Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA12172; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 17:32:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 17:32:11 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199604292132.RAA12172@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #205 TELECOM Digest Mon, 29 Apr 96 17:32:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 205 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Jersey Area Code Split (Philadelphia Inquirer via Tad Cook) Slamming Dunked (Long Island Newsday via Stan Schwartz) Bits Don't Go High to Some 800s (Antilles Engineering) New GAO Telecom Report and Testimony Online (Danny Burstein) Fire in PDX US West Office Kills Phone Service (Elana Beach) AT&T, Softkey Giving Free Software to Switch (Stanley Cline) Is NYNEX Deceptively Advertising *66? (Michael J. Kuras) An Old Stromberg Stepper (Paul Cook) Bury Your Loved Ones Via Your Touchtone Phone (Van Heffner) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: New Jersey Area Code Split Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 18:31:13 PDT Bell Atlantic Plans Third, 'Overlay' Area Code in Northern New Jersey By Cynthia Mayer, The Philadelphia Inquirer Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News NEWARK, N.J.--Apr. 27--Northern New Jersey is fast running out of telephone numbers and may become a test case for what telephone officials say is the entire region's future -- the 10-digit phone number. Numbers in the 201 and 908 area codes are being devoured by new fax machines, cellular phones, pagers and modems. If something isn't done in the next two years, telephone executives say, all the numbers will be used up by the summer of 1997. The solution proposed by Bell Atlantic Corp. in New Jersey is to give new lines assigned in the 201 and 908 area codes a second area code. Known as a "number overlay," the change would mean towns would have two different area codes, and in many cases, so would single households. New neighbors would probably have different area codes from older residents. Fax machines installed in peoples' houses would probably have new area codes. So would a new beeper or second phone line. (The cost of the calls would remain the same, and no one would have to dial 1.) Not everyone wants to move boldly into this future. "An overlay will create permanant confusion," says Jim Laskey, a lawyer who lives just north of Princeton and represented the Somerset Chamber of Commerce at a public forum on the issue. "At least right now," he said, "there is a certain geographic association with an area code." Bell Atlantic officials say the system isn't ideal, but it's superior to continually splitting and resplitting area codes. The 908 area code put into effect five years ago was supposed to last until the year 2005, but fell far short. Splitting the North Jersey area codes again would only be a stopgap solution that would need to be changed in another six to eight years, said Tim Ireland, a Bell Atlantic spokesman. "You end up with teeny tiny area codes," he said. "And each time you have to make everyone change their area codes." Ten-digit dialing is inevitable for the area from New York to Washington in the next 10 to 20 years, he said: "It's not just "whether" you get 10-digit dialing, but "when." Maryland already has taken the step, and will begin assigning customers who ask for new lines new area codes in May, said Bell Atlantic officials. Southern New Jersey is also facing a number crunch and will run out of telephone lines in 1999 unless it gets a new area code, said Ireland. Telecommunications companies will begin debating an overlay for the 609 area code later this year, said Jeffrey Lahm, senior manager for regulatory policy at Bell Atlantic in New Jersey. The Philadelphia area isn't facing a crisis, he said. But its growth in phone numbers is phenomenal too. "You can't put it off forever," he said. Not all cities are signing on. Houston and Dallas considered an overlay in February, but the Public Utility Commission of Texas nixed the idea. One solution -- number portability, in which customers take their numbers with them from state to state and to different carriers -- is still three to five years away from development, say consumer advocates. Meanwhile, competition in the telecommunications industry is also shaping the debate. Long-distance carries such as AT&T and MCI plan to compete in offering local telephone service in New Jersey and other locales soon. They argue that if Bell Atlantic adopts an overlay it will have an unfair competitive advantage. Why? Bell Atlantic customers who want to switch to another carrier, they argue, would be forced to adopt a number with the new, less desirable area code and Bell Atlantic would be able to hand out the last few 201 and 908 numbers to "its" new customers. Bell Atlantic says that's nonsense. Customers