Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA05794; Mon, 27 Jan 1997 09:16:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 09:16:12 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199701271416.JAA05794@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #22 TELECOM Digest Mon, 27 Jan 97 09:15:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 22 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: International Operator Services Reciprocal Billing (Bill Sohl) Re: Using a "700" Number to Dial Around (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: Using a "700" Number to Dial Around (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: New Area Codes (John Cropper) Re: ISPs vs RBOCs: Are the Battle Lines Being Drawn? (elvis_p@bellsouth) Re: Telstar 401 Goes "Poof" (elvis_p@bellsouth.net) Today's FCC Forum on Bandwidth (Monty Solomon) BellSouth Readies for Year 2000 Introduction (Mike King) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) Subject: Re: International Operator Services Reciprocal Billing Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 18:36:42 GMT Organization: BL Enterprises tmccall wrote: > I am attempting to determine if any settlement mechanism would exist > for foreign nationals using US based operators services with a foreign > PTT's travel card. > As an example. A US traveler abroad dials an international access > number for a US based operator services company, say, AT&T's USADirect > product. Any third party Operator Services Company with a billing > agreement with AT&T can handle the call. > But, can a US based operator services company establish the same kind > of reciprocal billing arrangment with a Foreign PTT?? So they would be > able to bill a call made with a foreign PTT's travel card?? Like > Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, or British Telephone. > Please forgive my ignorance ... I am not familiar with a lot of the > operational aspects of operator services. Anything is possible. International settlement agreements are worked out between the two entities that would be involved in the settlements. The expansion of competition in foriegn countries as well as the USA is likly to see numerous such agreements worked out. > Any feedback on this question would be greatly appreciated as would > any information on operational aspects of US based operator services > companies. I suspect the operational aspects of any company are viewed as proprietary and not likly to be routinely made available on a general information basis. Bill Sohl (K2UNK) billsohl@planet.net Internet & Telecommunications Consultant/Instructor Budd Lake, New Jersey ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: Using a "700" Number to Dial Around Date: 26 Jan 1997 18:52:54 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Charles Holcomb (cholcomb@tpd001.dp.tpd.dsccc.com) wrote: > On of my relatives can not use her LD carrier's PIC code to dial > around her LEC for her long distance calls in her LATA. > I was told you can use a 1-700-xxx-xxxx to be able to dial around and > still use your prefered LD carrier. Um, maybe ... > Is this true, and why is it not mentioned by LD carrier's?? It depends on the carrier. Some plug it to high heaven. > What excatly is the "700" number used for?? Until just recently, and not even now in some areas, it was impossible to have your intRA-LATA traffic carried by anyone except the LEC, the local exchange carrier from whom you bought your phone service... unless you were a business, large enough to get your local service from a CLEC -- a competitive local carrier, like MCI. Under pressure, presumably from the FCC, LEC's have finally started allowing you to "PIC" (a verb derived from the acronym "Preferred Interexchange Carrier -- the name for the carrier who takes your 1+ LD calls) a carrier other than themselves for "local long distance" -- intRA-LATA calls. Until this became the case, though, many IXC's took advantage of the fact that all calls to 1-700 got to the switch of your preferred LD company ... and they used that to route calls to places in your own area code over their lines, often (but not always) charging you less for the privilege. Now, of course, in some areas, like Tampa FL, that no longer works too well ... most of the intraLATA LD from here is no longer _in_ the same AC as us (813) ... so it's harder to explain to people (the number of places for which they have to dial calls this way is lower, so they don't get into the habit as easily. But of course, we're one of the places that just got intraPIC ... so I guess it doesn't matter any more. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet Pedantry: It's not just a job, it's an adventure. Tampa Bay, Florida +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 16:42:23 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: Using a "700" Number to Dial Around Charles Holcomb wrote: > On of my relatives can not use her LD carrier's PIC code to dial > around her LEC for her long distance calls in her LATA. > I was told you can use a 1-700-xxx-xxxx to be able to dial around > and still use your prefered LD carrier. > Is this true, and why is it not mentioned by LD carrier's?? > What excatly is the "700" number used for?? To answer your last question first, the 700 Special Area Code was assigned in late 1983 by (pre-divestiture) AT&T and the "Central Services Organization" (to become Bellcore) to *each and every* long-distance company or inter-LATA carrier, for their own internal development purposes and services, but with the stipulation that 700-555-4141 would be routed to a 