Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA13339; Mon, 6 May 1996 23:14:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 23:14:14 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605070314.XAA13339@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #223 TELECOM Digest Mon, 6 May 96 23:14:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 223 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson USITA and Some Bell History (was Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper) (M. Cuccia) Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper (And a Bit More Telco History) (John Levine) Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper (And a Bit More Telco History) (F. Goldstein) Small Independents and the Bell System (James H. Haynes) Re: Suing AT&T/Nynex For Credit Card Charges (Richard Harris) Re: PIN Operation and Non-Traditional Cell Phones (Danny Burstein) Re: PIN Operation and Non-Traditional Cell Phones (Lynne Gregg) Re: Sprint Sense Free Fridays - More Good News (Peter Morgan) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 May 1996 17:30:09 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: USITA and Some Bell History (was Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper) At the time of divestiture, the USITA (United States Independent Telephone Association) became the USTA. The logo is still the modern "angled" standard desk telephone. The /I/ for "Independent" was dropped, and the seven regional Bell corporations are now members, along with the two "semi-Bell" companies of Cincinnati Bell and Southern New England Telephone. USTA also has a website: http://www.usta.org Another organization is NECA, the National Exchange Carriers' Association. It was formed at the time of divestiture, or in the plannings for divestiture in the early 1980's. NECA is located in Whippany NJ. Its original name was the ECA (Exchange Carriers' Association), but shortly after divestiture in the mid-80's, the word "National" was added to its name. One of NECA's original tasks was to take over the old "Bell-Independent" rate settlements. Pre-divestiture, there were toll settlements for division of revenues when traffic went between Bell/AT&T and independent companies' networks. These were negotiated between "The Bell" and the independents, usually represented by the USITA, probably under the review of the state regulatory agencies and/or the FCC. After divestiture, NECA developed a set of "Access Tarriffs". Copies of NECA tarriffs can be purchased from companies such as CCMI. NECA tarriff lists usually include a lot of the same material that AT&T rate tarriffs contain, both pre and post divestiture, such as NPA-NXX listings, V&H co-ordinates, and CLLI codes. Bellcore TRA materials contain much of the same as well. I haven't found a website yet for NECA. (They probably don't yet have one, but I would *assume* that when/if they do it would be something like www.neca.org. When I put that in as a URL, I get "unable to locate server; does not have a DNS entry." And I really don't get anywhere when doing some netsearches.) In 1912 or 1913, the Independents and "The Bell" agreed to the "Kingsbury Committment". I think that AT&T (Bell) was under some government pressure to do so. If I remember right, Kingsbury was a top executive with AT&T. Some of the provisions of the Kingsbury Committment was that if there were no local Bell company in a region, AT&T would connect their toll lines with the independent operating there. Bell would not buy out any more independents unless there were an overall good in doing so. Also, I think that Bell/AT&T's actual ownership of stock in Western Union Telegraph was dissolved at this time. Bell was to stick to voice telephony, while WUTCO would be involved with the Telegraph. Bell and Western Union remained "good friends" for decades since, but it was a rather rocky situation. Bell (AT&T) introduced a manually connected 5-level 60 speed Baudot (Murray code) TWX service in 1931, which was an outgrowth of the telegraph! Bell owned the Teletype Corporation, which was placed under Western Electric. By the 1950's, AT&T was always trying to get into "data processing", and this was *one* of many disputes which eventually led to the 1956 Consent Decree to end the dormant 1949 DOJ suit against AT&T. This suit began under the Truman administration, but was "put aside" shortly after being filed, as the Korean "War" was just starting along with the "Cold War". The Pentagon (and Eisenhower) didn't really want to see *ANY* tampering with the friendly relationship between the government/military and Bell. (Does the phrase Military/Industrial Complex sound familiar here? Does it "ring" any "Bells"?) And Teletype/WECo began to manufacture modems in the late 1950's ("DataPhones"), but were not to provide any *actual* data processing functions themselves. As for the Bell/Independent relationship, even as late as the 1920's, there were still many independents not connected to "The Bell", as they were in direct competition with an operating Bell company in