Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA05314; Fri, 27 Dec 1996 08:16:18 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 08:16:18 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612271316.IAA05314@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #680 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Dec 96 08:16:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 680 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson List of Military Government Reports on Telecom Topics (Michael Ravnitzky) BellSouth Launches Bid For Ownership in Tele 2000 (Mike King) And the New Number is ... 949 (Mike King) Competition for WebTV (Lauren Weinstein) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (oldbear@arctos) Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Shawn Barnhart) Anti CallerID? (Eduardo Kaftanski) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (David Clayton) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Ari Ollikainen) 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. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 23:56:42 -0600 From: Michael Ravnitzky Reply-To: MikeRav@ix.netcom.com Subject: List of Military Government Reports on Telecom DO YOU WANT A LIST OF REPORTS ON THE SUBJECT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS? You can get a list of [largely unpublished] military technical reports on telecommunications and related topics. Many of these reports have been locked away for various bureaucratic reasons and have not been put into the public domain. Here are some subject keywords with which you can obtain a LIST of several hundred military technical reports on telecommunications and related subjects from the Defense Technical Information Center, a government agency. [see below] KEYWORDS: telecommunications, telephone systems, modems, telephone communication systems, telecommunication circuits, telephone equipment, telephone cables, telephone transmitters, telephone lines, telephone amplifiers, telephone receivers, telephone signals, ship telephone systems, communication equipment, sound powered telephones, underwater telephones, multichannel communications, pulse communications, telegraph systems, voice communications, demodulators, phase locked communications, modulators, radiotelephones, videophones, adaptive communications, secure communications, teletype systems, telemeter systems, communication switching centers, underwater communications, global communications, intercommunication systems, data links, microwave communications, optical communications, radio links, radio relay systems, space communications, circuits, digital communications, transmission lines, communication and radio systems IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not bother using the DTIC web site -- in a nutshell, it is worthless because the web site omits most of the two million technical reports in the DTIC collection. [Most of these reports are NOT, repeat NOT, repeat NOT in the NTIS collection, and have been unavailable to the public.] Send a letter instead -- you will get much better results. The fee is likely to be free or only a few bucks. You probably want to include a statement in the letter such as *I agree to pay reasonable fees associated with this request. Please notify me if the cost will exceed $25.*, so that they won't delay the processing of the request. Remember, they WILL try to dissuade you from asking for such a list. If they send you a letter, and you do not respond, they will withdraw your request and you will not get your information. Here is a form letter to use for your request: To: Defense Technical Information Center Attn: DTIC-RSM [Kelly D. Akers, FOIA Manager] 8725 John J. Kingman Road, Suite 0944 Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6128 USA Phone: 703-767-9194 Dear Ms. Akers: I request the following records under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act: A computer generated technical report bibliography of reports on the subject[s]/keyword[s] of: ________________ OR _________________ OR ________________ OR _______________ OR _________________ OR _______________ Please send me this biography for this period of time: (choose one) _______ ALL YEARS IN YOUR COMPUTERIZED INDEX _______ the past 10 years only _______ the past 20 years only _______ all years in your manual card index (1940's and early 1950's) This is a request for DTIC records; please don't forward my request to NTIS. Please include both classified and unclassified records in your search. If any of the records are classified, please review them for release, or the release of nonsensitive portions. I am an individual, noncommercial requester and this request is not being made for commercial purposes. [OR YOU MIGHT INSTEAD INDICATE DIFFERENTLY IF YOU ARE A COMMERCIAL REQUESTER, OR AN EDUCATIONAL OR SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION, OR A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MEDIA] I also agree to pay up to $25 for reasonable fees associated with this request. Sincerely, ______________ I hope you find this a useful resource. Michael Ravnitzky MikeRav@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Launches Bid For Ownership in Tele 2000 Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 20:10:47 PST Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 09:56:37 -0500 (EST) From: BellSouth Subject: BELLSOUTH LAUNCHES BID FOR OWNERSHIP IN TELE 2000 BELLSOUTH LAUNCHES BID FOR OWNERSHIP IN TELE 2000 ATLANTA - BellSouth Corporation (NYSE: BLS) announced today a public tender offer to buy approximately 54 to 64 percent of Peruvian communications company Tele 2000. BellSouth's bid is contingent upon the company's acquisition of at least 54 percent of Tele 2000's outstanding shares at the offering price of $1.50 per share. Shareholders of Tele 2000 have two weeks, or ten business days, to tender their shares. Tele 2000 holds cellular rights to serve Lima and portions of western Peru. It also provides cable TV and paging communications. BellSouth has agreed to purchase the major portion of its acquisition, 38 percent of Tele 2000, from two major sharholders including Tele 2000's chairman, Genaro Delgado Parker. Assuming BellSouth's public tender offer is successful, BellSouth and Parker would end up holding a combined minimum of 90 percent of Tele 2000's capital stock. BellSouth's acquisition of 54 percent ownership of Tele 2000 would be worth an estimated $100 million. BellSouth provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing, video, Internet and other information services to more than 26 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. For more information, contact: Tim Klein 404-249-4135 Kevin Doyle 404-249-2793 ------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: And the New Number is ... 