in . Monday June 10 RF System Issues AM: 8:30-10:00 Ken Hansen Motorola Inc. RF Transceiver Overview 10:30-12:00 Ken Hansen Bi-CMOS RF Circuits PM: 13:00-14:30 Ted Rappaport Virginia Tech. Mobile Radio Propagation & Fading 15:00-16:30 Ted Rappaport Modulation and Multiple Access ==================== Tuesday June 11 Front End: Mixers, LNA, PA AM: 8:30-10:00 Micheal Steyaert Katholieke University CMOS Front End Receiver Circuits 10:30-12:00 Micheal Steyaert Low Phase-Noise GHz CMOS VCO's and Presacalers PM: 13:00-14:30 Steve Cripps Hywave Associates High Efficiency RF Power Amplifiers I 15:00-16:30 Steve Cripps High Efficiency RF Power Amplifiers II ==================== Wednesday June 12 Frequency Synthesizer AM: 8:30-10:00 Behzad Razavi HP Labs. Homodyne RF Front End Design 10:30-12:00 Behzad Razavi Phase Noise in CMOS Oscillators PM: 13:00-14:30 Fred Martin Motorola Inc. Frequency Synthesizers I: Fundementals 15:00-16:30 Fred Martin Frequency Synthesizers II: Circuits ==================== Thursday June 13 GaAs Circuits RF Testing AM: 8:30-10:00 Stewart Taylor TriQuint Biasing of GaAs MESFET RF Circuits 10:30-12:00 Vijay Nair Motorola Inc. GaAs RF and MIMIC Designs PM: 13:00-14:30 Doug Kent Rytting HP Labs. RF Measurement and Testing 15:00-16:30 Eric Strid Cascade Mircotech. Fixturing Issues in RF IC Testing ==================== Friday June 14 RF Data Comm & Technologies AM 8:30-10:00 Behrooz Abdi Motorola Inc. Mixed-Signal ICs for Data Communication I 10:30-12:00 Behrooz Abdi Mixed-Signal ICs for Data Communication II PM: 13:00-14:30 Fred Wiess Analog Devices High-Frequency Technologiy Options for Wireless Comm. 15:00-16:30 Ken M. Lakin TFR Tech. Inc. Miniature Filters RF ==================================================== Course Organizers: Dr. Sayfe Kiaei ECE Dept. Oregon State University kiaei@ece.orst.edu; Phone: 503-737-3118 Dr. Vijay Tripathi ECE Dept. Oregon State University vkt@ece.orst.edu; Phone: 503-737-1868 SPACE IS LIMITED. REGISTER ASAP (BEFORE MAY 15th) To Get in . Course Fee: $1595 ------------------------------ From: gabe@pgm.com (Gabe M. Wiener) Subject: Re: No More 10-ATT-0 Date: 6 May 1996 10:58:31 -0400 Organization: PGM Recordings / Quintessential Sound, Inc. In article , Alan Toscano wrote: > On the other hand, if you've been using an LEC calling card to place > calls over the AT&T network, you might soon be out-of-luck! To add another permutation to all of this: I usually use my AT&T calling card to place intra-NYNEX calls when at payphones and out of change. Today I was told that "AT&T calling cards can no longer be used on the NYNEX network." Great. Now I need to get ANOTHER calling card. Gabe Wiener Dir., PGM Early Music Recordings |"I am terrified at the thought A Div. of Quintessential Sound, Inc., New York | that so much hideous and bad Recording-Mastering-Restoration (212) 586-4200 | music may be put on records gabe@pgm.com http://www.pgm.com | forever."--Sir Arthur Sullivan ------------------------------ From: Dave Keeny Subject: Re: An Intelligent Phone? Date: Mon, 06 May 1996 07:30:02 +0500 Organization: Telecommunications Techinques Corporation Dale.Robinson@DWNPLAZA.NCOM.nt.gov.au wrote: > 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. > [snip] Years ago, before intelligent PBXs became the norm, I wrote the software for a least cost router (assembly language, Z80 processor ... funny, I didn't feel old when I came to work this morning). It was to be placed between the PBX and the outside world, and would select the outgoing line and/or access code based on time of day, area code, exchange, etc., and would spit out a priced call record at the end of the call. Unfortunately, the market for smart PBXs was just starting to take off and this product never made it past beta testing. I've often wished I had kept one of the prototypes so I could use it at home as you describe. It would be a nice conversation piece, at any rate (and the sound of 64 relays being de-energized during an emergency shutdown was a *real* attention getter). Man, now I *really* feel old. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 May 96 07:46:03 CDT From: combee@sso-austin.sps.mot.com (Ben Combee) Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Tymnet Reply-To: combee@techwood.org (Ben Combee) >> 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.) I seem to remember the name of the service being Starlink. There were a lot of articles in the computer hobbiest press about it and the older PC Pursuit at the time. I never got into it, as my hometown, Dalton, GA, wasn't large enough to warrent a dialup. The only online service there was GEnie, and that had a $2/hour surcharge. Around 1993, when I still had a GEnie account, it cost the same for me to call their 800 number and connect at 9600 as it did to call the local access number and be limited to 2400. Ben Combee combee@techwood.or [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Bingo! That is the name I was trying to recall all last week. Starlink it was. That service was started specifically to be in competition with PC Pursuit after PCP had made some changes in the terms of service many users were angry about. And now both of them are long gone from the scene. