Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA28365; Fri, 10 May 1996 12:59:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 12:59:07 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605101659.MAA28365@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #231 TELECOM Digest Fri, 10 May 96 12:59:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 231 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Comments to FCC on Universal Service (Ronda Hauben) Re: Third Number Billing No Longer Being Verified? (Stanley Cline) Re: Need Basic Information On Direct Link Microwave (Bill Mayhew) Biological Effects of RF Radiation (Paul Withington) Re: Mobile Phone Radiation / Cancer Link (Scot E. Wilcoxon) One Possible Source of Funding For Digest (Peter Judge) 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: rh120@vanakam.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Comments to FCC on Universal Service comments Date: 10 May 1996 06:03:41 GMT Organization: Columbia University Following is a response to some of the discussion initiated by the Benton Foundation regarding how to look at the question of Universal Service toward the FCC procedings on input for the Universal Service definition to function under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The following is from a post on the Netizens Association Mailing List. Kerry Miller posted the Benton Foundation excerpts which are indicated by the > and I responded to them. May 7 was the deadline for fcc comments on the comments previously submitted to them and I plan to submit this and also to post it as a way to try to open up the discussion on the principles that should guide a definition of universal service regarding online access. Also, after several efforts to try to determine if comments could be submitted via email, I was told that comments could be submitted to ssegal@fcc.gov via email, but they would be considered informal comments. On Fri, 3 May 1996, kerry miller posted the following from the Benton Foundation postings about universal service: > http://www.benton.org/Goingon/advocates.html > Public Interest advocates, universal service, and the > Telecommunications Act of 1996 > > The questions public interest advocates should be asking themselves > and the FCC include: > * How should the discussion of Universal Service be framed? Is > Universal Service about connecting phones? Connecting people with > phones? Or connecting people with people? How can the discussion > center around the people who need to benefit from the policy most? This is worth considering. But it is hard to understand how the question can be framed adequately if the folks for whom this is important have no way to be part of the discussion. That is why there is a need for universal access to Usenet newsgroups and email so folks can have a chance to speak about what the real problems and needs are. > > * How is the value of a network-any network, phone or > computer-diminished as fewer and fewer people have access to it? The question seems as if it is phrased backwards. The issue is how does the value of any network increase as more and more people have access to it and are able to contribute to it. The ability to contribute is crucial with regard to a network like the Internet and Usenet. > What can be done to identify the communities and individuals most > at risk of falling off the networks that will make up the National > Information Infrastructure? What strategies can be employed to add Again the questions seems backwards. First there is NO National Information Infrastructure (at least not in the U.S.). There is an Internet that people have built over a period of several decades. The work has often been funded by research institutions or government, but people have contributed to the content and technical needs and development. The question that needed to be raised was what was the value of this development and how to extend access to it? Since this development was not the result of commercial enterprises, but of people contributing, made possible by academic and government support and sometimes also support from companies who benefitted from their participation, it has been inappropriate to set commericalization and privatization as the first goals of the policy, without allowing public discussion into what the policy should be and why. > people to the networks and keep them on? How can the voices of the > people who have fallen off the networks be included in the > rulemaking? It is good to see that the question is being raised of how to have the voices of people included in the rulemaking. The problem right now is that the voices of those on or off the Internet are basically excluded from being heard in the rulemaking procedure since the deadlines have been so quick and the means of even getting the law or the submissions have been basically beyond most people (one has to be able to download things that are in wordperfect it seems). In any case, it has been made very difficult to even access the material at the FCC www site and it has been made virtually impossible to have any contact with anyone at the FCC to ask about the process or get help in knowing how to deal with it all. Thus though business interests and self appointed "public service advocates" may have access to the process, the public is denied access and thus has no way of making the crucial input that the FCC needs to make regulations that can be helpful. > > * What telecommunications services should be "universal" in the > information age? What flexibility should people have in picking On the Netizens Association list we have discussed the need for the Net to be a means for communication. Thus we have identified text based email, Usenet, and lynx as a basic need to have universally available. It is