Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA28842; Thu, 26 Dec 1996 00:48:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 00:48:06 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612260548.AAA28842@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #679 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Dec 96 00:48:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 679 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed (Steve Bagdon) Re: BellSouth Blows It (Nils Andersson) Re: 510/925 Split: My Reaction (Nils Andersson) Re: 510 Splits to 925 (Dave Close) Re: More on California Geographic Split Decision (Linc Madison) Re: Fourth Area Code for Colorado (John Cropper) Re: "Hidden Agendas" in Web Blocking Software (Glen L. Roberts) Re: Unheralded Deaths of 1996 - George Oslin (Lisa Hancock) Re: Calling US 800 From UK: Answer Supervision on Recorded Msg? (G. Hills) The Hornet's Nest (was WebTV and CoyoteNet; Minority Report) (D. Clayton) Complaining About InterNIC to the NSF (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Louis Raphael) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Jonathan Kamens) GTE's CyberPOP (J. Keith Pillow) 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: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. 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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: bagdon@rust.net (Steve Bagdon) Subject: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 17:21:44 -0400 Organization: Rust Net - High Speed Internet in Detroit 810-642-2276 My wife and I believe we have *finally* found our first house, so that means I can finally wire up a property the way I've always wanted to. We've rented up to now, so wiring a house for networking, phone systems, television, etc, has never gotten past the planning stages - no reason to put a lot of work into a house that we don't own! After viewing the house, I believe I will need 6 extensions upstairs (4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms), 6 extensions downstairs (2 in living room, 1 in kitchen, 1 in den, 1 in bathroom, 1 in garage), 4 extensions in the basement (1 by the laundry, 1 by the work-area, 2 in the common area), and 2 extensions outside (1 by the pool, and 1 in the storage shed, both in a sealed box). I'd like 1 extension upstairs (master bedroom), 1 extension downstairs (kitchen), and 1 extension in the basement (by the work area, which would be where the cpu/controller would go) to have a sufficient quantity of buttons to (a) control the entire system and (b) be able to page every other extension in the house. Figure that means I'll be able to limit myself to 20 extensions total, with 3 or 4 extensions with 20-button bases. Basically, I'm looking for an AT&T Merlin system that can handle this setup. I don't know where the 'systems' fit into a particular scheme, ie: max extensions, max incoming lines, etc. I'm sure I'll go against all rules of the extension/lines ratio (I want a lot more extensions then lines), so I figure I'll have to overbuy to get the number of extensions that I want. So, is there a central clearing house for used Merlin equipment (cpus, extensions, etc) that an individual can buy from? Thanks in advance to anyone who can recommend a particular system, and where to get it at a reasonable price! Steve B. bagdon@rust.net (h) USFMDDKT@ibmmail.com (w) http://www.rust.net/~bagdon ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: BellSouth Blows It Date: 25 Dec 1996 19:40:38 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Ed Ellers writes: > I used to think that BellSouth was a better-than-average LEC, but at > this point when true facilities-based competition does arrive it > won't be a moment too soon for me. The telcos have a corporate policy (unpublished) to the effect that all subscribers are blithering idiots. If you tell them the problem is at the CO, that is itself a good reason to assume that the problem is in the outside wiring. Out of many incidents, I remember once back in England, the phone line suddenly would not accept incoming calls (outgoing worked normally). The phone would ring, but nothing I did would connect the call. I tried various phones, even shorting the incoming line briefly. Nothing helped. I called the GPO (General Post Office) as they were called then, and explained the problem, including the fact that NO THEY COULD NOT CALL ME BACK AND MAKE AN APPOINTMENT, I only had one phone line. Nor should they need one, as the problem was obviously at the CO. Sure enough, a day later the GPO guy appeared. As I was sharing accommodations, somebody let them in. Not so good, as I had an (illegal at the time) extension wired up, making me people's enemy number 1. They did fix the problem, however, I did have to spend another evening rewiring the extension. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: 510/925 Split: My Reaction Date: 25 Dec 1996 19:40:42 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Telecom@Eureka.vip. best.com (Linc Madison) writes: > As for the prefix imbalance, which results in estimates of 2004 for > 510 to exhaust again and 2012 or so for 925 to exhaust, by the time > either of those dates rolls around, we'll just add overlay area codes. > The existing geographic boundary lines will make that pretty sensible. Overlays make more sense than anything else. The PUC objection that this forces newcomers to have "uncool" newbie area codes is a very minor objection, compared to having to redo stationary, phone lists and whatever. The time for uniquely geographical area codes is over, folks, lets face it. While we are at it, I am waiting for the day the feds relent on the stupid view that you cannot assign "classes of service" by area code. A cellphone is not "located" anywhere in particular - except maybe in the _whole_ metro area, as far as the subscriber and the caller are concerned, why should it not have a special area code, 917-style? (Yes, I realize that the phone is serviced by a switch that takes the incoming calls and indeed has a geographical location, but this is pretty transparent to everybody but the cellphone provider, why bother anybody else with a technical detail?) Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: 510 Splits to 925 Date: 25 Dec 1996 00:24:04 -0800 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) writes, quoting Business Wire and a Pacific Telesis press release: > That consumption is being spurred > by the high-technology explosion of fax machines, pagers, cellular > phones and modems for Internet access along with the onset of local > competition in California's telephone market. Why do they keep perpetuating this myth? The growth in usage does not account for the number problem. 95% of the problem is competition. When this article hits the newspapers, like Sunday's LA Times, only the "fax machines..." part is mentioned. The papers don't even hear the competition phrase. It's time for PacTel and the CPUC to make the real problem more prominent in their releases. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: More on California Geographic Split Decision Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 15:31:53 -0800 In article , tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) wrote (quoting an Associated Press report): > Of the 12 new area codes that Pacific Bell projects will be needed, > new ones have already been ordered for the southern part of the 415 > region and the 916 region outside of Sacramento County. Last week, the > telephone industry petitioned the PUC to split parts of Contra Costa > County from the 510 area code. > Seven other area codes will likely split within the next few years -- > including 408, 310, 619, 818, 714, 213, 209 and 805 -- and will have > to be approved by the commission as needed. > The 12th new area code will be a second split for 415 by the year > 2000, according to Pacific Bell. This is very confusing wording. Area codes 310 and 619 are splitting within the next three months (310/562 on 1-25-97 and 619/760 on 3-22-97). Is this report projecting that 310 and 619 will split *again* by the year 2001? The plans for area code 818/626 are nearly finalized, too. Of course, the other problem is that 408, 310, 619, 818, 714, 213, 209 and 805 makes EIGHT area codes, not seven, and neither 7+2 nor 8+2 makes twelve, and the existing 13 plus 12 new ones don't make the 26 that we are projected to have by 2001. Your average eight-year-old can count better than that! Yet more sloppy reportage, surprise, surprise. (Please note that Tad was only quoting a press report -- the sloppiness is on AP's part, not Tad's.) As for doing a second geographic split of 415, there is only one acceptable line for a standard two-way split, and that is the Golden Gate. However, Marin County accounts for only about 1/5 or so of the exchanges in the newly-reduced 415, and I believe it is growing less rapidly than San Francisco. Even within San Francisco, the city is currently divided into three rating zones. "San Francisco 1," which includes downtown, accounts for over 3/4 of the exchanges in the city (182 out of 241, as of the 9/96 directory publication date). (Marin County has about 60 prefixes.) Thus, even if you did a split of SF1 keeping 415 while SF2, SF3, and all of Marin move into the new area code, that's still only about a 60/40 split by number of prefixes. Of course, that split would never fly politically, putting "the neighborhoods" in an area code they share with Point Reyes but not with downtown. That means that we either do a very lopsided split, moving only Marin into the new area code, and hope that lets us hold out long enough for an overlay, or we do a three-way split, Marin/Downtown/Neighborhoods, which would still leave downtown to do an overlay before 2010. I also think the commissioners should be involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for proposing to geographically split area code 213. They are showing clear symptoms of delusional psychosis. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Re: Fourth Area Code for Colorado Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 10:23:32 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Tad Cook wrote: > U S West Requests Fourth Area Code for Colorado > By John Branch, Gazette Telegraph, Colorado Springs, Colo. > Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News > COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--Dec. 19--One year after a large part of > Colorado was given the 970 area code, U S West Communications > Corp. has requested a fourth calling area. > The proposed fourth code won't change numbers in the Pikes Peak > region, but may cause dialing and technological headaches. > Colorado's original area code, 303, will be splintered again, pending > approval from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. The article does not mention what other media sources reported: 570 was the code chosen by USWest for relief of 303 ... John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://www.the-server.com/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 17:13:05 GMT Reply-To: glr@glr.com From: glr@glr.com (Glen L. Roberts) Subject: Re: "Hidden Agendas" in Web Blocking Software Organization: Full Disclosure Monty Solomon wrote: > Excerpt from PRIVACY Forum Digest V05 #22 > Date: Fri, 20 Dec 96 15:23 PST > From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) > Subject: "Hidden agendas" in web blocking software > Greetings. While the ability of parents to control their children's > access to web pages via specialized "blocking" software has been > widely touted, it's becoming apparent that problems are already > appearing. For example, Cybersitter has blocked the entire domains of pages.ripco.com and www.glr.com as well as such words as phreddd and peacefire Apparently the ripco.com and glr.com domains were blocked because of ONE of my web pages, http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/nurse.html Since then, I have added some more details, the blocked words I ran across in an afternoon: http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/badwords.html And, a parody on the creation of Cybersitter: http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/milburn.html The Stalker's Home Page -- What the hell? Are you listed? Privacy? http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/stalk.html Tech Support Hell Hole: http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/hellhole.html ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Unheralded Deaths of 1996 - George Oslin Date: 25 Dec 1996 21:50:51 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net That was sad to hear. I have his book "The Story of Telecommunications", and it is very good (mostly on Western Union), but the Oslin was frank about how government involvement, however well intended, hurt Western Union at several points (such as forcing a bad merger on it.) Oslin also hits on bad presidents, too. ------------------------------ From: George Hills Subject: Re: Calling US 800 From UK: Answer Supervision on Recorded Msg? Date: 25 Dec 1996 15:47:44 GMT Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne Linc Madison (Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com) wrote: > Apparently, on the two largest carriers, British Telecom (BT) and > Mercury (Hg), you can simply dial 00-1-800-nxx-xxxx or what have you. I know of no UK carriers which will refuse to connect such a call; I know of only one calling card system which will refuse to connect +1-800 numbers. > for the international call. A couple of posters have insisted that > the intercept is provided on the U.S. side, and that it returns answer > supervision at the beginning of the recorded intercept, rather than at > the point where the called number actually answers. They have bills > to prove that they were charged for calls to non-working U.S. 800 > numbers, where clearly the call couldn't complete. The announcement has a US accent, and it's the same over every carrier I've tried. Doesn't /necessarily/ mean it's on the US side, though if anyone can suggest how it could possibly be UK based I'd be interested. It's not just a matter of bills. Mercury customers can request (indeed, used to have whether they wanted it or not) a "beep" when a call supervises. It beeps directly the announcement starts. > if it is a U.S. intercept, we supposedly know how to do that without > returning answer supervision. This is done perfectly successfully for other announcements. > because of the presence of a voice without SITs? Also, what happens > if the 800 number you're calling from the U.K. happens to be, for > example, Canada-only? If someone would like to provide a list of area-specific or country-specific 800 and 888 numbers, I'd be only too happy to play with a few ... George http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/strowger ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: The Hornet's Nest (was WebTV and CoyoteNet; Minority Report) Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 03:57:33 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Our Esteemed Editor contributed the following: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your point is good in the sense that > there are so many 'old timers' on the net -- myself included -- who > talk about 'their net' as though they did have some ownership rights. > I'll admit it, I am guilty of it also. The fact is, very few of us > own anything except our own computers (and maybe our employer owns > that also ... ) and we participate here purely through the good will > of the companies/institutions which do pay the bills. So readers, > how *do* you defend your feelings of ownership if you do, and what > right *do* you have to say the direction things should be going? It this really an issue?, as other posters have pointed out the 'net' is growing all the time, and maybe there is enough space in this bigger 'net' to have something like the 'net' you once knew and loved, (the "old timers sub-net" maybe :-) ?). I don't consider myself an 'old timer' by any stretch of the imagination so I don't consider myself to have any ownership rights to the 'net'. I am just grateful that this medium, which more and more people have access to for sharing information around this planet, exists. This newsgroup is part of the 'net' that I appreciate, there are other parts that I could live without, like the growing junk e-mails etc., but as a trade off to having access to this stuff, I'm willing to live with it. In a perfect world, these problems would not occur, but on this planet at this time - well, enough of the obvious. And who knows, maybe technology will allow some sort of method to insulate us, (if we desire), from some of the annoying stuff? Hang in there Pat, there may be a lot more garbage around but you can still appreciate finding "a jewel in the junk heap", I know I have. PS: Thanks again for all of the work you've put in on this newsgroup, I'm pretty sure that it's very much appreciated by many others as well. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your kind note of support. Maybe I can use it as a lead in to the first of what I hope will not be very many pitches to readers to please send in your annual donation to the Digest at this time for 1997. I had to go take a new job a couple weeks ago to get a few past due bills paid off; this has left only about half the time for the Digest I had a month ago. Please do on the web pagwhat you can, and remember that corporate sponsorships are welcome on the telecom web page as well. Please do what you can so that I can start 1997 fresh. Write to TELECOM Digest, PO Box 4621, Skokie, IL 60076. Thank you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rishab@nntp.best.com (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Complaining About InterNIC to the NSF Date: 25 Dec 1996 21:40:30 GMT Organization: Best Internet Communications > From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" > Subject: The InterNIC: a case study in bad database management As this is the fourth time jik's post has landed up in my mailbox, I guess I better quote from my reply to him: To: jik@cam.ov.com Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 12:50:53 -0800 (PST) From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) http://rs.internic.net/nsf/agreement/ is a directory containing the 1993 contract between NSI and the NSF, and four amendments including last year's one allowing for fees. Contact persons, addresses and sometimes phone numbers are there too, for NSI and the NSF. As the agreement requires NSI to submit 10 (yes, ten!) hard copies of a progress report, plan and budget to the NSF each January 31st, the NSF may actually intend to do something about complaints on quality of service. Do try to publicise this URL. The NSI-NSF deal appears shrouded in mystery in most discussions I see. Best, Rishab [...] First Monday - The Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet http://www.firstmonday.dk/ Munksgaard International Publishers, Copenhagen International Editor - Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (ghosh@firstmonday.dk) Mobile +91 11 98110 14574; Fax +91 11 2209608; Tel +91 11 2454717 A4/204 Ekta Apts., 9 Indraprastha Extn, New Delhi 110092 INDIA ------------------------------ From: Louis Raphael Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 21:39:14 -0500 Organization: PubNIX Montreal I have also had problems with the InterNIC and my domain. Of all the things one would think they would forget to send, the last would be the bill. They never sent it. *I* finally called them to pay, because I knew that they'd be cutting the domain off otherwise. That was months ago. Still no sign of the bill, either by e-mail or postal (and I *did* specify postal on the template). My address is correctly entered in the contact/domain WHOIS information. Things that make you wonder ... I think that the new iTLDs proposed by IANA should help solve the problem. Louis ------------------------------ From: jik@cam.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: 24 Dec 1996 14:19:50 GMT Organization: OpenVision Technologies, Inc. In article , hillary@hillary.net (Hillary Gorman) writes: > Sending a fax on Foo, Inc letterhead, or a certified letter on same, > is what I have been advised to do, what NIC reps on the ISP mailing > list have suggested, and it works for me and many others ... Um, are you sure what you describe works for exactly the situation I described? I'm not talking about a domain, netblock, or netnumber record related to Foo, Inc. I'm talking about a contact record for an individual who used to work for Foo, Inc. I explicitly asked the InterNIC (when I finally got to speak to someone who seemed to know what she was talking about) if I could do what you describe to remove the out-of-date data in that contract record. She told me no, explicitly, several times. "The only entity that can modify a contact record is the individual identified in that contact record." So, which of these do you think is the case? (1) You were confused about exactly what I was trying to do, and the cases in which you used a letter on company letterhead were not analogous to this case; (2) The woman to whom I spoke to on the phone was wrong; (3) Some of the people who process contact change requests will accept a letter as you've described, some of them won't, and which one I end up getting when I send such a letter is the luck of the draw. Jonathan Kamens | OpenVision Technologies, Inc. | jik@cam.ov.com ------------------------------ From: keithpillow@sylvaninfo.net Subject: GTE's CyberPOP Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 18:19:37 GMT Has anybody gotten any information on this, other than that it exists? I've read the press release. What's it cost? What are the particulars? I checked their web pages and supposedly you can get more info at http://www.gte.com/cgi-bin/contact/cyberpop/Cando/Carrier/Docs/Wired/cyber2.html But the form there sends your request to a bogus address: cyberpopinfo@telops.gte.com No one at GTE (that I've encountered so far) knows anything about it. What's the deal? J. Keith Pillow, President Sylvan Information Services, Inc. 84 Main Street PO Box 1295 Warsaw, VA 22572___www.sylvaninfo.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #679 ******************************