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Robert P. Shannon Subject: Re: The Right to Television Signals Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 08:52:57 -0400 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, USA We had the same problem but eventually resolved it. We were notified by "mailgram" from Primestar saying WRIC Channel 8 - ABC affiliate in Richmond had challenged our reception of Primestars ABC offering (from Miami at the time) and that Primestar would have to delete ABC in 30 days. WRIC claimed we were in their "grade B" contour and should be able to get adequate reception with outdoor antenna. "Adequate" is a rather subjective term -- we are 50 miles from the transmitter in a low area and at times reception of channel 8 was adequate and sometimes it was unacceptable. I guess you could say that LP records are "adequate" but personally I find only CD's acceptable -- same with analog antenna vs digital dish. Anyway, we called the local affiliate's number mentioned in the mailgram and spoke to a representative from Channel 8 who said they would check it out. Apparently they did and we recieved a letter from WRIC's VP and General Manager saying they were waiving the challenge. This took longer than 30 days but we were never cut off. I guess the bottom line is that the Satellite Home Viewer Act has more to do with protecting business interests (rightly or wrongly) than ensuring consumers can avail themselves freely to technical advances. If you have a legitimate reception problem then I suspect that the local station should be able to offer you a waiver too. I bet the local ABC station that Primestar re-broadcasts nationally isn't complaining! Bob Shannon ------------------------------ From: mstone@io.org (Matthew Stone) Subject: Re: Non-LEC Payphones Date: 6 May 1996 09:36:46 GMT Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada In comp.dcom.telecom, scline@usit.net (Stanley Cline) wrote: > The major problem with COCOTs seems to be poor upkeep of the routing > tables in the phones. I have repeatedly run into payphones that don't > allow calls to new NPAs (such as 770, 423, etc.), that don't allow > calls to new prefixes (read: prefixes established in *1992*, etc.), > that don't allow any calls to cellular phone prefixes, and don't allow > calls to areas served by independent telcos that are otherwise local. > The major payphone vendors (Intellicall of Texas, and Elcotel of > Sarasota, FL) have fixes for the NPA problems; it's up to the COCOT > vendor to fix the others. Actually I ran into the same problem not too long ago. I live in 905 area code (Ontario, Canada) which until early 92 as I can remember correctly was 416. Well I went down to visit a friend of mine down in Lansing, Michigan for a few days. We were out and I wanted to make a call back to Toronto. I can't remember the company name, but it was not Ameritech/ Michigan Bell; it was a COCOT. I tried dialing 0+905+my home number and couldn't do it. Got some synthesised voice saying it was an invalid number. I ended up calling 800-CALL-ATT and billing the call through them. I didn't bother calling the customer service for the company, but I doubt I would get anywhere with them anyway. Matthew Stone, 23 Roosevelt Drive, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada L4C6V1 Pager (416)339-9052 ------------------------------ From: morris@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Mike Morris) Subject: Re: Further Notes to Those Who Ordered Clocks Organization: College Park Software, Altadena, CA Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 05:31:07 GMT > in rebuilding my others, etc. I love the way they wind up also! The > soft 'whirring' noise is pretty neat. I wish I could find a master > clock somewhere; I have enough slave clocks. PAT] Pat - I'm looking for a WU clock. Please provide a pointer. If you have a all-news radio station in your area that has an "hour beep", a NE567 chip could be wired to decode the beep, trigger a 555 timer chip which could close a small relay and provide the pulse you need. The whole thing could fit in a box the size of a couple of 9v batteries, and run off a 9v wallwart. Add one more chip and it could provide the running voltage for the clock motor. Mike Morris morris@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The referral I made this last time for the clocks was to Jim Hill in Lompoc, CA. He is eli@seldon.terminus.com. He had a source for a few WUTCO clocks in various stages of useability. None -- or maybe one or two -- were in really good shape. With his, all the works were functioning, but many of the cases were in great need of cosmetic work. His source had them in a warehouse where most of them had been stacked unused for about thirty years. You can write him and see if he still has any. He told me recently he could get a few more, but from 'an old man who wants an arm and a leg for them.' If you go through him, you are probably looking at $150-200 for one in working condition but in need of cosmetics. If you want a perfect one -- one that might be called 'mint condition' I'd expect to pay around $300-400. Write him and see what he has to say. Interesting you mention the radio station 'beep' on the hour. One station which has done that for decades is WGN, at 720 on the AM dial. And guess how they did it: in the days when all radio stations were required by FCC regulation to have at least one WUTCO clock on their premises for accuracy in station operations, WGN wired a circuit off the little red light bulb of their studio clock. When WUTCO pulsed the clock every hour to set the time, the light bulb would flash; WGN took that through a relay which sounded the tone you heard over the air. WGN still does it; I do not know what time source they use now to get the beep tone. This has really come full circle hasn't it? From using a WUTCO clock to provide a beep tone on the radio which others could use to set their watches, etc to the point of a beep tone being used which can set WUTCO slave-clocks. If anyone who got one of the clocks Jim Hiull had available has questions about making them work, I'll try to answer as best I can from my own experience. I doubt there are any schematics anywhere. If anyone knows where the Self Winding Clock Company entrusted their documents, etc when they went out of business, please let me know. A lot of those old and now defunct clock makers turned their schematics over for safekeeping to Timex or General Time Company, but no one I know can locate anything on Self Winding Clock, which was the manufacturer of the ones WUTCO used. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Bits Don't Go High to Some 800s Date: 6 May 1996 02:14:48 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn In article , jensoft@blarg.net says: > One of our local paging companies in Bellevue, Washington, doesn't > return supervision on calls to pagers until *after* the data entry > phase and a "thank you for calling" annoucement. So, if you can get > in, dial in your message, and hang up before the terminal announcement > is made, you've made a free call. I've often wondered about this. > What do they care if they gyp US West or GTE out of a quarter? The paging company's customers might care when they find out that their pagers can't be called over AT&T long distance. This is because AT&T blocks the forward talk path until after answer supervision occurs. Because of this, the paging company won't hear any DTMFs from the caller until after supervision occurs. But if supervision doesn't occur until after the DTMF entry is complete, then it would appear that there's a stalemate. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: morris@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Mike Morris) Subject: Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper Organization: College Park Software, Altadena, CA Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 04:51:32 GMT Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> writes: > Friday I got a call from a small independent telco in NE Ohio, in New > Bavaria. As soon as I answered the phone, it was like a blast from > the past. I could hear a step-by-step switch clattering away in the > foreground. The caller said it was an old Stromberg-Carlson switch. I'd love to get a video tape of a step, crossbar, and panel office, with some basic commentary telling what was going on, and a walkthrough on call setup, etc. I bet that woud be a popular tape in trade schools, showing "how it was" ... I have a friend who teaches basic electronics, in a high school, and tells me that todays kids have no idea just how versaitle relays can be. Something like this videotape would open a few eyes. Mike Morris morris@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us ------------------------------ From: gabe@pgm.com (Gabe M. Wiener) Subject: Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper Date: 6 May 1996 10:15:36 -0400 Organization: PGM Recordings / Quintessential Sound, Inc. [Moderator writes] > At the turn of the century, small telcos were like ISPs are today. One > or two in every town; all kinds of informal arrangements on exchange > of traffic, etc. How, then, did these independents provide any sort of long distance service? If they and AT&T were such fierce enemies, would AT&T provide them with long-distance trunklines? Was AT&T required to do so? Gabe Wiener Dir., PGM Early Music Recordings A Div. of Quintessential Sound, Inc., New York Recording-Mastering-Restoration (212) 586-4200 gabe@pgm.com http://www.pgm.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, that was one of the catches. Some small local telephone exchange would start. You might liken them to one of the early BBS' about 1979-81. All they did was their own thing with their own customers. At some point they got the idea to have a method to exchange traffic between themselves. This might be likened to how Fidonet came into existence in the early 1980's. It was a hodgepodge of connections between small towns in close proximity to one another, etc. I am now talking of the 1900-1910 time period. AT&T comes along and sees a profitable exchange. They attempt to purchase it. If the owner sold, all well and good. The exchange soon found itself part of the overall network. If the owner was very independent and did not like the reputation Bell was already getting among the telcos as being very pushy and agressive, then for whatever reasons of his own he would refuse to sell. AT&T already had lots and lots of money back then, and they did offer a good, fair price for the exchange. It was not that they tried to buy the owner off cheap; it was that they *insisted* on buying him out. So the guy stalled. He refused to sell. Finally AT&T would respond by saying, "okay, then don't sell to us. See how worthless your exchange becomes when you cannot connect with anyone except right in your own community." AT&T would not only make a point of refusing to interconnect with him (remember how Fidonet 'authorities' would use petty rules to cut off or refuse to connect with BBS's whose sysops they did not like?) they would often times start a competing telephone exchange right in the same town and undercut the original guy on his pricing. With their less expensive telephone service (often times the subscribers got one, two or three months of *free* service as an inducement to sign up) AT&T included access to their network, such as it was back then. Before long, all