interesting that the Nov. 1994 NTIA online conference on the future of the Net which included discussion of universal service and access identified a similar set of needs. That is the basic set of what would make it possible for the public to be able to participate in the FCC process if that process was an open and participatory one, rather than an exclusive and closed one. > the services they need? How might Universal Service be defined so > that recipients of the services do not have to pay to protect > certain rights (such as privacy)? What good is a wire without > connections to the hardware, training, and support that are > essential for effective use? I don't see privacy as a crucial right. I see access as the crucial right, and as someone early on on the Netizens list said, that email is a basic right. The Freenets and community networks that have developed around universities and libraries in some areas made a beginning of offering a minimal kind of access and having the help needed for people to utilize this access. Yet these examples have been left out of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Also, universities often have established a way of having computer centers with some staff who are available to help people who come to the centers, and they often have some minimum set of classes available to introduce those new to the technology how to use it. Thus again, there are models that could be examined. But in the process of this it would also be important to examine the problems that these models have had or that people have had trying to get some basic services in these situations. There is a way to get real information about the problems and needs, but once again the FCC process doesn't seem to provide any mechanism for this to happen. > * What role can nonprofit organizations and other community-based > institutions play in delivering access to basic and advanced > services? How could centralized delivery centers reduce the costs It's not clear to me who these nonprofit organizations and other community-based institutions are that are being proposed here. This leaves out the community networks that have developed. It also leaves out academic institutions, such as universities and colleges and community colleges. And it leaves out the experience of the NSF in helping to connect these institutions. So instead of building on what has been developed and learning from it, it is substituting a new set of institutions. In NYC these institutions have not been helpful in promoting email for all and thus to rely on such as the mechanism for the future seems to ignore what the obstacles are. > of providing basic and advanced services in both urban and rural > areas? What role could existing community-based > organizations-schools, libraries, community centers, and so > on-play in managing these new telecommunications centers? Also in I don't understand why this is discussing "basic and advanced services". It seems there is a need for basic communication media to be available such as email and Usenet and lynx, in addition to basic phone service, at a low or minimal cost. Some of the problem with all this is that these questions seem to be proposing relying on these organizations to do something, rather than looking at what has been able to extend access to the online world and build on the lessons. > a more complex technological environment with numerous carriers, > providing universal access may not be enough to facilitate One of the problems with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is that it is fundamentally changing the way basic telephone service is to be provided from a way that has proven to function in the past in the U.S., i.e. a regulated utility, to one that has never proven to work, i.e. the so called "market", aka the corporate monopolies being given unfettered right to fleece the public for basic telephone service. > | widespread use of telecommunications. The public may need ongoing > | consumer education so that individuals and organizations are aware > | of the options available to them, are able to make informed The public doesn't need "consumer education". We need regulation of the monopolies. This is saying the corporate big boys can do whatever they want and we the public need education so we know how to pick among them. We can't pick among them. The whole experiment with monopolies over many years has shown that the public is hurt by them and that is why there is a need for government to regulate the monopolies, not to provide so called "consumer education". > | decisions about these options, understand the pricing of the > | services, and know how to get assistance if they have difficulties > | with service reliability, bills, privacy, and other problems. How > | might nonprofit organizations provide these educational services > | as well? So the corporate horror is to be unleased and the nonprofits are to be given a piece of the action? Instead of the so called "nonprofits" opposing the unleasing of the corporate fury, they are being encouraged to line up for their share of the pie. Meanwhile the public is to be the victim of both the unfettered corporate grab of our communications infrastructure, and of the "nonprofits" reaching for their share. This is what the closed process creating these laws and regulations results in. It isn't that the email and Usenet and lynx are being provided on a universal basis, but that basic telephone service has been removed from being a public right to being a corporate right to make profit. One of the important issues left out in the above discussion of Universal Service from a posting by the Benton Foundation is that the Internet and Usenet arose from a technical and social need. That need was that as computers develop people need to have