that location. Some locations had *several* independents (and a Bell) competiting against each other. The last "known" competing independent was "The Keystone" in the Philadelphia area. By the 1930's and 40's, it mainly catered to business customers. There is an article in a 1946 {Bell Telephone Magazine} regarding the 1945 consolidation of "The Keystone" into Bell of Pennsylvania and Diamond State (Delaware) Telephone (Bell), and "Keystone's" New Jersey affiliates into New Jersey Bell. Bell Telephone Magazine: v.24 (1945) #4 (Winter '45/46) - Dual Telephone Service Ends in Philadelphia, by Peter L. Schauble (begins on p.311 of v.24/1945) "The Keystone" did *NOT* connect with any of these BOC's or AT&T. There was even a toll service for those parts of PA, NJ and DE known as something like the "Eastern Atlantic Telephone & Telegraph Company". The {Bell Telephone Magazine} article has some pictures of "open-wire" toll lines crossing rural New Jersey of this competiting toll service associated with "The Keystone". The article goes on to describe how the various state regulatory agencies and the FCC approved the take-over and consolidation of Keystone into "The Bell System" after some "filings" and public hearings. As for divestiture which took place some twelve years ago, (it actually took place legally as of 12:01am January 1, 1984, although there were many preparations going on for two years prior), the DOJ originally sued AT&T ten years earlier, in 1974, and there were some "dormant" spots in those earlier years. I think that the original Federal Judge overseeing the suit either died or might have retired or recused himself for health considerations. Pat, you are *certainly* correct in that the history of telephone companies and networks in America is a fascinating one! And so is Canada's; although while theirs' certainly parallel's the US' telco history, it is not quite as "complex". There are many other aspects to discuss about these early years of US Telco history, but I'll leave that to others. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 May 96 20:08 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > 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? PAT says, among other things: > Finally sometime in the 1920's the United States Supreme Court said > Bell had to interconnect with the others ... Not really. Bell was indeed squeezing the independents pretty hard in the early 1900s, to the point where anti-trust murmurings from the government started to get pretty loud. In 1913 AT&T wrote a letter to the government known as the Kingsbury Commitment (named after the V.P. who signed it) which agreed: 1. To interconnect with independents in a non-discriminatory way. 2. Not to buy up non-competing telcos, that is, whose territory didn't overlap with Bell's, without ICC (later FCC after the FCC was created) approval, which in practice meant that they only bought telcos that would otherwise have gone out of business. 3. To sell off their stock in Western Union, which at the time they controlled. In return the government agreed not to attack them with anti-trust, a stance affirmed by the Graham-Willis Act of 1921. In the meantime, the government had nationalized the phone system in 1918 for WW I, then gave it back in 1919. This had little practical effect other than to make the government the guarantor of AT&T stockholders' dividends, and to quash any subsequent thoughts about government operation of telephones. The Kingsbury Commitment kept the government at bay until 1949, when the first anti-trust case against AT&T was filed, leading to the consent agreement in 1956. Then the government filed again in 1974, and the rest, as they say, is history. > 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. That was Elisha Gray, there's no argument from any side that Bell filed a few hours before he did and that he did invent a working telephone about the same time that Bell did. There were lengthly court battles about the patents, and for better or worse, Bell won. But it wasn't GTE, it was Western Union, the same Western Union who'd earlier passed up an opportunity to buy up Bell's patents. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One thing I distinctly remember seeing as a child was an in-service pay phone -- on Southwestern Bell lines yet! -- which said on its box that it was manufactured by the Gray Pay Station Telephone Company, which I guess was one part of Automatic Electric. This phone was in a phone booth with one of the accordion type doors on the front, and a little seat inside to sit on when using the telephone which had its mouthpiece mounted on the front of the main box facing you, and a separate piece you held up to your ear to listen. This would have been in the 1950's sometime, and it cost five cents to make a call which went through an operator and a manual switchboard. I seem to recall it was in a drugstore. No armored cable like now, and three slots on the top to deposit nickels, dimes or quarters as requested by the operator. The phone was dead until you put the nickle in; that caused it to ground one side of the line and you immediatly heard battery at that point for a few seconds until the operator came on to ask 'number please?'