who want to switch to AT&T or another new local carrier could keep their old number, said Ireland. Bell Atlantic would just electronically link them to their old telephone number. Despite such assurances, disagreements among telecommunications companies have made it impossible to reach an industry consensus. As a result, the issue has landed in the lap of New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities. The Board held two public meetings this week and is inviting public written comment until May 1. If the board approves an overlay this spring, Bell Atlantic would start putting in the new numbers in the summer. But judging by the attendance at the two meetings, the issue of adding two new area codes hasn't quite sunk in in New Jersey yet. "Everyone who was testifying there was either a president of Bell Atlantic or a senior manager or a district manager or a member of a chamber of commerce," complained one speaker, David DeNotaris, who works training disabled people to find employment. "But this affects everyone. And after the fact, it's going to be too late to change." Like most of those who spoke, DeNotaris favors an overlay because he said it would allow most people to keep their old phone numbers, would not split towns or force businesses to redo their advertising logos. Dialing the extra three digits will be hard on the disabled, "But so what?" he said. "We're going to have to do that anyway." Other telephone customers reached at random said they had not heard of the plan. "That's something I was totally unaware of," said Marcia Rapp, who manages the Jewish Federation apartment building for seniors in Paterson, N.J. "I think that for many of the tenants it will be burdensome situation to remember the extra numbers," she said. One consumer group in New Jersey, the Ratepayer, testified in favor of the overlay but called for more extensive hearings. Meanwhile, there is the open question of whether telephone callers will be able to memorize an extra three digits. One professor of psychology, Gordon Bowers of Stanford University, predicts problems: "That'll produce a fair number of screw-ups. The number of people who forget the number and have to look it up again will increase, and so will misdialings." ----- ON THE INTERNET: Visit Philadelphia Online, the World Wide Web site of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Point your browser to http://www.phillynews.com ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: Slamming Dunked Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 14:47:13 -0400 From {Long Island Newsday} Online (www.newsday.com), forwarded FYI to the Digest: Slamming Dunked By Henry Gilgoff Staff Writer (4/28/96) WHEN LaVERNE BRIMER of Commack realized that a company she never heard of was handling her long distance calls, she wanted to know why. When she called, she was told that her son, 11 years old at the time, had authorized the switch when he entered a sweepstakes. Her son, Andrew, now 12, said he doesn't remember signing the contest form and "long distance application," but he does enter sweepstakes, and the signature seems to be his own, he said. "This was driving my mother crazy," Andrew said. Indeed, his mother said she compared Long Distance Services, the Michigan company she had been switched to, and AT&T, which she had before the change. AT&T, she said, was lower-priced for her calls, most of them to Florida. On a monthly bill dated Feb. 19, she was charged $66.39 for out-of- state calls, excluding surcharges and taxes. The cost of the calls at AT&T, she said, would have been $35.66, including discounts. Now the matter is under review by the office of state Attorney General Dennis Vacco. "We are giving serious attention to this," said Charlie Donaldson, an assistant attorney general. Andrew couldn't authorize a switch in his parent's service, he said. Donaldson is a veteran in the war against what is known as slamming, the practice of switching customers from one long distance company to another without their authorization. Complaints to the Federal Communications Commission last year alleged that authorization in many cases is obtained fraudulently or deceptively. The FCC received more than 10,000 complaints about slamming in 1995. Even the biggest companies have been accused of slamming. The FCC in January cited AT&T, among others. The FCC reported that its staff found no similarity between the signature on a consumer's authorization form for a switch to AT&T and a signature submitted to the FCC by the consumer. A finding of "apparent liability" was issued, and a $40,000 penalty was assessed. AT&T spokeswoman Virginia Gold said AT&T filed comments with the FCC, challenging the finding in the FCC's ongoing review of the case. "We disagree with that assessment," Gold said. Months after Brimer's son signed the form that resulted in her switch to Long Distance