a means of remote support to get the technology to function. As computers play an increasingly important role in our society, it will be necessary for an ever growing number of people to be able to deal with computers. The technical problems haven't been solved. Those who are working at University or community sites where email or Usenet or www are being provided to 30,000 or + people notice that there are difficulties in making this all work. As the Net is to be spread there needs to be the technical support to make this all function. Since it isn't that the commercial world has made this all work to begin with, it isn't that they can be relied upon to build the future. Thus there is a need for the Net to spread to make it possible for computer use to spread, and there is a need for a social policy and program to guide how this is done. The Telecommunications '96 Law fails to provide for any of this and even fails to safeguard the telephone system in the U.S. It's not clear to me if there is any way to participate in the May 7 deadline for comments on previous comments about Universal Service for the FCC. The reply comments are to be submitted in CC Docket No. 96-45 prior to May 7, 1996. It seems there is a need for the discussion of these issues to be opened up among people on the Net, which is one of the reasons for the Netizens Association Mailing list. I welcome comments and thoughts about this issue or about what it makes sense to try to do about it all. Ronda rh120@columbia.edu ronda@panix.com Amateur Computerist free via email vol 7 no 1 ae547@yfn.ysu.edu Will Access to the Net be a Privilege or a Right? Prototype for Policy Decisions History of Cleveland Freenet ------------------------------ From: scline@usit.net (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: Third Number Billing No Longer Being Verified? Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 00:52:09 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services > Incidentally this is being used currently in both US Cellular and Century > Cellunet (which I think is an offshoot of Sprint, am I correct?). No, Century Cellulnet is not related to Sprint. Century Cellunet is owned by Century Telephone Enterprises (which is the LEC in much of Louisiana and Tennessee, and Lorain Ohio) of Monroe, LA. 360 Communications was formerly Sprint Cellular (and Centel Cellular before that.) > calling phone is a cell. Even worse, I am not sure if they actually get > the cell number as the number being billed or the carrier's TRUNK as the > number being billed -- as this is being used from (cloned) roaming phones. More than likely, they are seeing the TRUNK line. Here, 0+ calls via BellSouth Mobility are routed through the same trunk lines as local and 800 calls (which do not require LIDB access.) 1+ LD calls (non-BellSouth LD) are routed to the customer's presubscribed LD carrier using different trunks...ANI/CID DOES work right for 1+ calls, but NOT for 0+, local, or 800# calls. A trunk line should be recognized as such by IXCs/LIDB, however ... here in Chattanooga, the trunk line (what shows up in ANI/CID) is *NOT* even a dialable number; that number has been "disconnected." With a local university, they had the same problem of B23 to their trunk lines. (Collect/B23 was NOT available to DID lines, but COULD be accomplished by giving the operator the number of the trunk line, which would ring endlessly if called inward.) >> two different companies. However, if you are subscribed to a long >> distance service provided by your cellular carrier, the billing may >> be generated by the same switch. BellSouth's "own" long distance is really Sprint (at least for now) ... all intercepts either originate from the cell switch, or from Sprint. 0+ service is not available; it simply goes to a cellular switch intercept. Billing is generated at the local MTSO, not at Sprint, for customers of BellSouth LD. Also note than ANY time you are roaming (UNLESS you are in the same MTSO, which occasionally happens under switch agreements, LD billing will ALWAYS originate from the *cellular carrier*. (That's why it shows up in "roamer charges" rather than "LD charges.") Stanley Cline, d/b/a Catoosa Computing Serv., Chatta., TN mailto:scline@usit.net -- http://chattanooga.net/~scline/ CIS 74212,44 -- MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 May 96 09:22:44 EST From: Bill Mayhew Subject: Re: Need Basic Information On Direct Link Microwave Pat, The points made in the article are extremely well taken. I've just emreged from the wringer, having been the victim of most problems cited below. I'm an engineer in our computer services department. We were piggy-backed on a microwave system that we owned for distance learning. We used a subcarrier at 8 MHz just above the video baseband to carry a T1s to provide dial-up connectivity to our computer users in three adjoining cities. Here are some things we had troubles with. 1. We needed an FCC-licensed technician to regularly test/certify the radios. Luckily, we had a full time person on site due to the distance learning stuff that was going on the video part of the network. 2. We had to build a 313 foot tall tower at our central site. Even with that, we had to relay though and lease space on towers at two other intermediate locations. Fortunately, we were able to leverage the fact that we are a state-funded school to get lower costs leasing space on towers taht were part of the state lottery sales system and/or educational broadcast TV system. Our 313 foot tower cost $$$ because the local zoning commission would only approve a self-supporting rahter than guyed structure. 