Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA21475; Sun, 2 Feb 1997 13:41:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 13:41:06 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199702021841.NAA21475@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #28 TELECOM Digest Sun, 2 Feb 97 13:41:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 28 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson All Circuits Busy in Seattle (Tad Cook) Does Anyone Make This Neat Little Phone Gadget? (Bob Yazz) Re: Ameritech Now Too Impatient For Dialing (Bob Yazz) Country Codes Profile For Turkmenistan; Former USSR Nations (Dave Leibold) Re: Great European Renumbering Proposal (Jock Mackirdy) Re: Ameritech's Procrastination ... Indiana Down to the Wire (J. Bellaire) Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? (Ed Ellers) PPP Transfered to Moldavia (From RISKS 18.80) (A. Padgett Peterson) Bell 103/212A Standards (Gordon A. Sterling) Call For Local Exchange Lists (Shawn Chandler) Time T (Expanded International Number Length); All Systems Go? (D Leibold) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: All Circuits Busy in Seattle Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 17:05:41 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Business News : Feb. 1, 1997 US West: Busy-circuits fix won't be quick by Thomas W. Haines Seattle Times business reporter This could take awhile. That's what US West told a state regulatory agency yesterday about problems customers have had completing local phone calls in and around Seattle. In an eight-page letter to the Utilities and Transportation Commission, US West Vice President Scott McClellan said that the company is adding capacity to its network, but it does not expect the problem to be solved any time soon. The commission had sent a letter to US West on Jan. 24 outlining concerns that a significant number of customers were hearing "all circuits busy" recordings when trying to place calls. Nearly 50 people had complained to the commission directly. In its letter, the commission expressed concern that the blocked calls were caused by insufficient capacity leading to and from the main call switching center in downtown Seattle. The commission noted that an earlier US West report indicated that as many as 15 percent of the calls traveling over one part of the network routinely received the circuits busy message. State law requires US West, under normal circumstances, to ensure that 99.5 out of every 100 calls gets through. If not, it could be penalized up to $1,100 a day for each blocked call. In yesterday's response, McClellan denied the company was violating state law. The capacity problems, he said, could largely be attributed to increased call traffic from Internet users. The company has not been able to determine which calls are made by Internet users. But the number of calls attempted over one piece of the network increased to more than 650,000 on Jan. 5 from 340,117 in September, according to the company. Marilyn Meehan, spokeswoman for the commission, said the commission had hoped to find out exactly where the blocking problems are occurring and how bad they are. US West engineers are scheduled to meet with commission staff Feb. 10 to discuss the problems. The commission and US West have battled over rates since the commission denied a rate-increase request last April. An appeal to allow US West to raise residential and business rates will be heard by the state Supreme Court this spring. In his letter to the commission yesterday, McClellan criticized the commission for airing its concerns about US West service to the media without giving fair warning to the company. ------------------------------ From: yazz@pacbell.net (Bob Yazz) Subject: Does Anyone Make This Neat Little Phone Gadget? Date: Sat, 01 Feb 1997 15:32:54 -0800 Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services Reply-To: yazz@pacbell.net Keep the phone by your bed from ringing in the middle of the night! I don't make this gadget but I hope somebody does. It could be smaller than a cigarette lighter with a phone jack at one end and a 4-inch cord with phone plug at the other. It would have a digital clock and a way to specify which block of the 24-hour day the phone would be prevented from ringing. You'd have to buy one for each phone whose ringing you wanted to control. There's a second thing I'd like to control and direct calls coming into my home/office, but it's not so simple a gadget: Anyone got any communications management system to suggest? I'd want it to route calls based on all sorts of parameters like caller-id (including the unavailability of a number or it's intentional withholding), time and date, distinctive ring, and so forth. For identified numbers, I'd want to make decisions on the area code or other specific portions of the number. All these decisions could be made before the phone is answered, and the device would then route the still-ringing phone line to one of several destinations (at least 4) such as a particular answering machine or phone extension. At the January 97 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, I did see a system that would do these things and more -- the El Cid from Multi- Link in Nicholasville, Kentucky (I have nothing to do with the company), but it is not going to be available for months (and I'm a consumer, not a dealer). Hope you like these gadget ideas -- anyone know where these might be available now? Best Wishes, == Bob Yazz == ------------------------------ From: yazz@pacbell.net (Bob Yazz) Subject: Re: Ameritech