Services, new FCC rules took effect in September. They seek to ensure that consumers know if they're authorizing a change in long distance companies when a sweepstakes offer is made. Regulators say using a contest to mask an authorization for a change in long distance companies is a common ploy by slammers, either a long distance company or its marketers. NYNEX, as the regional phone company, receives computer data tapes with the telephone numbers to be switched from one long distance company to another, and carries out the changes without confirming consumer authorization. The volume of changes would make verification onerous, said NYNEX spokesman John Bonomo. Slamming is an unintended product of increased competition in long distance calling -- a market that promises to heat up as NYNEX and other regional phone companies gear up to compete. Companies can buy use of a major long distance carrier's network at volume discount rates and then resell the service. Many resellers are legitimate, said Donaldson, and prices vary, depending on such factors as costs and profit margin. So if you're considering jumping from one company to another, no matter which company, don't make assumptions about price. Compare. LaVerne Brimer never intended to jump. Brimer said a change in the format of NYNEX bills earlier this year gave her reason to read it more carefully and detect what seemed a discrepancy in charges for long distance calls. So, she called NYNEX. She was told that while NYNEX collects her payments for long distance calling as part of her overall bill, it is only a conduit, receiving a fee for its services. The billing data came to NYNEX through another company. She called that company, U.S. Billing Inc., and was told that it, too, was a conduit, providing billing data services for many long distance companies. In a letter last month to "It's Your Money," Brimer said U.S. Billing told her she had not had AT&T for months. "What I did have," she was told, "was a company called Long Distance Services." A representative of that company, Brimer wrote, "advised me that she doesn't know how this application of a minor got past her." Brimer was sent a copy of the form, and she and her son say the signature seemed to be his, but he is not sure he filled out the rest of the form, which lists his birthdate only as July 22. The form authorizes a company called Intercontinental Marketing Associates Inc. to be the agent in providing long distance service. A number listed on the form for that company has been disconnected, and Long Distance Services says it no longer uses it for marketing. Meanwhile, Brimer contacted AT&T to switch her back, and that was done in March this year. She hasn't paid her two last bills from Long Distance Services and wants a refund of the difference between AT&T rates and Long Distance Services' for calls since the first handled by Long Distance Services on March 23, 1995. Allan Barash, an executive at Long Distance Services, said the complaint was unusual for his company. "We process over 20,000 of these orders a week." Each NYNEX bill Brimer received said inquiries can be made to U.S. Billing, Barash added. "This is all nonsense," he said. "The woman got her first bill in 1995, and she's first complaining about the situation in 1996?" He said he would make some accommodation to Brimer but the details were not clear. Asked more questions about the contest form and long distance application, Barash bristled. "You're getting too in-depth," he said, and he soon ended the conversation. The first of the checks will be in the mail in several weeks, he said. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 11:22:59 -0400 From: Antilles Engineering Subject: Bits Don't Go High to Some 800s I'm new to the list but wanted to ask other listers whether the following is "legal." Our firm operates a T-1 - provisioned callback switch for our engineers overseas. (Yes -- we're Section 214 licensed.) We've noted that when our guys overseas call through the switch to some 800 numbers (for example, American Airlines Advantage 1 800 848 4653), the call doesn't "connect" and yet information is being conveyed by AA. You are prompted to enter a DTMF to access a particular branch, then put on hold. *Only* when a live body at that particular AA branch picks up do the signal bits go high and a "connect" actually happens. Technically, I can see how this can be done, but can *we* do it legally, or do you have to have the concurance of your LD carrier, *or* is someone out there being cute without the knowledge of the carrier? Doug Terman Antilles Engineering, Ltd. snail: PO Box 318, VT 05674 voice: (802) 496 3812 fax: (802) 496 3814 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 12:07:13 EDT From: danny burstein Subject: New GAO Telecom Reports and Testimony Online Check out especially the telecom piece in the first report. Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 10:42:04 -0500 From: Jennifer Boettcher Subject: GAO Daybook - 4/16/96 -Forwarded GAO Daybook ***NEW - FY 95 Annual Index of Reports and Testimony*** See Below for Details April 16, 1996 The General Accounting Office (GAO) today released the following reports and testimony: REPORTS: 1. USDA Telecommunications: More Effort Needed to Address Telephone Abuse and Fraud GAO/AIMD-96-59, Apr. 16. 2. Financial Audit: U.S. Government Printing Office's Financial Statements for Fiscal Year 1995 GAO/AIMD-96-52, Apr. 16. TESTIMONY: 1. Defense Depot Maintenance: Privatization and Debate Over the Public- Private Mix, by David R. Warren, Director of Defense Management Issues, before the Subcommittee on Military Readiness, House Committee on National Security. GAO/T-NSIAD-96-146, Apr. 16. ******************************************** ***NEW*** FY 95 Annual Index of Reports and Testimony Go to GAO's WWW Home Page "What's New" link for details or see FAQ ******************************************** The report(s) listed above will be available *soon* both electronically and in print. For complete details on GAO's INTERNET services, go to GAO's WWW Home Page: http://www.gao.gov or retrieve the GAO FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) automatically, by sending an e-mail message with "info" in the body to: info@www.gao.gov ****************************************************************** Back issues of the GAO Daybook may also be obtained via e-mail. See FAQ for details. To UNSUBSCRIBE to the GAO Daybook, send an e-mail message to: with the message: unsubscribe daybook *************************************************************** Thank you! ------------------------------ From: elana@netcom.com (Elana who?) Subject: Fire in PDX US West Office Kills Phone Service Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 15:34:15 GMT I didn't post this when it happened because I figured someone else would ... Sometime last week, there was a fire in a Portland, Oregon (PDX in airport lingo) US West office ... it burned thru some phone cables and knocked out phone service in most of the northeastern part of the city. The outage lasted about eight hours. One of the ISPs I have an account with, agora.rdrop.com, temporarily lost their Internet connection as well, even though they are physically located rather far south of the outage area. (go figure). The reaction of the locals, according to the paper, seems to be that this is the last straw for a lot of these Portlanders. US West has already angered a lot of people here because of incident upon incident of bad service and too-long waits for new numbers. And now this. Hmmm ... US West has not yet annoyed me at all ... (cautiously fearful emphasis on "yet") I have no idea about this incident other than what I've scanned in the local paper. Perhaps a fellow Webfoot ( that the Oregonian slang for other Oregonians) who more technical than I, *and* knows more about this incident can post more news about it. "Be seeing you..." Elana [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Telcos are notorious for leaving millions of dollars in switching and other sophisticated equipment unattended for days at a time. In their penny-wise and pound-foolish budgets, they would rather have a fire or other disaster every now and then costing them several million dollars and a lot of bad customer relations than to simply hire someone for twenty or thirty thousand dollars per year and have them stay in the CO at night or on weekends who was intelligent enough to 'make rounds' of the building every hour or so; knew how to make emergency decisions regarding fires, floods, and other problems; and could communicate intelligently with company management and civil authorities in the event an emergency arose, etc. It is particularly offensive when they say 'it would cost too much money to staff all our locations at all hours' when you realize much of the expense could be budgeted through various other departments (i.e. the overnight and weekend person could be given data entry work to do in spare time). Now I do not know what the exact circumstances were in Portland and whether the fire was in some unattended location at some 'off-hours' of the night or weekend, etc. It may well have been something which occurred in the middle of the day with a hundred people around. I have to reserve judgment on it. But I do know that Illinois Bell's Hinsdale office on Mother's Day in May, 1988 was such a case. After the fire had been going for *better than an hour* finally some dingbat at the central monitoring place in Springfield, Illinois calls up to someone at home in the Chicago area and said 'when they got a chance' they might want to go over to Hinsdale (a 45 minute drive) and see 'why the alarms have been sounding for 'about an hour'. That person goes to the Hinsdale CO and sees smoke billowing out of all the windows and the roof and decides 'maybe' they should call the Fire Department only to discover by then it was far too late: all the phones were already dead. Recovery took a month, and millions of dollars. For what Hinsdale cost IBT, the company could have staffed every piece of real estate they own for years with a competent person ready to spring into action, marshall the troops and greatly mitigate the damages. Too bad telcos consider it 'too expensive'. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 10:19:08 -0400 From: Stanley Cline Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Subject: AT&T, Softkey Giving Free Software to Switch AT&T is doing something new to get new customers ... A couple of days ago I received an envelope from Softkey advertising "Free Software up to $150 value." I look in the envelope and find what amounts to an LOA: "Switch me to AT&T ... send me the free software." They only allow one "software selection", which is a bit misleading given the "up to $150" on the envelope, and on the reverse side a picture of *several* software packages. What's even stranger is that the name, address, *and* phone number the LOA/offer was sent to is *not* what's on my phone bill! It's what I provided Softkey when I registered some software I ordered from them several months ago. To their credit, they did provide space to make changes to the phone billing name/address/phone number. The fact that this was an LOA "in disguise" was obvious, unlike others I've seen. So it's possible that even *existing* AT&T customers got the sales pitch -- the phone number listed on the LOA has been PICed to LCI for over a year, but those that "churn" LD carriers may have gotten this (number PICed to another carrier when the mailing list was generated, but since changed to AT&T.) Will I take them up on their offer? Probably not; the software offerings aren't really all that good. (If they were giving MS Office or CorelDRAW away, though, then maybe I would.) What's next from AT&T, or MCI, or Sprint? I bet MCI will eventually cook up something relating to their 1-800-Music-Now. Any other ideas? Stanley Cline (dba Catoosa Computing Services), Chattanooga, Tenn. mailto:scline@usit.net -- http://caladan.chattanooga.net/~scline/ IRC Roamer1 :: CIS 74212,44 :: MSN WSCline1 :: Using Atlas PR2 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 10:55:33 -0400 From: mkuras@ccs.neu.edu (Michael J Kuras) Subject: Is NYNEX Deceptively Advertising *66? Organization: College of Computer Science, Northeastern University I saw a NYNEX TV commercial today that seemed to contradict the discussion which was held in this newsgroup in Dec '95-Jan '96. The commercial went something like this: "The circus tickets went on sale at 9AM. Bob called right at 9, but so did a lot of other people (shot of Bob listening to a busy signal) ... so Bob dialed *66 and got through!" Essentially, the commercial is saying that if you try to call a Ticketmaster-type number, *66 (automatic redial/ringback) will get you through. But from the previous dicussion (attribute omitted, sorry): > [*66 is] pointless for heavily-used busy numbers. By the time you get the > ringing, and pick up the phone, the desired line is busy again (and > you'll be told to hang up and wait some more). It's not as if it > reserves you the right to be the next caller (it doesn't). So is NYNEX onto something new? Or is this merely a *very* carefully worded commercial? michael j kuras www.ccs.neu.edu/~mkuras mkuras@ccs.neu.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: *66 'tests for busy' on the called line and reports back when it finds the line is open and can be reached. There are some flaws. One, there is a 'window' of a few seconds to a minute after it discovers the line is free and calls back the requesting party. During that period of time, some third party can seize the line instead. *66 does not grab the line and hold it for its user, which would prevent that from happening. 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'. For fun sometime, try dialing your own number. You'll get a busy signal of course, and you'll have loaded the *66 buffer by doing so. Now use *66. The recording will tell you that it will be tried from time to time. Hang up your phone. On the first try afterward, naturally your line will be free, and *66 will cheerfully call to advise you of that and offer to make the connection. Guess what? When it tries to do so, your line 'has become busy again' !! If *66 at your telco is set up to try repeatedly for some period of time, you'll get calls every couple minutes from *66 telling you the line is now free, only to try it and find the line has 'become busy again'. You can cancel this loop using *86 or *89 or whatever code is used in your community to 'cancel automatic callback requests'. If the software at your telco is set to only try one time and then give up, you'll get the one bogus callback but no others. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Apr 96 10:32:00 EST From: Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> Subject: An Old Stromberg Stepper 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. The caller was a contractor who wanted help with E&M leads on a 9-1-1 trunk that we haven't manufactured in a number of years. He was installing basic 9-1-1 service in this little town. It was amazing to hear the clatter of the electromechanical switch as I drug out the old diagrams and tried to remember basic troubleshooting for this old trunk. The telco was Benton Ridge Telephone Company, a 400 line independent in Benton Ridge. This was the 419-653 exchange in New Bavaria. The installer told me that the nearby 419-398 exchange (four miles away) has the last step switch that Stromberg Carlson manufactured! Small telcos in that area are Buckland Telco in Buckland, Wabash Mutual in Celina, Columbus Grove Telco in Columbus Grove, Continental Telco (subsidiary of Telephone & Data Systems, unrelated to Contel,) in Continental, Fort Jennings Telco in Fort Jennings, Glandorf Telco in Glandorf, Kalida Telco in Kalida, Middle Point Home Telco in Middle Point, New Knoxville Telco in New Knoxville, Oakwood Telco in Oakwood, Ottoville Mutual in Ottoville, Vanlue Telco (part of TDS) in Vanlue, Vaughnsville Telco in Vaughnsville and Telephone Service Company in Wapakoneta. All of these little independent telcos are around Findlay and Lima. I remember when there were 1,700 or so independent telcos in the United States back in the 1970s, and a lot of them were farmer CO-OPs and mom and pop outfits. Not many of them around anymore with step switches. Paul Cook 206-881-7000 Proctor & Associates 3991080@mcimail.com 15050 NE 36 St. Redmond, WA 98052-5378 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are still about 1200-1300 totally independent telephone companies in the United States; that is telcos with no affiliation to the old 'Bell System', GTE, or United and Centel, which at least in the 1970-80's were the third and fourth largest consortium of telcos after Bell and GTE. In the early years of this century when Alex Bell's patent on the basic telephone expired and AT&T was no longer able to prevent their manufacture, they plucked up all the telcos they could get (quite literally!) 'one way or the other'. Quite a few of the several thousand telcos back then were very fiercely independent; they hated 'the Bell' and made no bones about it. 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. But AT&T made survival so difficult for the telcos who would not succomb to the treats dangled in front of their nose as members of the newly formed 'Bell System' (i.e. interconnection with the other telcos in the Bell consortium; a piece of the revenue from the baby long distance industry) that they had to band together on their own. Quite a few wanted affiliation with a major telephone network so they jumped in with GTE figuring it was the lesser of two evils when compared with 'the Bell'. Others would have no part of either consortium, and instead formed the group known as USITA -- the United States Independent Telephone Associa- tion, to which many of the telcos in the GTE consortium also belonged. Membership in USITA was absolutely forbidden to the telcos in the Bell System. Historically, an 'independent telco' was always defined as a telco not part of Bell, nor receiving any largesse from AT&T. I am talking of the 1900-1930 era now, and the definition of 'independent' pretty much continued until AT&T's divestiture. The same scenario had played out fifty years earlier when lots of tiny, independent telegraph companies found it in their best interest to form union (or merged and consolidated) agencies and switching facilities. They got gobbled up in the Western Union consortium (or telegraph trust) in 1860-90. Those who did not get into the Western Union network of telegraph agents and network facilities generally joined with other small consortiums which were mostly all merged in WUTCO over the years. 1932 comes, and things *stink* all over the USA. Bread lines and welfare office lines extend out in the street. No one ran 'help wanted' ads in the newspapers because they didn't have to. There was not a single day every company did not have a dozen people at the door asking for employment; any work would do. President Roosevelt hated AT&T, and Ma Bell hated him. He wanted to see *truly* universal phone service, not the bogus 'universal service' Ted Vail had in mind which meant grab up all the juicy little telcos and skim the cream. It was funny watching them accuse MCI of the same thing in the 1970's -- Mister Pot, meet Mister Kettle; Pot says Kettle is dirty. Failing to get his way with AT&T, Roosevelt started a federal agency called the Rural