949 Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 20:14:18 PST Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 13:54:03 -0800 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: And the New Number is ... 949 FOR MORE INFORMATION: David A. Dickstein (213) 975-4074 dadicks@legal.pactel.com And the New Number is ... 949 Plan Filed to Split Orange County's 714 Area Code LOS ANGELES -- An area code relief plan has been submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission that would split the 714 area code in Southern California's Orange County and create a new area code -- 949 -- to serve the county's southern half. California Code Administrator Bruce Bennett submitted the 714 area code relief plan earlier this month to the Commission for review and final approval. Bennett said the plan is supported by the telecommunications industry and reflects customer input received during three public meetings in June. Bennett said the Commission also will be asked to determine the new area code's introduction date. Most members of the telecommunications industry have asked the Commission to move up the scheduled introduction date by six months from April 18, 1998 to October 18, 1997, due to rapid phone number usage in the 714 area code. Under the 714 area code relief plan, the existing 714 area code -- which serves most of Orange County -- would be split near the county's geographic center. The details are as follows: Most existing 714 customers in the northern portion of Orange County would keep the 714 area code. Some of the communities that would remain entirely in the 714 include: Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Orange, Placentia, Seal Beach, Stanton, Westminster and Yorba Linda. The majority of customers in Santa Ana and Tustin would also keep the 714 area code. The 714 area code would also continue to serve very small portions of Brea, La Mirada, La Palma, Los Alamitos and La Habra. Most existing 714 customers in the southern portion of Orange County would receive the new 949 area code. Some of the communities to be served by the 949 include: Aliso Viejo, Balboa, Capistrano Valley, Corona del Mar, Dana Point, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, and Santa Ana Heights. Most customers in Irvine would also receive the new 949 area code. Several communities located along the new 714/949 split line border would be served by both area codes, meaning part of the community would stay 714 and part would receive the new 949. In Irvine, for instance, most of the city would be served by 949, except a small portion to stay 714. Other cities that would be served by both area codes include: Santa Ana and Tustin, which primarily remain 714 and Costa Mesa, which would be divided in half by the two area codes. In planning area code splits, Bennett said the industry tries to avoid dividing cities. "However, sometimes this cannot be avoided because telephone wire center serving boundaries do not necessarily coincide with city and county lines," he said, explaining that the telephone wireline network has been in place for many years, while political boundaries have changed over time. "Consequently, we cannot always follow political boundary lines and still gain adequate area code relief." The Commission is expected to issue a final decision on the 714 area code relief plan as early as January. Persons who wish to comment on the plan may write to the: California Public Utilities Commission President P. Gregory Conlon 505 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102 Bennett said two 714 geographic split options were presented to the public for comment during meetings in June. Both plans used a north/south Orange County split to create a new area code and were very similar, except one also kept Huntington Beach, Westminster and half of Fountain Valley in the 714 area code. "In general, the public preferred the plan that included Huntington Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley in 714 due to a strong community of interest between these cities and other nearby cities in the 714," Bennett said. "There was also a concern that Santa Ana, being the county seat, should remain in the 714. "We were able to make those adjustments, although it shortens the life of the 714 area code by almost a year." Other adjustments to the original plan included keeping all, rather than only part, of Fountain Valley in 714, Bennett said. As proposed, the new 949 area code would last 18 to 22 years, while the reconfigured 714 would last four to five years. While customers who receive the new 949 area code will have to change the area code portion of their telephone number, the new three-digit code will not affect the price of telephone calls in any of these areas, Bennett said. "Call distance determines call price and is not impacted by the creation of a new area code," he said. "What is a local call now will remain a local call regardless of the area code change. "It's also important for customers to know that PBX's (private phone systems), auto-dialers, alarms and other telecommunications equipment will have to be re-programmed to recognize the new area codes," said Bennett, adding that people should check with their equipment vendors to see if their equipment needs to be reprogrammed. "Historically, area codes always had either a "1" or a "0" as the middle digit for identification purposes, but all of those codes have been used." These new number combinations allow area codes to be any three digits from 220 to 999, creating an additional 5 billion telephone numbers nationwide, Bennett said. Bennett also noted that when the new 949 area code is introduced, there will be a six-month "permissive" dialing period during which callers can dial either the old 714 or new 949 area code. Orange County is the latest in a series of regions in California requiring area code relief. Today, California has 13 area codes, more than any other state. Plans call for doubling that number from 13 to 26 over the next five years to keep up with the state's record telephone number consumption. 