Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA06219; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 02:40:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 02:40:04 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612310740.CAA06219@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #687 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Dec 96 02:40:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 687 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS (Nils Andersson) Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS (Barton F. Bruce) Re: GTE's CyberPOP (Matt Holdrege) Re: GTE's CyberPOP (Kim Carraway) Re: GTE's CyberPOP (Derek Balling) Re: Dialing Procedures and Charging (Re: NPA 570) (Nils Andersson) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Craig Nordin) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Linc Madison) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Earle Robinson) Re: And the New Number is ... 949 (Linc Madison) Re: Anti CallerID? (Steve Bunning) Re: Anti CallerID? (Brett Frankenberger) 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. 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A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS Date: 31 Dec 1996 04:36:39 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Eric Friedebach writes: > Maybe a more informed TELECOM Digest reader/poster like Mark Cuccia > can correct me here but was not the 800 service originally designed > for business use such as customer service/incoming sales? At least > that was my intention back in 1987. The possibility of a customer > calling me from a payphone did not figure in. > Nowadays I also market discount calling cards and 800/888 numbers for > home/consumer use. I don't like the thought of my customers having to > shell out some extra money if they are using a payphone/COCOT since our > marketing efforts have in the past focused on the *free factor* but > maybe that's our own fault to start with. > As this whole subject settles down, I guess the concept (and cost) of > using a public telephone to access your own number will be acceptable. > So goes the free market. We had a long debate on this one. The bottom line is that the use of 800/888 has reached 25% of the traffic on payphones, and has particularly cannibalized the long distance from payphones, the one area where they make money. So, the FCC agreed (unlike myself, most posters to this NG abhor the idea) that payphone operators needed to be reimbursed for 800 calls, one could obviously look at this as e.g. an equipment rental fee. (The explosion of 800 is due primarily to phone company credit cards and easy-access prepaid calling cards, secondarily to the use of "home" 800 for MCI and AT&T). The choice was between having the caller pay a fee and the callee pay a fee. For various reasons (I suspect that there would have been public outcry at caller pays, judging from the reactions in this NG), the solution was to allow the payphone operators to charge the 800 owner. An 800 number can be programmed to accept or reject a call from a payphone by the time this is brought online, sometime in 1997 (September, AFAICR). The fee is set at a flat 35 cents per call. Various people have wondered what was "wrong" with the old system. The reality is that the "old system" with a single MaBell etc, and massive cross-subsidies, has been dismantled, and long distance is no longer the cash cow that subsidizes everything else, including (typically phoneco owned) payphones. Each type of service must now bear its own costs, and payphones (which must be spun-off from local telcos as separate accounting units, BTW, so in a sense all payphones will be COCOTs soon enough!) are no exception. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: bruce@eisner.decus.org (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS Organization: CentNet, Inc. Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 01:07:48 GMT In article , roy@mchip00.med. nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: > Eric Friedebach wrote: > So, of course, you've got these pay phones, sitting out at > small airports, getting used a lot. Unfortunately, 99% of the calls > don't generate any coins into the coin box, because they are to the > 800 number. > So, this past summer, NYNEX decided to start yanking out all the > "unprofitable" payphones at small airports. Of course, the phones do > generate revenue producing calls, they just don't generate coins in > the box. The FAA pays for all the 800 calls, via invoice at the end > of the month on their 800 line. But, that's not the way the > accounting is done, so NYNEX views the phones as "unprofitable", and > pulled them all out. NYNEX gets VERY WELL compensated for originating 800 calls as well as all other toll calls regardless of how the billing is done. If their policy for yanking a pay phone is solely based on cash