'verification identification' recording of that presubscribed primary 1/0+ carrier or per-call dialed 10(1X)XXX+1/0+ carrier. Thus, carrier A could have a particular 700 number for pay-per-call 'info' recordings, while carrier B could use the *very same* 700 number for autoconference services. The distinction of *which* carrier and their 700 service would be made by knowing the presubscribed primary carrier of the line, or by using a per-call dialed carrier code. AT&T uses certain specific 700-NXX codes for various services including automated set-up teleconference, switched 56Kbps and 64Kbps, while the bulk of their 700-NXX codes are used for "Easy-Reach" or "True Connections" 700 numbers. ER or TC 700 was an early version of 500 personal telephone numbers. For *any* of AT&T's 700 services, you had to be dialing from a line where AT&T was the primary carrier, or if it wasn't the primary (or you didn't know if AT&T was the primary) you would have to dial 10(10)288+ before 1/0+700 to use that *AT&T* 700 service. As for using 700 to 'dial around' (bypass) the local telco on intra-LATA toll calls, I know that MCI has offered such in certain parts of the country, and I've been told that Frontier (formerly Allnet) was using their own capabilities for 700 for 'dialing around' (bypassing) the LEC. However, since area code boundaries and LATA boundaries don't necessarily co-incide in neat ways, (and even where they do), there are instances where a LATA can contain all or part of ... one or more NPA. Conversly, it is possible that an NPA can contain all or part of ... one or more LATA! Just look at the New York City metro LATA. You have the five boroughs of New York City (212, 718, 917), the Long Island suburbs (516), the suburbs north of the Bronx (914), and even two ratecenters/wirecenters in extreme southeastern CT (203). And there are going to be more and more area code splits and overlays! If your LATA contains large portions of multiple NPA's, it would be impossible for a long-distance company to utilize 700 as a 'replace' code for anything within the LATA, since 700-234 could possibly refer to the 234 exchange in several different area codes, all within that one LATA! (and some of those area codes might even be *overlayed* on top of or within each other! Where 700 is used as a 'replace' code for so-called 'intra-LATA' toll, so that one can use their *long-distance* carrier instead of the local carrier for such calls, it *really* is a way to use that long-distance carrier for placing calls (including intra-LATA and inter-LATA) but only within your own area code! Because of the possible confusion, etc., many carriers which do allow such bypassing probably don't overly promote it. Presently, most states *do* now allow use of 10(1X)XXXX+ codes for intra-LATA use, to 'bypass' the LEC. Some states are now even allowing *presubscription* to a primary inTRA-LATA toll carrier, instead of 'having' to use the LEC! And already, competition is even heating up in some parts of the country for *local/dialtone* competition, with various multiple local telcos! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Re: New Area Codes Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 14:34:04 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Miguel Cruz wrote: > John Cropper wrote: >> WE202C3F wrote: >>> hey, let's go to 8-digit numbersas they did in paris >> Let's add $50 to *your* monthly phone bill to offset the $5-10 billion > Well, what about assigning overlay codes in such a way that the last > digits are different within any one area? Aside from the problem of areas > with codes ending in 0, you could implement 8-digit dialing by just > telling everybody that starting tomorrow, they have to dial the last > digit of the area code if it's local, otherwise proceed with 11d as > normal. Then you get 8 area codes per area, and when they fill up, start > dialing the last 2 digits and tell everyone they have 9-digit phone > numbers. > I don't exactly see why this would require any more changes to equipment > than 10/11d requires. It doesn't work in areas with hardwired equipment (from the 50s and 60s) that specifically times out at seven digits. While newer equipment in the metro areas might not have a problem with it, Mom & Pop America in Wazoo, South Dakota wouldn't be able to call junior at USC. The NANP used to be the largest market in the world with reliable, consistent connectability, regardless of location or number. Beginning in 1995, interchangable NPAs created small pockets of inaccessibility from certain older PBXs (roughly 15% of the NANP). Had we gone to a 3-8 scheme as you and everyone else suggested, 82% of the NANP (large regions in ALL 50 states, 12 provinces, and the handful of Caribbean countries would be affected) would be unable to dial areas numbered in the new scheme. 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.lincs.net/ ------------------------------ From: elvis_p@bellsouth.net Subject: Re: ISPs vs RBOCs: Are the Battle Lines Being Drawn? Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 11:33:38 -0600 Reply-To: elvis_p@bellsouth.net > Here in Nashville, Bellsouth is under fire because of an epidemic of > 'all circuit busy' recordings. They have blamed the internet as the > root cause to this problem. I suspect they have underestimated demand > AND grown the network conservativly, and by blaming the internet they > can attempt to justify the introduction of per minute charges against > the ISP's to receive a call, making independant ISP's pass the cost > onto consumers. The RBOC's offer internet access, and any such charge > would be an internal paper money transfer to them, therefore enabling > them a competitive advantage and the creation of yet another > opportunity for them to monopolize. I don't see the RBOC's giving up > their monopolies willingly, and will try to strengthen them at any > opportunity. I very much doubt they are asleep at the wheel as you > suggest. I hear that in Nashville they spent $500,000 to fix the "all circuits are busy now" problem. The RBOC's are predicting that they will lose 30 per cent of their business within the first year or two. If you knew you would lose 30 per cent of your customers soon would you buy equipment that would soon be collecting dust. I wouldn't but they did because they had no choice. What we are looking at in the near future is phone service much like the throw away phone. It won't matter how good it is just how cheap you can make it. ------------------------------ From: elvis_p@bellsouth.net Subject: Re: Telstar 401 Goes "Poof" Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 11:38:43 -0600 Reply-To: elvis_p@bellsouth.net Lauren Weinstein wrote: > Greetings. Early last Saturday morning, AT&T's Telstar 401 satellite, > with a full complement of C and Ku band transponders, apparently > suffered catastrophic failure. All contact was lost by ground > stations, and according to all available reports at this time it has > not been regained. > This satellite mainly carried television programming, including feeds > for the major U.S. networks and loads of syndicated shows. The > networks, as "platinum" customers, were quickly switched to backup > transponders on other satellites. Most other customers started a > scramble for alternate space, made all the more difficult by people > being hard to reach during the weekend and by the fact that many > industry folk were attending a trade show. It's reported that when > the outage was initially announced at the show, many attendees thought > it was a practical joke. > The sudden and complete loss of a modern, fully functioning commercial > geosync communications satellite in this manner is reported to be > essentially unprecedented. Wasn't there a solar flare about the same time? I hear that the solar flare flamed T-401 and now they are going to replace it temporarily with T-302 till a higher power replacement is launched this summer. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 02:26:01 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Today's FCC Forum on Bandwidth Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 17:52:43 -0500 (EST) From: James Love Subject: Today's FCC Forum on Bandwidth Today's FCC Forum on Bandwidth and network congestion was pretty interesting. The first panel looked at the current deployment of xDSL, cable modems and wireless alternatives, and it was pretty sobering. Basically, for residential consumers, these technologies are not being deployed anytime soon, in significant numbers. Stagg Newman from Bellcore gave a nice description of the practical problems in deployment for the best known new technologies. His video of the speed of a cable modem using a reasonable assumption regarding cable network use showed how much slower this technology is likely to be when and if it is deployed in large numbers. The wiring problems for cable and ADSL were substantial. Les Vadasz from Intel expressed that company's frustration with the pace of deployment, and then asked the participants to "forget about the 1st million customers, tell me when will we get the second million" broadband customers? Apparently, not for a long time. I take a lot of flak for spending so much time on ISDN pricing, but after today's presentation, it is hard to see what else can be deployed broadly in the United States over the next seven years (an eternity in Internet time). The second panel ended up talking about various technologies and economic incentives to take POTS, ISDN or other digital calls off the circuit switched network at the central office, and send the data via packet switched networks to the ISPs. PacBell wants to charge ISPs about $45 per "port" for the equivalent of an incoming and modem for this service, which is more than what they pay now for POTS and a modem or ISDN. The phone companies want to impose new fees on the ISPs (which they compete against), in order to more or less force them to switch to the packet switched transport from the central office to the ISP. We suggested they encourage deployment by offering cheaper ISDN or other digital services, when they use the packet transport. An ISP might pay $45 for the line, if he could offer a higher speed digital connection to its consumers, particularly if it wasn't metered (as many local ISDN tariffs are now). The LECs are already charging way too much for ISDN, for example, and selling it to no one, so this might provide a win-win solution, giving consumers higher bandwidth, while moving the call off the circuit switched network. There was a fair amount of discussion about the fact that ISPs in general are typically set up so that only 5 to 10 percent of consumers can connect at any one time, and this is less than the 14 percent that the residential voice network is supposed to accommodate, raising the question -- how can this lead to congestion in the residential telephone network? We said the average duration of a call was meaningless in itself, without data on the number of calls and how they are distributed over the day. (1 20 minute call is hardly more of a burden than 20 3 minute calls). PacBell countered by offering California statistics that say voice users consume an average of 22 minutes of network