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. Ten of the 13 new area codes will be introduced by the end of 1998. Plans for the 714 area code were collectively developed by a telecommunications industry group representing more than 30 companies, including Pacific Bell, GTE, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, AirTouch, Pagenet, AT&T Wireless, MFS Communications Co., Teleport Communications Group (TCG), the California Cable Television Association and others. ----------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 96 11:32:00 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Competition for WebTV Greetings. Look, let's boil this all down to the essentials. What WebTV really has done is build a vertically integrated "TV Typewriter" service (that's a term we used in the 70's for computer terminals displaying on ordinary televisions). They've organized the dialup facilities and proxy servers, added some graphics support and the ability to minimally deal with a couple of popular specialized net multimedia clients (at least until the RAM runs out...) They've squeezed about as much out of a flickering, 60 Hz, interlaced NTSC TV display as is probably possible given current technology. This all took significant work. But the real money maker for WebTV no doubt revolves around the monthly service. It's a box that can *only* be used with their service, even though for most people the end-user Web sites they're looking at could of course be accessed through any ISP. Already I'm seeing ads and reports of other similar "TV Typewriter" systems that do allow use with *any* ISP, using standard PPP. True, there may not initially be as much "customization" of the screen displays for the limited NTSC format, but many users may find the ability to use their hometown ISP, often at a significantly lower cost per month, to be highly desirable. It'll be interesting to see how WebTV fares as these other boxes become available. One other point. At least one of these other boxes has a credit card reader built-in, so as to "simplify" on-line purchases. Well, at least they're being up front about it all. Because there are two categories of applications that at least some of the manufacturers of such systems may feel will be especially satisfied by the NTSC display technology. One is home shopping. The other is porn viewing. Big surprise, huh? --Lauren-- http://www.vortex.com ------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 09:36:34 -0500 Organization: The Arctos Group - http://www.arctos.com/arctos jik@cam.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes: > 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've run into a similar problem. I am tech contact for a domain whose owner (and admin/billing contact) parted company with a particular ISP over a billing dispute and then had problems moving the domain to another ISP because InterNIC would not recognize email coming from a different email address. Here was the scenario: 1. John opens an account with an ISP and is assigned an email address of john@isp.net. 2. John sends email to obtain a domain john.com. 3. Internic creates a record for john.com, listing John as admin contact with email address john@isp.net. 4. John has billing dispute with ISP, which closes his account. John opens a new account with a new ISP. 5. Coincidently, John moves to a new snail-mail address and phone number at about the same time. 6. Try though he may, he cannot change his contact record at internic to reflect his new ISP or new address information because internic will only accept changes sent from john@isp.net. 7. John is able to get his domain name moved to the new ISP only because InterNIC is able to do this upon request from the Technical Contact, whose information has not changed. Still, it took two telephone calls from me as tech contact and a certified letter including the signature of the domain owner (admin/billing contact), notarized and with a photocopy of the individual's driver's license seemed to solve the problem of getting the domain record changed and updated. However, even though the certified letter also included a request to update the contact record, that change did not occur. Hence, the domain owner was unable to update snail-mail address and phone number, and did not received his billing which was sent by snail-mail to his old street address and via email to his old ISP email address. Multiple submissions of the specified update forms via email proved absolutely futile. Sometimes submission was acknowleged, sometimes not. Regardless, the contact record never changed. Finally, under threat of cancellation, I sent InterNIC a check via certified mail with another request to update the record. This had to be followed by a telephone call with another half hour on hold. The record is now correct (except for the phone number -- don't ask!) and, I believe, the registration fee is current for another year. The entire process took four LD phone calls ranging in length from 35 minutes to over an hour, two certified letters, over a dozen pieces of email -- and, because of the apparent randomness of the solution, I still don't know what to do if this or a similar problem ever occurs again. Having worked part of my life in government and being married to a tax-code-reading CPA, I have seen a lot of bureaucracy. However, I have never been so frustrated as I was in dealing with InterNIC on what should have been a simple matter. I know that InterNIC would prefer to do 100% of this stuff via email using some kind of password or encryption scheme. But there is no system on the face of the planet which does not have exceptions ... and there has to be a simple process for the filing of affidavits or some such. Even the California Dept of Motor Vehicles, the Social Security Administration, and the IRS (which I believe are the three biggest record-based operations in the U.S.) each have systems for exception handling. Cheers, The Old Bear PS: Ironic thought: ever wonder why the Internic never seems to screw up those dozens of impenetrable interlocking domains and records which belong to the great spam-generating sites like BEST.COM and