in the box, NYNEX is dumber than I think they are. Nynex also has some credit-card-only phones that show up in hotel lobbies and in restaurants on the Mass Pike. 800 calls are cardless and free from these, and their per site maintenance expenses are doubtlessly lower. Perhaps someopne simply needs to request these instead. ------------------------------ From: holdrege@eisner.decus.org (Matt Holdrege) Subject: Re: GTE's CyberPOP Organization: DECUServe Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 02:54:00 GMT In article , rice@ttd.teradyne.com (John Rice) writes: > Try sending e-mail to cyberpopinfo@telops.gte.sprint.com. gte.com is > not related to GTE, I don't think. Every GTE e-mail address I've ever > seen is '@gte.sprint.com' and using nslookup, I see that >'@telops.gte.sprint.com' is a valid e-mail address. FYI, GTE.COM is owned by GTE Labs, but they allow other GTE entities such as Telops to have domains under GTE.COM. Before they allowed this, GTE employees could only use the Sprint address since they gatewayed their internal mail systems through an X.400 system at Sprint. Today many GTE employees have GTE.COM addresses, but all GTE employees have access through the Sprint X.400 gateway whether they know it or not. There is also an "experimental" SMTP gateway to Telops TMAIL which runs through GTE Labs. But few know about this. Like many large corporations and the US government, once something becomes established at GTE, it's hard to make it go away. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 96 7:35:03 -0500 From: Kim Carraway Subject: Re: GTE's CyberPOP For information concerning GTE CYBER-POP try calling GTE Internet Solutions at 1-800-927-3000 They may be able to help answer any question you have or direct you to the appropriate person. Or email them at webmaster@gte.net Kim Carraway kim.carraway@telops.gte.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 14:30:52 -0500 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: GTE's CyberPOP > Try sending e-mail to cyberpopinfo@telops.gte.sprint.com . gte.com is > not related to GTE, I don't think. Every GTE e-mail address I've ever > seen is '@gte.sprint.com' and using nslookup, I see that > '@telops.gte.sprint.com' is a valid e-mail address. GTE.COM is definitely GTE, since when I used to work for GTE, my internet address was derek.balling@telops.gte.com. Derek J. Balling | " Every man dies, but not Director of Technical Operations | every man really lives... " TEK Interactive Group, Inc. | - Mel Gibson Midwest Internet Exchange, Inc. | Braveheart dredd@mixi.net | http://www.megacity.org | dredd@megacity.org ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Dialing Procedures and Charging (Re: NPA 570 For Colorado) Date: 31 Dec 1996 04:36:40 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Mark J. Cuccia writes: >> True, but I want to make another point. By Bellcore recommendations >> (i.e. allowing seven digit or 1+ten or 0+ten) you do not need >> "mandatory 10 digit dialling". It is quite feasible to allow good old >> seven digits to mean same area code as caller. > But you have a 'code conflict' and the switch requires a 'time-out' if > you are going to have permissive seven-digit dialing in an overlay > situation. Not at all. I can see either of two schemes that maximize (each in a different way) the ease of making a call. 1) The first is to allow seven digits (but the FCC does not like it): a) xxx-xxxx b) 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx (including own ac OK) c) 0-xxx-xxx-xxxx (including own ac OK) There is no conflict, no braiding, no timeout, no problem! 2) The other, assuming that the feds stick to their guns (they usually do), and prohibit seven digit calling, is to allow absence and presence of the little "1". a) xxx-xxx-xxxx (including own ac) b) 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx (for compatiblity with the rest of the country, portable devices etc) c) 0-xxx-xxx-xxxx Again, there is no conflict, no braiding, no problem! The one notion that must be disposed of is the old electromechanical one that the presence or absence of a "1" has something to do with billing! Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: cnordin@vni.net (Craig Nordin) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: 31 Dec 1996 00:22:48 -0500 Organization: Virtual Networks lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) writes: > Internet routing tables are now well over 30,000 entries, service oops, that is over 45,000 now ... > providers are refusing to advertise routes to networks whose > addresses cannot be aggregated into larger blocks. Washington DC Metro http://www.vni.net/ Indianapolis Indiana Metro http://www.vnii.net/ Quake? quake.vni.net ctf.quake.vni.net quake.vnii.net ctf.quake.vnii.net Kali: kali.vni.net kali.vnii.net kali.wheretorace.com Virtual Networks Premier Internet Services mailto:info@vni.net Jobs - Graphic Arts - Commercial Production -> http://studio.vni.net/jobs/ ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 22:18:44 -0800 In article , oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) wrote: > 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? Excuse me? BEST.COM is *NOT* a spam-generating site. I have an account with that particular ISP, and I can tell you they vigorously pursue anyone who spams from their system. Best.com is a legitimate ISP which actively discourages spammers. (My only connection to Best is as a customer, btw.) I keep tabs on the spam I see, and there was one point where the Usenet spam I was seeing was about 70% originating from EarthLink, but they've made major strides in cleaning up their act. Best.com has never been a major spam source -- most of the "best.com" spams I've seen were forged, in fact, and posted from other providers. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 14:48:37 -0500 From: earle robinson <76004.1762@compuserve.com> Subject: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Kimmo Ketolainen wrote: > [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.] With all due respect, that so-called fair competition only protects the operators. In France I can get a gh388 for $170 when signing up for a service and our call costs are less than what you pay in finland, 1 franc per minute throughout the country when paying $38 per month as a fee. Or, one can get 4 hours included paying $80. David Clayton wrote: > 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. First of all churning is much rarer with gsm because you are locked into a year's contract, and you probably have paid some fee to open the account, too. So, the 'discount' on the phone is supposed to be compensated by the revenue earned from you (and those who call your gsm number) during that year. Within those 12 months a new generation of phones will appear, with new features, even lighter in weight (next year will they only weigh only 10 grammes?). I don't know the economics of gsm, but I assume the high capital costs of antennas and the other hardware involved, plus the customer acquisition costs and retention (mainly after sign-up service) costs are such that it takes several years for a gsm service to begin making money. There seem to be six ways of generating revenue: 1. Sale of the phone. In most countries this is not done. A low cost is an incentive to sign-up. Exceptions are Italy where phone costs are high through cosy cartelization among the operators. 2. Front-end fee to initialize service. This is almost pure profit, though the reseller may get a percentage. 3. Monthly fees. If you are away for a month or so this means nice 'breakage' for the operator. Monthly fees are often set in tandem with the calling charges: A low monthly fee = high per minute call charges. 4. Per minute call charges. These might be lower when the monthly fee is higher, as already mentioned. 5. Per minute charges to call YOU. Here is where the operators are really quite sneaky. I only pay $0.20 per minute to call with one of my gsm services, but anyone calling me pays $0.75 per minute! You'll find this perhaps in the brochures, at the bottom of the last page and set in 4 point type. It seems the French operators hope to make their money through these charges most especially. I note that the web pages of gsmmou don't reveal these charges either, publishing only the per minute costs for outgoing calls. Alas, this is self-serving and typical of an organization run by the operators. 6. Various charges, especially roaming in other countries. Roaming charges are seldom highlighted in the brochures either. But, they can be high. Here in France we pay relatively little for calls within this country, while the germans pay high charges (again the operator cartel, brussels, brussels wherefor art thou, brussels, this is illegal), but roaming charges in other countries are lower than what french operators exact from their customers. Other charges can include: voice mail, sms, directory assistance, various services such as sending flowers, etc. etc. The newest french operator, Bouygues, the first 1800 mhz service, includes voice mail and free query about to date call charges in the monthly fee. In summary, the gsm companies are all big boys and they in the business to make money. De facto regulation (like the high prices in germany) or de jure regulation (like the high phone costs mandated by the Finnish government) only help the gsm companies, not the consumers. Confusion will always reign in a complex market like gsm. If one or more of the operators eventually goes bankrupt, well that's business. Government's role should be limited to maintaining honesty in advertising, and forbidding price fixing through cartels. -er ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: And the New Number is ... 