. A little picture frame with glass on the front of it had something called 'Instructions For Use of This Instrument' and among other instructions was an admonition to 'kindly refrain from using profanity when speaking with the operator about your connection ... would you want the operator to curse at you when she was unable to make the requested connection because the called line was already engaged or did not respond?'. And indeed, in the days of manual service, people would get angry because the line they were trying to reach was busy for hours on end and they would cuss out the operator thoroughly because of it. They would cuss the operator and then in the most profane language tell her to 'cut in on the line, and tell them to can the sh** and give someone else a chance to talk.' Sometimes the subscribers would simply demand that the operator 'cut off' the other ones who were talking and put their call through instead. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 May 1996 21:06:42 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper (And a Bit More Telco History) A nice history from Pat of the early swashbuckling days of AT&T! I do remember (from reading, I'm not that old!) a few different details though. > 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. I think that is a portmanteau of two stories. The real inventor of the telephone was Elisha Gray. Bell's "phone" had no mouthpiece; you shouted into the one moving-coil earpiece and then listened to it. I doubt it would be intelligible in the real world. The first call ("Come here Watson, I need you") was between two floors in one little building in Scollay Square, Boston. Watson might have heard the shouting up the stairs more clearly than over the phone! But Bell had a better lawyer. I always remind my students of this with the maxim, "Have you hugged your patent lawyer today?" Gray (and Barr) started Graybar Electric, which AT&T eventually bought. He did hold the patent on the microphone, part of every telephone. Automatic Electric was built, I think, on Strowger's 1893 invention of the dial phone (and stepper exchange). The independents (and GTE) had dial long before Bell, who refused to license Strowger's patent. > 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 ... I think this was 1912, and known as the "Kingsbury Commitment" after the Attorney General (or some such office-holder) who negotiated it. Bell's respect for anti-trust laws was pretty awful even then. Kingsbury had two parts. One, the independents could connect to Bell's toll network, and two, Bell coudn't buy up independents unless they were already in trouble (which happened now and then) through no fault of Bell's. I'm not sure the official wording but you get the idea ... that was when most of today's Bell/non-Bell lines were drawn, though they've been shifting again lately. Of course the USITA renamed itself the USTA after AT&T got rid of the Bells. "Independent" didn't seem to mean the same thing any more. But between you, me and the lamppost, I think there is still a difference. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein@bbn.com +1 617 873 3850 Opinions are mine alone. Sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (James H. Haynes) Subject: Small Independents and the Bell System Date: 7 May 1996 01:25:19 GMT Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz I guess it was the summer of 1956 that I had a job as a cable splicer's helper with Southwestern Bell. We were laying a buried toll cable that later became known as the Little Rock-Texarkana Water Hose, for reasons that are another story. In the little town of Fulton, about 15 miles from Texarkana we ran a branch, 12 pairs as I recall, to a house where there was located a magneto switchboard serving the town. I don't remember the name of the telephone company there at the time. The last time I was in that area they had dial phones, so I suppose GTE or Bell now serves that town. There was another little town named Trigg near Texarkana. I wasn't involved in running cable there so don't know what kind of pair count they got. One of my college profs who was also a telephone consultant said that Trigg had a Leich crossbar switch, so at least they had more modern service than Fulton did. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the early days and clear up into the 1940's or maybe early 1950's there were lots of small independent telcos which operated out of the owner's private residence. It looked like any other house in the town except that you would see a convergence of telephone poles coming from all directions in the town terminating around the side of the house somewhere. A big thick bundle of wires entered the house on the side somewhere and one of the rooms was where you would find the switchboard. Some of them only had two employees (wife and husband) with him doing the maintainence and her running the board and sending out the bills in her spare time. People in town understood that she closed the board at 10 pm when they went to bed and re-opened at 7 in the morning. If you had an emergency in the middle of the night you could use the phone; lifting your receiver would cause the board to buzz. If you did, she would get out of bed and go answer it, but you were only supposed to do that if it was an emergency such as needing the doctor or the firemen. If her board started buzzing at 2 in the morning and woke her up, she knew it meant there was some kind of trouble in the little town. Eventually they all had to go to 24 hour service and if there was not someone in the family able to stay up all night and take care of the board then they would usually hire a young woman to come over to their house each night. Usually the switchboard was in a room where it would not disturb the rest of the family and they could have thier privacy. Something forgotten for years and just now recalled: I was speaking with a directory assistance operator once in a town far away I do not recall. It would have been 25-30 years ago. While the operator was looking up the number for me, she had a heart attack and died, within a few minutes. She had said to me, "just a minute; I'll get the number for you." I heard no more for more than a minute and I spoke up asking if she was there. I got no response, and continued sitting on the line waiting. After more than a minute, a different operator came on the line and said, "excuse me, please hold on, we have an emergency here and I will be right with you ..." Another twenty or thirty seconds passed and I heard talking in the background saying, "I called the medical department and someone is coming up right now." Someone else said, "try to make her comfortable, put your jacket under her head." The operator who had interjected herself on the line came back at that point saying she was sorry I was kept waiting and could she start my request again. She gave me the number and was about to leave the line when I asked her what had happened there. Sort of reluctant to speak about it she finally said, "it appears the oper- ator who was assisting you had a heart attack." I was a bit taken aback by that and the next day I called the same place and asked to speak with a supervisor. I told her I had been on the line the night before. She told me that it had been a heart attack and that the operator had died 'almost instantly'; by the time an ambulance arrived a few minutes later she had passed away. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Suing AT&T/Nynex For Credit Card Charges From: richard@jyacc.com (Richard Harris) Organization: JYACC, Inc. Date: Mon, 06 May 96 17:51:10 PST > A criminal will "rent" a phone number from an answering service and > then order a calling card from AT&T. They provide the number we give > them, and AT&T sends the card without checking if they are sending it > to an address that matches the phone number. They use the card and we > get billed. Long distance takes as much as two months for billing via > our local phone company, Nynex. So the thief gets two months of free > calls before we find out about it. Whose names are the phone numbers in, and who gets the bill for calls made on those lines? If the phone numbers are in your name, and you are a business account, then AT&T would normally only issue calling cards when authorized by you. Otherwise, employees could call up and order a calling card billed to their office number -- and most corporate TMs don't like that prospect. I would think the same thing would apply here, and, if the phone numbers are in your customers' names, then they should be getting the calling card bills instead of you. Richard ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Re: PIN Operation and Non-Traditional Cell Phones Date: 6 May 1996 21:08:37 -0400 Organization: mostly unorganized In johng@comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) writes: > I know how regular cellular phones operate with a PIN. What effect > does PIN operation have on burgular alarm systems via cellular, RJ-11 > backup devices using cellular and cellular data modems? Are > manufacturers of these devices having to install new firmware to deal > with PINs or are the carriers not mandating PINs on these numbers? I would hope (sigh) that the cellular companies could and would maintain a list of emergency numbers that could be dialed without a pin, such as the 911 system. Then again, _do_ these companies allow 911 to go through without a PIN? If not, that could be a pretty big problem when you're in a car crash and someone tries using your phone to call for help ... Hmmmmmmmmmmm. A Worthy Question indeed: If your cellular company requires a PIN, can you dial 911 without it? Inquiring minds want to know. (Please email responses back to me, dannyb@panix.com, and I'll summarize the results. Oh, and please try _not_ to bother the 911 folk if you can find out through other means) dannyb@panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 