3. Radios break -- surprisingly frequently. Lightning found our central tower to be an attractive target several times in the two years we operated our project. One direct hit took out every single transponder on the tower. We made expensive upgrades to the tower infractructure installing a lightning / static electricity dissipation system and extra grounding. More $$$. 4. Rain outages are a problem -- a lot more than the radio manufacturers would have you think. Some of our links were on 18 GHz. The longest 18 GHz link was about 12 miles and took a lot of rain hits. Also, temperature inverstions tend to knock out 18 GHz. Every morning and evening, there would be hits on the T1 subcarrier as temperature layers would cut through the microwave path, diffracting the signal. More user complaints. 5. Poor engineering. The orignal system engineer specified aluminum cable-TV like cable to go up the towers to the IF/outputs on the transponders. Bad Idea. We had lots of trouble with connector suck-out when the core conductor of the cable had a different temperature coefficient than the outside. I'm really surprised that this was a problem. I would have thought the problem would have been dealt with by manufactures having experience with CATV hardware; I guess not. A newer consultant recommended replacing the aluminum with all-copper, which would have been a very expensive fix. We stuck with usign an outside tower-climber to periodically fix the connectors until we could decommission the system. Using Caig Labs' Pro Gold on the connectors delayed the need for re-tightening, but did not eliminate the problem. More $$$ again! 6. Path blockage. University of Akron built a giant polymer science research building right in the middle of one of our paths. We had to spend about $30,000 to put a passive repeater with back-to-back dishes on a nearby building so that we could shoot around the offending edifice. Only $$ this time. 7. Frequency rights. As it turned out, about 1/2 our paths were on 12 GHz (Ku Band). We got our license for the Ku links in the early 1970s before satellite TV, and DBS TV in particular was a big deal. The DBS television people have a primary use license for the 12 GHz Ku spectrum which means that we were forced to abandon those fequencies when DBS sales started up in this area. Basically, we would have had to get all new radio equipment to replace the stuff we had in the Ku band. Getting Harris to re-tune, replace waveguides, ILAs, etc would have been as expensive as new radios anyway, if we could have even gotten a license for the next nearest band. Effectively, it was the bullet between the eyes for our project this time. In the end, we scrapped our microwave and have gone with frame relay service instead. Even with purchasing new frame relay routers and terminal equipment for the outlying cities, it still costs us less and is a lot less aggrivation keeping the infrstructure going (Ameritech has to worry about that now). Actually, I'd think seriously about crontracting with an outside ISP for our dial-up needs. However, my superiors like the idea of owning their own network, and feel there are some things that they may ultimately be able to do that with a private network that ISPs can't address. Probably true. Security is a potential issue if you are contracting with an outisde ISP. One good thing: we still have our tower, and are generating some revenue now by leasing space to serveral commercial serices and civil agencies using the VHF/UHF spectrum. We're actually doing pretty well since the local zoning people have put some stumbling blocks in the way of erecting any more new towers. Bill Mayhew wtm@neoucom.edu Computer Serivces Electrical Engineer NEOUCOM, Rootstown, OH 44272-0095 USA ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 96 08:48:48 -0500 From: Paul Withington Subject: Biological Effects of RF Radiation The biological effect of RF radiation has been a hot topic in the cellular industry for years, so much so that the cellular industry has funded and continues to fund research on this issue. I believe the cellular industry established a group, Wireless Technology Research Limitied Liability Company, to coordinate this research. Their address is: 1711 N Street, NW Washington, DC 20036-2811 They can point you to studies that have been published in various journals. For example, this month's bulletin announces "[a]n epidemiological study comparing portable hand-held cellular telephone customers and users of mobile, mostly car mounted or bag-type phones shows nearly identical mortality rates." The study's results were published in the latest issue of "Epidemilogy". ------------------------------ From: sewilco@fieldday.mn.org (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Subject: Re: Mobile Phone Radiation / Cancer Link Date: 10 May 1996 10:09:31 -0500 > I've been using an analog mobile phone for the past two years with no > problems. I recently purchased a digital - GH337 about three months > ago. Since then I have had the WORST headaches in history and massive > sharp pains just above my ears. Unless the new phone is in the same style of case as the old phone, the problems might be due to a phone which does not fit your ear or your way of holding the phone. For example, holding the microphone away from a beard can press a flat earpiece against the top back of the ear. Scot E. Wilcoxon sewilco@fieldday.mn.org ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 12:15:59 +0100 From: Peter Judge Subject: One Possible Source of Funding For the Digest Completely irrelevant, but I was once told that {Reader's Digest} was 'sponsored' by the CIA. Did they phone-poll the readers on that? Of course, if it is available, CIA sponsorship might be a viable option for you too ... Peter Judge seeker of truth 89 Upper Tulse Hill follow no path London SW2 2RA UK all paths lead where truth is here Tel/Fax: +44 181 671 4842 e e cummings [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not