resources per day, compared to 62 minutes for Internet users -- nearly three times more. But there was not much data on how Internet calling differs from the voice calling. For example, do Internet calls have longer peaks, and do they occur in hours when the voice network isn't being used? We suggested PacBell provide the FCC with data from their own ISP showing the percent of subscribers that can connect at any one time, and compare this to capacity of the PacBell voice network. Kevin Werbach asked what type of information the FCC could provide that would resolve some of these questions, and we asked for data on ISP usage, including both average minutes per day and the distribution of that usage over the day, and the ratio of customers to incoming lines. We also wanted to see better data on how voice and modem use (time, and distribution of use over the day) on the public switched network, and how these have changed in the past few years. I also suggested that the FCC create market incentives to get the LECs to deploy any kind of digital services. (ISDN, xDSL, anything). Since the LECs are basically monopolies in their own service areas, I suggested making the major LECs (assuming they don't all merge with each other) compete against each other for deployment, and have the FCC reward LECs that had the highest penetration of digital lines to residential consumers, and punish those that have the lowest, by tying deployment to Universal Service fund contributions (or something else that really mattered) to a ratio of that company's penetration rate to the average penetration rate. This would force the LECs to compete against each other. I thought this would leading to some surprising changes of heart among the LECs. The FCC staff wasn't too receptive to this proposal. James Love / love@tap.org / P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 Voice: 202/387-8030; Fax 202/234-5176 Center for Study of Responsive Law Consumer Project on Technology; http://www.essential.org/cpt Taxpayer Assets Project; http://www.tap.org ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Readies for Year 2000 Introduction Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 19:20:49 PST Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:22:57 -0500 (EST) From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth Readies for Year 2000 Introduction BellSouth Readies for Year 2000 Introduction In less than three years, a monumental change affecting computer software around the world will occur when the Year 2000 is ushered in. Compliance with all the changes brought on by the Year 2000 is an urgent concern that BellSouth shares with large and small businesses around the world. "Year 2000 compliance means that computer programs are designed to correctly interpret and process data representing the year 2000 and beyond," BellSouth spokesperson Gaye Walker said. Many software conventions were originally intended to conserve keystrokes and computer storage; an example would be reducing the representation of a year from four digits: 1997, to two: 97. Consequently, the year 2000 would be interpreted at 00. Most computer programs regard all years as if in the same century, so the year 2000 would be translated as "00" and interpreted as 1900. "This interpretation will ultimately lead to incorrect results or widespread system outages when the referenced year is actually 2000. Systems could fail any time their applications process dates beyond 1999 if the software was not specifically programmed for Year 2000 recognition," Walker added. BellSouth Telecommunications has established a corporate Year 2000 compliance team to ensure all information systems, telephony systems and business processes are prepared for the century date change. Additionally, an interdepartmental team has been formed to identify and correct potential date-related problems in mission-critical systems. "Responsibilities of BST's Team 2000 include ensuring all new systems and vendor software are Year 2000 compliant, addressing Year 2000 in training and testing capabilities, and communicating with other departments to facilitate conversion," Walker said. "We realize the critical nature of this situation and are working to anticipate and overcome problems." According to Walker, the best way to determine the possible severity of impact is to inventory all computerized processes, and test them to determine if they will be adversely affected by the year 2000's representation of the year by "00". All system components operated by or on behalf of BellSouth will be evaluated. Where potential problems are identified, the component will be converted and rigorously tested to address Year 2000 compliance. BellSouth requires that all vendor software be certified as Year 2000 compliant. The software must be tested by BellSouth or, if tested by the vendor, test results and test criteria must be provided back to BellSouth. The vendor tests must clearly demon strate that software products meet BST's compliance specifications. Additionally, the vendor must stipulate in writing that the software will not cause any problems with the Year 2000 date change. "BellSouth is striving to ensure through every reasonable means that information systems, telephony systems and business processes will be Year 2000 compliant and is working to minimize problems for our customers and business partners who interface with or otherwise rely on the service provided by BellSouth," Walker said. For More Information, contact Gaye Walker, (404)927-7421 -------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #22 *****************************