EARTHSTAR.COM? ------------------------------ Subject: Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net From: swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 10:36:36 -0600 Organization: Chaos In comp.dcom.telecom TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On the other hand Robert, I have seen > some changes around here in the past couple years caused by the > intrusion of big business and the mass media into the net which have > in my opinion produced some perfectly dreadful results. A lot of those > people basically just moved in and took over, not knowing anything > about net history or culture, and rarely caring about it either way. I'd have to agree here. However, as an employee of an advertising agency that has "moved in" on the net, I can say that the "culture and standards" of the internet ARE preached to our clients when we pitch/demo web sites. We go into some depth about the need to NOT send junk email and abuse the data collection ability of web sites. We mention horror stories of web sites taken down, hacked, mailbombed or otherwise mangled when the operators side- or overstepped the "culture and standards". And most of all we try to explain to them, in a way that marketers understand, that you don't want to try to insult your target market. One advantage of the internet is that in many ways it does have a definable demographic that mirrors the "computer personality". Not as much as it may have ten years ago, but then again computers are more widespread and the "computer personality" is not as narrow as it once ways. Part of the problem, though, is that the "culture and standards" of the internet are pretty nebulous concepts. I could imagine that trying to define them in toto would start a flamewar that would make Mac v. PC or UNIX v. NT seem like a North Dakota bridge club discussion of how to best make hot dish. There never have been defined "standards" much beyond Emily Postnews' Guide to USENET Ettiquette that I've seen. Sure, everyone has "ideas" of what they are but getting more than three people from different "regions" to agree to them beyond the vaguest of principles is impossible. Many of the "principles" seem to revolve around respecting certain technical limitations which are eased or eliminated on a regular basis. (e.g., attaching unwanted binaries to email. Still a no-no -- but originated as such because of limits on external link bandwidth, disk space, etc. As those limits evaporate for a lot of people, a binary in email isn't that big of a deal as it used to be). In a way, I think that some of the hackers that sysadmins love to hate almost provide a kind of justice to the bigger .com entities when they overstep their bounds. I think the threat (real or imagined) that SPAM or junk mailing may result in retaliatory hacking, mailbombing, etc has kept some of the more agressive marketers in line. I also think that there is a genuine desire among reputable marketing entities to work WITH the internet rather than to try to reshape it into another TV channel. For most marketers the concept of an interactive medium is new to them. They're used to getting some phone calls and letters from users of their products, but the idea that people can so easily talk back to them via email (or about them to a large audience on USENET) is a little intimidating and the reshaping of the marketer-consumer relationship that an interactive medium entails will take them a little getting used to. Shawn Barnhart swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com ------------------------------ From: ekaftan@ns.rdc.cl (Eduardo Kaftanski) Subject: Anti CallerID? Date: 27 Dec 1996 00:54:07 -0300 Organization: RdC S.A. Hi, I have just finished a chat with a local 'cracker' who told me he was using an anti CallerID device ... Suposedly he can force a false caller id to be logged in my boxes. I don't believe him, but I am forced to ask ... Thanks, Eduardo Kaftanski |Poco das cuando das tus pertenencias, ekaftan@rdc.cl |Das realmente cuando das de ti. Beeper: 7378087 C/5271 |Gibran Khalil Gibran, El profeta, Dar y Recibir. |http://www.rdc.cl/~ekaftan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There exist attachments for the phone which will automatically prepend *67 (which is the commonly used code for witholding caller-id) to the start of every dialing string. The 'cracker' is not defeating caller-id; he is simply using the telco- given arrangements for privacy. Regarding 'forcing a false caller-id to appear on your box', I would have challenged him to do it; to really *do it*. We have had this discussion here before a couple of times and a few obscure methods were presented by readers which for all intents and purposes are very unlikely to be used with any degree of regularity. Generally speaking, it does not happen. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 03:57:31 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia kk@iki.fi (Kimmo Ketolainen) contributed the following: Lots cut regarding GSM specs ... > [If anyone's interested, the 900 MHz GH338 is being sold here for > FIM 2690 (lowest), that's USD 581 or DEM 901. Bundling with a > contract is prohibited to ensure fair competition and low network > traffic fees.] Sounds like a good idea, the myriad of bundled contracts on offer here in Australia, (mostly to stop carrier "churning" as we have a choice of 3 GSM carriers virtually Australia wide), are responible for lots of consumer confusion and are the main cause of complaints to our industry watchdog. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ From: Ari Ollikainen Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 23:12:43 -0800 Reply-To: ari@interserve.com Stuart Jeffery wrote: > The reason you can't roam between Sprint Spectrum/APC and PBMS in San > Jose is PBMS network in San Jose is not yet commercially operating. > You might be able to roam now between Sprint Spectrum/APC and PBMS in > San Diego. If you can't, it is most likely a business issue, coupled > with some inter network technical subtleties, which are being rapidly > resolved. In actuality, the reason the REAL Sprint (Spectrum) PCS won't support roaming with PBMS or any other GSM operator is that SprintPCS is deploying CDMA, NOT GSM, everywhere EXCEPT Spectrum/ APC in the DC area! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #680 ******************************