only completely irrelevant, but completely irreverant if you ask me. The idea of CIA sponsorship is a bit repugnant. It is known by some people that the American Civil Liberties Union gets grants from an agency in the United States Department of Justice, and I always thought that was a bit strange also. Someone sent a note to me (I can't find it now or I would print it) correcting me on advertising in {Reader's Digest}. They actually began to accept advertising in 1955. They earlier polled their subscribers in 1951 or 1952 on the topic of raising their subscription rates versus accepting advertising and decided to go with the rate increase from fifteen cents to twenty-five cents per month. In 1955 they started to accept advertising in each issue and raised their subscription rates again as well. :) An elderly and long deceased relative of mine was very religious when it came to {Reader's Digest}. She had every issue from Volume 1 #1 stored away in a file cabinet. This was as of about 1955 sometime, with every issue from 1921 onward. I recall the first twenty or thirty years of that magazine it was only about thirty or forty pages per issue, printed on newspaper stock with all articles and pictures, and not a single advertisement for anything. Now of course each issue is a couple hundred pages, printed on nice glossy paper with lots of advertising. The very first issue had a 'welcome to our magazine' type editorial with a picture of Dewitt Wallace and his wife Lila sitting at their kitchen table putting the whole thing together. They lived in a little apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City. They said their plan was to help people who were too busy to read 'all the various magazines and journals being published now' by doing the reading themselves and condensing the most important ideas and news into their new 'easy to read monthly format'. It would be an 'article each day, of enduring significance.' The popularity of RD soon grew to the point it outgrew their apartment and they opened an office for a short time in New York City before going to the 'larger' facilities in Pleasantville, NY which they occupied for many years before outgrowing those. And check out the Table of Contents for those early issues, printed then as now right on the front cover of each issue: In the 1920's there were still people alive (admittedly old people) who remembered seeing and hearing Henry Ward Beecher in person from when they were children in the 1870's. Most issues of RD would include excerpts from his sermons a half-century before. They ran excerpts from all the magazines of their day along with the jokes, etc. In the 1930-50 era, RD had new heroes: every issue would include an article by either Norman Vincent Peale of Marble Collegiate Church or Harry Emerson Fosdick of Riverside Church. Every issue included an article from the {Christian Science Monitor} and usually from the {New York Times}. {Time Magazine} was another favorite of theirs, as was the {Saturday Evening Post} which was then still weekly, every Saturday, at five cents per copy. They were rather fond of Senator Walter Judd (I think he was the senator from Minnesota in the 1950's) and they would always transcribe his remarks and print condensations (those parts they agreed with!) in RD. He would speak at least once a year here at the Chicago Sunday Evening Club in those days and RD would quote his remarks on those occassions piecemeal all year long until the next time he was in town. They liked interviewing bus drivers and train conductors for the 'most unforgettable character they met' and that was a regular feature under that name. You either loved {Reader's Digest} or you absolutely hated it; no one was uncommitted on the magazine. A teacher of mine in high school hated them; he never missed an opportunity to say 'what a big liar Mrs. Wallace is about everything ...' People often said RD would edit the excerpts they chose to print in order to slant things the way they wanted them to be. DeWitt Wallace would always deny it. Beginning with an initial circulation of several hundred copies per month the first year, they grew to *millions* of copies per month in the 1940's. What are they up to now; many millions of copies per month in several languages, with none of the 'characters' they used extensively for the first twenty years ever seen in print any longer. A few of the long running features are still there each month, but the general type of articles they run are altogether different. The Donnelly Press in Chicago, better known as publishers of telephone directories for telcos all over the USA had a contract for many years to print {Reader's Digest}. Two large presses were assigned to the task, both running 23 hours per day either 27 or 28 days per month just printing RD's next issue. A couple days per month were used for maintainence on the presses, and an hour or so daily. Mr. and Mrs. Wallace made a fortune on their product. Every mail order and tele- marketing outfit in the USA today has lust in their heart wanting to get the RD list ... but I understand they guard the list very closely, and only rarely let it out to other businesses. I don't give out or sell the TELECOM Digest subscriber's list either. I've been asked, but I just don't do it. The fact remains however, I have to get a new corporate sponsor sometime *soon*. And I don't plan to take advertising, so don't worry about that. But if by sometime this summer a new corporate sponsor is not found, it will again get harder and harder to keep the bills paid and (of most importance!) the phone -- my link to the net -- turned on. Please bear that in mind and see what can be done. I hate begging. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #231 ******************************