May 1996 5:22pm From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: PIN Operation and Non-Traditional Cell Phones johng@comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) wrote: > I know how regular cellular phones operate with a PIN. What effect > does PIN operation have on burgular alarm systems via cellular, RJ-11 > backup devices using cellular and cellular data modems? Are > manufacturers of these devices having to install new firmware to deal > with PINs or are the carriers not mandating PINs on these numbers? John, my suspicion is, just as you suggest, manufacturers will need to adjust firmware to allow the customer to enter the PIN so it will be pre-pended to the dialed number on an outcall. This requires some effort on behalf of the manufacturer, but shouldn't be that difficult. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: nagrom@enterprise.net (Peter Morgan ) Subject: Re: Sprint Sense Free Fridays - More Good News Date: Mon, 06 May 1996 20:05:09 GMT Organization: Enterprise PLC - Internet Services John Higdon wrote: > Small point of order here. PIC (Preferred Interexchange Carrier) is > the service a particular line uses by default. To change the PIC, the > local telco must reprogram your line in the central office. When one > dials a carrier (10XXX) code to circumvent the PIC, it is generally > referred to as "casual" usage of the carrier. Any given line can only > have one PIC (or no PIC), and it cannot be changed by the user on the > fly. Thanks for explaining the abbreviation, for this here Limey :-) In the UK, we have a completely different system, where the majority of residential lines (21 Million) go to BT, and so far as I know, only one of our cities (Kingston-upon-Hull), which never became part of BT, offers customers the choice between BT and Mercury ( a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless), in a similar manner (a default, which can be overridden on each call). We therefore don't get any "loyalty" offers :-( and our charges seem always to be higher for international (33c/min minimum, and as much as $2/min for some calls) There are some cable companies offering phone service, but none serve rural areas and I therefore have no knowledge of them, though they are, in the main, cheaper for local calls and _if_ one subscribes to their film channels, some offer off-peak cable/cable calls free, though they've generally thwarted ISPs and BBS from allowing loads of free access. The cable company decides which long distance carrier to use, and determines the charges. All our calls are charged (excepting some cable calls) on a time/distance/duration basis, and BT has competition for non-local (over 20 miles) calls from a few companies. It is because we do not have the local/national split that you have, that we don't have a chosen national service provider ... though people making few long distance calls, or using a payphone, probably only use BT unless they read UK.TELECOM newsgroup. For anyone with a BT line, there are access codes to go out to non-local destinations, and while the codes are fixed, the user decides (or has a smartbox to preselect). Thus, I can make national/international calls using BT, ACC, Energis, and (if I paid about $18/year) Mercury. these companies will accept calls to local numbers, but charge very high rates (presumably to compensate for using two ports at a single interconnect site, which isn't necessary). ACC and Energis currently have no fixed charges, just a minimum call cost of about 5c. Mercury has an annual charge, and for most residential users, a per call connection cost plus cost by duration. These other services use three or four digit codes (which BT _must_ allow) and then use either the calling number for ident, or expect a customer id and PIN. The smartboxes can either send just the short code, or be programmed with the remainder (slows the call down with the extra 13 digits). Caller ident is available on most calls through BT, and Energis, but calls through the other companies sometimes arrive as "number unavailable" or just "withheld". NB BT's Caller Id works in a way quite different to US versions -- we can receive information with _NO_ ring ... (just a tiny "ping" on some phones). Currently undergoing trials is a radio service called Ionica, which will offer homes/businesses one to three "channels" at microwave freq- uencies and use a small octagonal (or similar) dish. They are the newest service to arrive for the UK, and finally offer direct to home links without any cable TV service. The others, previously mentioned, all rely on a BT line (except for Businesses with 30+ "channels", where fibre is used). Peter, North Wales, UK. This might be of interest if you are in the industry, generally take an interest, or will ever work/live in the UK ... For information comparing the cost of calls in the UK, see :http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk:80/~afs/telecom/ (Not my work, but very useful info) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #223 ******************************