the customers had switched to the AT&T exchange because not only was it cheaper, but you had to have one of theirs in order to call other subscribers on theirs. AT&T would not even connect on a local basis with the other guy and his subscribers, all of whom soon ditched him anyway. Now when the guy had lost all or most of his business to the new local telephone exchange run by AT&T, then AT&T would go back to him and offer him pennies on the dollar. Then they would stiff him good, since he was about bankrupt at that point anyway thanks to AT&T's tactics. In the early years of this century Bell caused many tiny little local-exchange only telcos to go bankrupt and out of business using these techniques. I might add, how many small, single line independent BBS's do you see around now? Does anyone much use them? The ISP's have all that business; internet connectivity is where things are at now-days. Soon enough, the big players will start to horn in on the small ISP, then eventually the very, very large players will merge with those, etc. As business people in other towns (usually the local telephone exchange was run by the banker, or the drugstore, or some other merchant as a part time thing) heard about this happening, some either agreed to sell out to Bell immediatly rather than risk losing their investment in the same way, or -- if they had any business ethics or conscience or what- ever you want to call it -- their resolve became even stronger and they banded together to keep AT&T from causing their financial ruin as well. AT&T told them all point blank you won't be able to use our long distance network unless we own the local exchange. Even as early as 1910 AT&T had *so much money* they could do this easily, even it it took months or a year before they drove the competitor out of business completely. The first *transcontinental* long distance phone call was not until the early 1920's. Prior to that, there were small portions of the network in place all over the country built by AT&T. Around here somewhere I have a copy of the famous photo taken out in the middle of the Dakotas with the guy on the telephone pole hooking the wires together which completed the network from the east coast to the west coast and the caption saying it was now possible to call all the way to California from New York for just a matter of a few dollars per minute. Ted Vail, chairman of AT&T in the first part of this century is credited with coining the phrase 'Bell System'. He often said, "There is one way of doing things; my way. My system for doing things." And later, AT&T in describing the Bell System often made similar remarks: "One system for telephones; one way of doing things right; the Bell System". So either do it thier way or you won't be in a position to do it at all ... that simple. The little guys who felt differently banded together in their own organization called USITA -- the United States Independent Telephone Association. Bell was their enemy. Bell and GTE also hated each other and would not connect each other's long distance calls, so many of the very small guys found comfort in joining the consortium GTE had put together. Remember from history you were taught that one of the early people in GTE swore to his dying day that Alex Bell had ripped him off of the patent for the telephone in the first place, claiming Bell got to the Patent Office a matter of hours or maybe a day before he got there. The Patent Office chose to honor Alex Bell's claim as the inventor instead of the other guy. GTE started 'Automatic Electric' as a laboratory/manufacturing facility in direct competition with Bell's Western Electric. All the small independents chose to buy their telephones from Automatic Electric, mainly because part of AT&T's thing was only their exchanges could purchase from Western Electric. It was part of the 'one Bell System ... one way of doing things if you want them done right ...' philosophy. Finally sometime in the 1920's the United States Supreme Court said Bell had to interconnect with the others (the others were already quite willing to interconnect among themselves) subject only to technical standards as they were in those days. They all still kept fighting and squabbling among themselves but they did start handling each other's traffic. Oh! You thought the telephone wars only started when MCI and Sprint went into competition with AT&T ... Fast forward to the 1970's ... the independents hand almost all their long distance traffic to AT&T; they are all the best of friends or at least on speaking terms. At one of the annual meetings of USITA in the late 1970's or early 1980's a historic first: the featured main speaker was a top executive from AT&T. I think under the by-laws at USITA -- does it still exist? I have heard little about them in recent years -- 'Bell Companies' still are forbidden to have membership in the organization, as if it mattered any more. Technically I guess the Bell Companies are now 'independents' also, although we don't think of them that way. The whole history of telephone companies and networks in America is a fascinating one, and one that people are not often very aware of. All that has changed are the names of the players and the roles they have with one another. From the day Alex Bell and the 'other guys' with thier crew realized how this invention would transform the world and both rushed off to the Patent Office to get their claim in first, they have been at each other's throats since. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #220 ******************************