949 Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 22:09:24 -0800 In article , psyber@mindspring.com wrote: > Mike King wrote: >> (details of nearly-final proposal for 714/949 split in Orange County, CA) > Sounds to me that the easiest explanation is that the border runs from > the coast along Harbor Blvd, turns east along I-405, straddles > mid-county along state route 55 (Costa Mesa Freeway and Newport > Freeway), then turns and follows state route 91. Well, actually, no. The border you describe does not follow very close to the proposed split line. Harbor Blvd as a starting point would cut off a significant chunk of Newport Beach, which is slated to be entirely 949, and the line along highways 55 and 91 would put most of Tustin and parts of Orange and Anaheim into 949. Most of Tustin will remain 714 along with all of Orange and Anaheim. The line you describe runs mostly south to north and then bends to the east at the northern end, while the actual line is at more of an angle, closer to perpendicular to the coastline. One other oddity I noticed: it looks like John Wayne Airport may be in the new area code, since it is sandwiched between Costa Mesa and Irvine. That would be a trifle confusing, since the airport is designated SNA for Santa Ana, but most of Santa Ana will remain 714. I must say I'm very disappointed with the extremely lopsided nature of this proposed split. It's ridiculous to have at least a factor of four difference in projected life expectancy of the offspring. The CPUC should have just bitten the political bullet and moved Santa Ana into the southern half of the split, or gone forward with a three-way split, or found some other way to split 714 more evenly. In any case, the CPUC had damned well better not come back in three or four years and propose another geographic split of 714. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 17:52:19 -0500 From: Steve Bunning Subject: Re: Anti CallerID? TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > 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] In the Washington Business section of the December 16 {Washington Post}, there is an article titled "Intent to Deceive: The Manipulation of Caller ID." The article alleges instances of caller ID information being deliberately and routinely modified by businesses via PBX originated calls. At the moment, there is a copy of the article on the Post's Web Site at the following URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1996-12/16/030L-121696-idx.html Steve Bunning | ACE*COMM | 301 721-3023 (voice) Product Manager | 704 Quince Orchard Road | 301 721-3001 (fax) TEL*COMM Division| Gaithersburg, MD USA 20878 | sbunning@acecomm.com ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Anti CallerID? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 06:00:15 GMT In article , Eduardo Kaftanski wrote: > 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. That depends on knowledge of how caller ID works. In between the first and second rings, the switch sends out the Caller ID. The was this is sent is as a simplex (i.e. one way) modem signal (1200 baud Frequency Shift Keying, I believe -- Bell 212?). The Caller ID box detects this carrier and demodulates the signal, giving the caller ID information. The way a Caller ID box should work is that it should wait for the first ring, then start listening for a Caller ID data stream, and record the number. It should stop listening when (1) It receives a valid number, (2) The second ring occurs, or (3) The phone is answered. However, what some caller ID boxes to is: Listen for a Caller ID data stream (i.e. the appropriate modem carrier) at all times, and if a signal is detected, record the number. What this means is that a 'cracker' can call you, wait for you to answer the call, and then send a caller ID signal (using some equipment he has that will generate the appropriate data stream -- it's not all that difficult). What this means is that the following sequence of events will occur: (1) Your phone will ring once. (2) The telco will send the "real" caller ID (or "Private" if the cracker dialed *67). (3) Your Caller ID unit will display the above. (4) Your phone will ring a second time. (5) You answer your phone. (6) The cracker sends a bogus Caller ID data stream. (7) Your box either (a) ignores this data, or (b) accepts this data and displays it. The result is that if (1) you have a box that receives caller ID data when it shouldn't be, *AND* (2) You don't look at the readout until after you answer the phone, the cracker can do what he claims to do. (Note that if your box remembers a certain number of callers, as most do, you can probably scroll back and get the real number.) Anyway, your E-Mail address is .cl ... the above applies in the US ... It may or may not be similar elsewhere. Brett (brettf@netcom.com) Brett Frankenberger ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #687 ******************************