Electrification Administration. REA had the task of bringing electricity to the nation's farmers, along with telephone service. You see, Roosevelt did not like Thomas Edison very much either. Edison and the executives of the companies in his consortium had their own cows to milk and rural America was not part of their agenda either. Roosevelt's REA got hundreds of rural electric systems up and running and hundreds of 'Telephone Cooperative Societies' started. The farmers were given federally-guaranteed loans to build telephone exchanges and power plants. Most of them had twenty year mortgages. But after twenty years, the farmers were getting too old to climb the telephone poles to maintain the wires. Their wives were getting too old to run the switchboard, and their daughters had no interest in staying home on Saturday night to watch the board while mom and dad got a night off. AT&T saw this happening. They saw the telephone cooperative societies having a hard time with their (by then) old, antiquated switchboards and lack of interest by the farmer's daughters and sons in keeping it going. Not only that; the best part of all was now the debt service was over! ... the farmers held those coops free and clear of any debt. AT&T moved in for the kill and grabbed as many as they could for pennies on the dollar. About 1955, it took the United States Supreme Court to rule that AT&T would not be allowed to acquire any more telephone operating companies, subject to one exception: if the telco was for sale and no one else wanted to buy it AND it was on the *verge of bankruptcy and suspending operations or going out of business* then AT&T *HAD* to take it! The Supremes really stuck it to AT&T that time; Judge Greene would have been proud. Don't you wish *you* could have been in on this business in those early days? I would have loved it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 03:45:09 -0700 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Bury Your Loved Ones Via Your Touchtone Phone WHEN YOU NEED TO GRIEVE ... IN A HURRY! SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 24, 1996--Would you know what to do if a close relative died out of town and you had to handle the arrangements? A Seattle company has stepped in to solve this problem for America's mobile, spread-out families. Farewell Nationwide Funeral Service has established a toll-free number, 1-800/FAREWELL, to handle long distance funeral arrangements. Daniel Whitehurst, president of Farewell, said: "Many people today don't know a funeral director in their own town, let alone a distant city. But now they can call 1-800/FAREWELL (800/327-3935) and our Family Assistant will make all the connections for them -- and it will generally cost less than if they hired local providers." Farewell is a licensed funeral provider and can handle transportation, preparation and even cremation virtually anywhere in the United States and internationally. The company has a network of licensed local professionals around the country who can respond immediately, 24 hours a day, to a call for service. Farewell also sells caskets and urns and can book bereavement-fare travel arrangements for the family. According to Whitehurst, long distance arrangements are becoming more common as people move to retirement communities and their children follow jobs and families to cities away from the hometown. Baby Boomers have little experience with funerals, said Whitehurst, but are now having to deal with arrangements for their parents. "This generation is accustomed to shopping by phone, fax and online services. They want instant response and direct information. We think 1-800/FAREWELL will be more convenient and less stressful than tracking down a far-away funeral home. With Farewell, they can do everything over the phone from their own home or wherever they are." Whitehurst said the service will usually cost less than going through local providers because Farewell has negotiated rates with sub-contractors around the country. He said using Farewell is similar to calling a travel agent, where the customer pays no more for extra service and convenience as well as better price options. Sample prices (apply in most metropolitan areas): 1. Arranging removal and cremation and shipment of cremated remains, including interim container and shipping charges: $795. 