Now Too Impatient For Dialing Date: Sat, 01 Feb 1997 15:53:05 -0800 Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services Reply-To: yazz@pacbell.net Gail M. Hall wrote: > A few months ago Ameritech "upgraded" our lines somehow. Ever since > then if I take the least little bit of extra time dialing a number, it > interrupts me and the voice tells me the call didn't go through. This > is in spite of the fact that I haven't dialed more than 3 or 4 numbers > yet. When a new "BCS" (software release) was installed in my local switch in the San Diego area, the same problem occurred. (It was a DMS switch.) The problem is that your local telephone company failed to program the switch with the correct timeout values. As is the case with most any slightly complex problem, normal repair was useless. I then did two things that had the problem fixed in just a few days -- I called a couple of local TV news stations and I posted an article that appeared here in the TELECOM Digest. The most dramatic television picture (TV news loves that, so mention this very early in your conversation with the media person) I could imaging was someone whose only way of dialing a phone was to put a stick in his mouth, and strain with his neck muscles as the merciless timeout told him he had failed Ameritech's new little "neck-to-eye" co-ordination game yet again. The TV news folks will have contacts within the Ameritech organization, and they can verify the shortness of the timeouts themselves in mere seconds. I also suspect they're in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Good luck in getting the behomoth to move; I think this is a very winnable battle. Best Wishes, == Bob Yazz == ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 10:54:58 EST From: Dave Leibold Subject: Country Codes Profile For Turkmenistan; Former USSR Nations Turkmenistan's own telephone country code of 993 should now be in full effect. This replaces access via country code 7, originally assigned to the now-defunct USSR by the ITU (or actually under the former CCITT name). Canada seemed to be one of the first nations to begin use of country code 993 for Turkmenistan. Stentor, the Canadian group of major telephone companies, filed a tariff notice with the national regulator (CRTC) to set new rates for Turkmenistan. This was to reflect the introduction of country code 993 in Canada. The CRTC approved the tariff which took effect 29 November 1996. According to Toby Nixon, it seems the Turkmenistan administration did not formally inform the ITU of the new country code until 8th January 1997. The announcement would likely have been in the ITU Operational Bulletin #636 of 15 January 1997. 993 was reportedly coming into effect 3 January 1997, with a "mandatory" dialing date of 3 April 1997 (the date at which calls can no longer be placed via country code 7). New area codes will be in use with the new Turkmenistan country code, according to a bulletin found on the Turkmenistan U.S. Embassy website (http://www.infi.net/~embassy/new.html): Place Old New Ashgabat (Ashkhabad) +7 363 2 +993 12 Charjou +7 378 22 +993 422 Mary +7 370 22 +993 522 Tashauz +7 360 +993 ??? Below is a summary of the country codes that have formed in the wake of the USSR dissolution. Kazakstan and Tajikistan do not appear to be splitting from country code 7 at this time. There are no known country code assignments for those nations. Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan have their own country code assignments, but I have no information on if these are in service yet or what implementation dates have been set. Russia seems to be keeping country code 7 so far, but one wonders if a single-digit country code will remain justified for a single nation. If 7 were changed to a two-digit country code (like 71 or 77), up to other 90 country codes would be available for assignment. In the table, "Effective" means the date at which the country code began service (which could vary according to the nation). "Mandatory" means the date at which the country code 7 is invalid for calls to that nation. There are a number of question marks since exact dates have not been collected in all cases. Contributions of additional or corrected information would be welcome here. Ex-USSR Country Codes Profile CC Nation Effective Mandatory Notes 370 Lithuania 1993? ??? Announced Jan 1993 371 Latvia 1993? ??? 372 Estonia 1 Feb 1993? March 1993? 373 Moldova 1993? ??? Announced Jan 1993 374 Armenia 1 May 1995 1 July 1995 Announced Jan 1995 (ITU) 375 Belarus 16 Apr 1995 1997? 380 Ukraine 16 Apr 1995 Oct 1995? 7 Kazakstan (no known changes) 7 Russia (presumably not changing) 7 Tajikistan (no known changes) 993 Turkmenistan 3 Jan 1997 3 Apr 1997 Canada as of 29 Nov 1996 994 Azerbaijan Sept 1994? ??? Announced 1992 995 Georgia 1994? ??? ref: Telecom Digest Oct 1994 996 Kyrgyz Republic ??? ??? Announced Sept 1995 (ITU) 998 Uzbekistan ??? ??? Announced 1996? (ITU) Information courtesy Toby Nixon, ITU, Stentor (Canada), TELECOM Digest (including information collected for the country code listings and the respective sources). David Leibold -+- dleibold@else.net ++ aa070@freenet.toronto.on.ca [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: David questions whether Russia (the former Soviet Union) should have a single digit country code in the form of '7'. He raises a good point, however I think the same question should be raised about the USA/Canada/Carribbean countries which use '1' to the exclusion of everyone else. I would prefer to see Canada and the USA on separate country codes, possibly of the form '12' and '13'. I suppose using '10' would be sort of confusing since we here in the USA have the option of dialing '10xxx' as part of a long distance number when we want the call routed to a partic- ular carrier, and having to dial something like 01110 or 01111 to reach Canada would be sort of a drag also. What sort of hassles would be caused for the Russian people if '7' was replaced with some two or three digit number beginning with '7'? Also I want to mention that David has recently forwarded to me an entirely new set of country code files presumably updated through early 1997. I intend to get these in the archives hopefully Sunday night or else Monday. My problem of late -- in case you had not noticed from the dearth of issues of the Digest and the scarcity of Editor's Notes since the start of this year has been that I had to take full time employment elsewhere and I get about an hour to work on this each day. Times will get better for me; they always have and they will again. I'll install his new files ASAP and you might want to get the revisions when they are available. Have I mentioned lately a corporate sponsor for the Digest -- like Micro- soft used to be -- would be a wonderful thing? :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jock Mackirdy Subject: Re: Great European Renumbering Proposal Date: Sat, 01 Feb 1997 02:08:38 +0000 Reply-To: jockm@basluton.demon.co.uk In article on Thu, 30 Jan 97 04:44:09 GMT, hrood@xs4all.nl (Hendrik Rood) wrote: > During the renumbering of the Dutch Telephony Numbering Plan the same > type of code conflicts as you spotted in the European Commision plan > were possible in the permissive dialling period. These problems has > been resolved though by introducing a software feature in the switched > called "numbering length analysis". When the UK had ambiguous number lengths (and step-by-step switch routings) in the early days of national dialling, a four second timeout was applied when an ambiguous number was dialled. The down-side of this is that the post-dialling delay is increased (from virtually zero nowadays so a huge increase in delay as perceived by the user would result). It gets worse if the delay has to be repeated for further ambiguities later in the number. Jock Mackirdy Business Advisory Services Independent Telecomms and Business Advice Luton UK ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 13:26:51 EST From: James E Bellaire Subject: Re: Ameritech's Procrastination ... Indiana Down to the Wire > Thanks Jim, they weren't linked from the areacode page until the 29th, > tho ... Actually it was up on January 22nd, and linked to the /areacode page. At least for a few hours. I sent TD a short email (which thankfully went unpublished) and went back to reading the Ameritech pages and found that they had unlinked them. I didn't see any changes when they relinked them. I must have been checking while they were working and just got lucky to see a 'sneak preview'. > I also received voicemail from a spokesperson at Ameritech regarding > 765. She clarified a point that was not mentioned to anyone: The Indiana > PSC *changed* the original plan from what was filed, and the boundary > line shifted slightly here and there. She did mention, however, that the > plan was finalized a week before Christmas, and that they (Ameritech) > have been scrambling to get their printers producing on hardcopies of > planning info for customers (which became available only this week). The change to the original plan was the addition of Shelbyville and most of Shelby County, Southeast of Indianapolis. They had complained to PSC that they should be left in 317 because of business ties to Indy. There was an announcement in Indianapolis area news about this, and the news stories in November were saying that the PSC had approved the plan. I posted a TV news story to TD on November 14th, 1996. It was in TD615. I also changed the map on my Telecom Indiana page in late November. We on TELECOM Digest always seem to be one step (or more) ahead. >> BTW: I don't work for Ameritech. > Perhaps not, but take heart; they *ARE* watching... :-) If I did work for them, they would probably stop me from posting all the wonderful advance information that I have collected from the media. Everything I have posted has come from Newspapers, TV, or my own knowledge. I'm glad I'm not censored by them. 765 starts / started Saturday ... James E. Bellaire bellaire@tk.com Webpage Available 23.5 Hrs a Day!!! http://www.iquest.net/~bellaire/ ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? Date: 1 Feb 1997 18:46:06 GMT Organization: Mikrotec Internet Services, Inc. (MISNet) Dave Sieg wrote in article : > While the technology is still far from proven in the field, and a > standard is still 12-18 months away, WOULDN'T IT BE INTERESTING if > ISP's "exercised their power" at least to the extent of saying: "This > stinks! Show me something that works and is a standard, and I'll buy > it, meanwhile I'm telling consumers they've been sold vaporware!" Yes, it would be interesting ... especially to the FTC. The prospect of a group of providers deciding among themselves *not* to offer a certain improved service to the public is exactly what the antitrust laws are supposed to prevent! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 11:59:54 EST From: A. Padgett Peterson Subject: PPP Transfered to Moldavia (From RISKS 18.80) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The original article appeard in RISKS and did not appear in this Digest, however I know many of you read both journals. This is Padgett's reply to the original article. PAT] Is interesting to see all of the hoopla about the PPP calls being rerouted through Moldavia as a result of an executable "click here". Is the sort of thing am sure will pass into urban legend like the Iraqi printer virus. Have used Supra (plug) external modems for years, the display is handy to tell me what is going on (even tells baud rate of both TX and RX). Since is in my line of sight (deliberately), would probably notice such antics, particularly since I watch as after URLs and such are given to see progress - suddenly seeing "OK" followed by "DI" (dialing indicator) would make me curious. What I would really like to know is how the IP/DNS/gateway addresses are being recreated on the fly. This does not sound like a trivial effort. Is this built into Win95 or does only work for people who do not hardcode *anything* (my PPP assigns an address but the gateway/DNS is hardcoded.) (Well I could think of a way in Moldavia...). However,there is a very simple answer that would probably be effective that not one person in a million will use: the S2 register. Just change the 43 ("+") to something else like 126 ("~"). This is the "attention" character. Of course if Windoze 95 is as smart as you indicate then you would probably not want to tell it about the change (another nice thing about an external modem is the "OFF" switch). When you get down to the nuts and bolts, something just does not sound right (could be just ignorant, has happened before). Not saying that it is not theoretically possible but does not sound at all like an amateur effort. Of course since the header stream in any HTTP connection will give the connected host all sorts of information (OS type, directories, platform, Browser, etc.), it might be restricted to W95 and be a directed attack, not a generic one. S2 should still work since unless you hardcode it in somewhere (mentioned that would be a No-No), the program would have to get your modem's attention before it could ask it how to get its attention. (again could think of a way but not in this session). This sort of hardware/firmware (S2) answer to a software problem has always been around. S8=7 is a very simple way to avoid wardialers on a line that must be autoanswer but no-one bothers. Few even use CNID. Reminds me of the old song "Fools rush in..." ------------------------------ From: gordon.sterling@analog.com (Gordon A. Sterling) Subject: Bell 103/212A Standards Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 04:32:08 GMT Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die Hello, I have been trying to find the original Bell 103 and 212A standards without success. I have called Bellcore, Lucent, Philips and several other standards houses, but they do not have any ideas or listings. Does anyone know where I might be able to find these standards, or even a hint at where to start! Thanks, Gordon ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Feb 1997 13:04:18 -0500 From: Shawn Chandler Subject: Call for Local Exchange Lists I'd appreciate it if everyone could help me out with a project I've been working on. After searching the Internet and countless phone calls to different phone companies, i was unable to get a database or book containing tables for determining whether a call from phone # xxx-xxxx was local to phone # yyy-yyyy. In the front of some phone books there are lists of local calling areas, ie if you live in area code 519 exchange 683, you can call local to area code 519 exchanges 351,352,354,355,359,380,436,627,692. What I am currently doing is compiling all the information I have into a database and program that can do local number look ups. What I'd really appreciate, is if everyone could look in their phone books and jot down the local calling areas for all the exchanges in their area. (If it's not in the phone book, just write down the ones you know of for sure from memory). I'd like to get the data for all of North America if possible. If you can, email the information to me in the following format: FromAreaCode,FromExchange,ToAreaCode,ToExchange so since 519-683 can call 519-627 locally, you would enter it as 519,683,519,627 if the call works locally in reverse too, enter it also as 519,627,519,683 (Entering it both ways is important because some areas are local one way, and long distance in the reverse). Thanks for everyones time and effort beforehand. I'll upload the prototype to the TELECOM Digest Archives when it is ready. Here is a web site that lists the local calling areas by location names (town, city) but unfortunately it does not have a cross reference by areacode/exchanges. http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/Information/NEST/technol/communic/lca/ Shawn Chandler schandler@ciaccess Tel 519-683-1062 Fax 519-683-1075 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 10:59:27 EST From: Dave Leibold Subject: Time T (Expanded International Number Lengths) - All Systems Go? With the New Year, Time "T" has elapsed. International number lengths (following overseas dialing prefixes such as 00+, 011+, 001+, etc.) can now be up to 15 digits in length (total of country code, area/routing code, subscriber number), increased from the previous 12-digit limit. Are there any Time "T" test numbers available, to check if carriers have properly expanded the international dialing capabilities? Are any nations using international numbers whose lengths already exceed the old 12-digit limit? David Leibold -+- dleibold@else.net ++ aa070@freenet.toronto.on.ca ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #28 *****************************