2. Arranging removal, preparation (embalming) and shipment including shipping container but not airline charges: $980. Farewell Nationwide Funeral Service was designed by long-time funeral professionals to make the funeral process easier and less expensive for people. Changing demographics and attitudes about funerals have opened the door to non-mortuary providers like Farewell, according to Whitehurst. CONTACT: Farewell Nationwide Funeral Service Dan Whitehurst, 800/327-3935 FarewellUS@aol.com ++++++++++++++++ (Pat, A few questions spring to mind. Firstly, do you need to call 1-800-FLOWERS for the floral arrangements? Secondly, were they also able to get 1-888-FAREWELL, or is that a ransomed vanity number?!!? Thirdly ... ARE THEY NUTS?!!? It's hard to believe that the "disposal" of a loved one is being marketed to baby boomers (i.e. yuppies) as something that can now be done completely over the phone, no muss, no fuss. All we need now is 1-800-AHIT-MAN, and you can have total body disposal from the covenience of your touch-tone phone! They call making burial arrangements "Similar to calling a travel agent". Is this truly a reflection on today's disposable society, or what?) Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest On The Web: http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can see the advantage to a service such as offered. If you had a family member in a distant place and knew no one there, who would *you* contact for assistance? In 1979, an older lady who lived alone in the same building as myself passed away. No one ever came to see her; her son and his wife lived in New York somewhere. I knew little or nothing about her except to say hello in passing every day. When we had not seen her after two days we went to her apartment and found her dead. After calling the Fire Department and the Police Department (the Chicago Police *always* require a paramedic -- if no physician is present -- to pronounce the death from natural causes before they will remove the body) and waiting for their arrival, we examined her personal papers looking for (to us heretofore unknown) relatives. Literature in her apartment lead me to believe she was Jewish, and a call to the son and his wife in New York confirmed that to be the case. They knew nothing about the Chicago area, and I suggested a Jewish undertaker to them. They asked me to call and begin the arrangements; they made plans to be in Chicago the next day. Otherwise she would have gone to Cook County and been buried where the county does its thing. If it were a family member of mine, and my responsibility, I'd want professionals in that location to assume control until I was able to get there. I do not think the company Van is referring to is so cold-hearted. They probably are quite helpful. As it turned out in the case of the old lady I mentioned, the family's religious beliefs dictated burial the next day; the day following discovery of the death. How else could it have been handled that quickly? As it also turned out, the weather the next day was *terrible*. There was severe rain all day. I remember distinctly being at the cemetery in a heavy rainfall. They had waited to start until the rain slowed down to a drizzle. There were less than a dozen people present: the son and his wife, the rabbi employed by the funeral home and two others on the staff, a couple of older people who knew the lady from 'way back when', plus myself and a friend who drove me there in his car. The son and his mother had been on the outs for many years and never communicated, and the lady was a recluse otherwise. In her personal possessions we found letters written to her postmarked in the 1940's addressed to her at the Elgin State Hospital for the Insane from her then teenage son in which he said, 'mom, when you write to us, please don't put your return address on the envelope; we don't want anyone to know where you are at ...' The poor rabbi stood at the gravesite for the ritual and two men stood next to him each holding umbrellas over him to keep him and his prayer book dry. The son stood nearby also with an umbrella. The drizzle was steady and the rest of us just sat in our cars nearby and watched. Afterward I said goodbye to him and he handed me an envelope with power of attorney asking me to dispose of whatever she owned; he wanted none of it. Also enclosed was a bit of money for myself. In the process of cleaning out her apartment we found several boxes of Sterling Silver. Not just forks and spoons for the table, but a sterling turkey platter and pitcher and bowls. That was back at the time the guy in Texas had run the price of silver up to more than a hundred dollars per ounce; remember him? All sorts of pure sterling silver from a time in the 1940's when a rich and elegant family had been together and no doubt eaten dinner together regularly. It all came to an end the next day when we took all the boxes -- save some beutiful and very petite little demitasse cups which I wanted -- to the Evanston smelter. There it all met the Refiner's Fire ... in exchange for a check for a little over a thousand dollars. I offered it to the son but he did not want it, so advanced and long standing the hostility in the family, so I gave it the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago in her name for their mental health counseling service. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #205 ******************************