Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id DAA12759; Sat, 8 Feb 1997 03:19:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 03:19:06 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199702080819.DAA12759@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #34 TELECOM Digest Sat, 8 Feb 97 03:19:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 34 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Alternate Directory Providers (Stanley Cline) Re: Alternate Directory Providers (Mark Peters) Re: Alternate Directory Providers (John Mark) Re: Alternate Driectory Providers (Adam H. Kerman) Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? (Will Kim) Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? (Jim St. John) Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? (Eric Elder) Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? (Ed Ellers) Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? (Gary Gunn) Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? (Michael Dillon) 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: roamer1@RemoveThis.pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: Alternate Directory Providers Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 00:01:17 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@RemoveThis.pobox.com On 03 Feb 97 13:24:10 EST, Lou Jahn wrote: > In 1984, the courts created a dual delivery of DA numbers. LECs were > not permitted to carry your DA inquiry across NPAs, hence IXCs owned > NPA-555-1212 delivery while LECs owned 411 and/or 555-1212 service. This doesn't mean, however, that one can't call 411 or 555-1212 and get numbers in another NPA or even STATE -- that depends upon state tariffs and/or the telcos and calling areas involved. This is most common with multi-state or multi-NPA local calling areas, such as many in Tennessee [Chattanooga TN/GA, Bristol TN/VA, Memphis TN/MS/AR, Clarksville TN/KY] and Metro Atlanta [which now has numbers in FOUR area codes.] In such cases, one simply dials [1-]411 and can get numbers for anywhere in the local calling area. Further, at least in Tennessee, it's possible to get a number that is LONG DISTANCE to the caller by simply dialing [1-]411. I've called 1-411 several times from here [Chattanooga] and gotten numbers in Knoxville or other areas of NPA 423 with no problem. At least once, I was given a number in NASHVILLE -- a different NPA -- when calling LOCAL DA! > service. Immediately, all IXCs started with "outsourced" DA to the > LECs. The IXC carried your call to the LEC owning the NPA (and Most independent LECs (including such companies as ALLTEL, Century, and TDS -- and even GTE in some areas!) contract provision of their DA service out to the RBOC serving that service area's LATA. In such a case, the independent LEC sends the call over intraLATA lines to the RBOC serving the LATA. In such cases, the cost to the end-user is somewhat higher -- almost always higher than what the RBOC charges their own customers for DA. (Charges are split between RBOC and independent LEC.) HOWEVER, a few independents, most notably GTE, CFW in Virginia, and Interstate/Valley Telephone in the West Point, GA area, are still providing their "own" DA. (Depending on the NPA, inbound callers to RBOC DA agencies from the same or other NPAs are transferred to the independent; or the independent answers DA calls from other NPAs, but can query the RBOC's listings -- or has to transfer to the RBOC!) AFAIK, DA calls for Alaska -- which isn't serviced by "RBOCs" -- are answered by ATU of Anchorage, then transferred to the LEC serving the general area in which the desired listing is located. > Also you have to remember the clever MCI trick announced last year > called 1-800-GET-INFO. While this was advertised as a DA system, it > actually was a play for capturing a portion of AT&T's then 60% LD > market share by giving out numbers and picking up Call Completion for > MCI to carry the LD call, even if you were presubscibed to AT&T. AT&T I remember this -- they were going to charge 75c/call -- to an *800* number! The FCC grumbled, and MCI went to a *900* number (and didn't charge for calls already placed to the 800.) Strangely enough, that service isn't around anymore. :( > Now why are some alternative providers having a problem with accuracy? > It stems from many of the RBOCs refusing to "rent or license" their > listings for the alternate DA provider. Thus some systems use Exactly. > firms helpful in equalizing their position against ILECs. Today a > CLEC can offer listings and Call Completion for all of North America > using 411 or 555-1212. If they desire, they can do so at costs far Many cellular and PCS carriers (which can be considered akin to "CLECs" under interconnection agreements) have been doing this for some time. Typically, B-side cellular carriers are using the RBOC serving the cellular area, while *most* (but not all) A-side cellular carriers are using alternate DA providers. PCS carriers are using a mix of the two, but most appear to be using alternate DA providers. (The lone exceptions may be Powertel PCS in the Southeast, who is closely related to Interstate/Valley Telephone [see above] and BellSouth Mobility DCS.) The wireless carrier gains branding, DA revenue, *and* airtime revenue; the caller gains more convenience. > Meanwhile, the FCC has determined that RBOCs must open their listings > for competitive use. As the RBOCs move to comply with this ruling, What happens with independents? If independents are *not* held to the same standard as RBOCs/CLECs in this regard, then DA calls for numbers in independent LEC territory will remain a problem. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! dba Catoosa Computing Services, Chattanooga, TN mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://www.pobox.com/~roamer1/ From: line changed so I get NO SPAM! See http://www.vix.com/spam/ ------------------------------ From: mpeters@mcs.com (Mark Peters) Subject: Re: Alternate Directory Providers Date: 6 Feb 1997 00:21:08 GMT Organization: MCSNet Services My parents who live in a retirement complex served by a PBX with DID have no directory reference. Ameritech in Wisconsin does not include data from behind a PBX. Their new number is not in the local telephone book. Mark Peters ------------------------------ From: j@rambla.com (John Mark) Subject: Re: Alternate Directory Providers Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 00:06:16 GMT Organization: "SNET dial access service" Lynne Gregg said AT&T always handles DA through the local operating company ... That AT&T always contracts out Directory Assistance to the local operating company is at variance with my recent experience. I tried to obtain a new phone number listing in the 617 (Boston) area code. AT&T did not have the listing. The listing was however available by dialling 411 from within the 617 area code (which I assume means from the LEC) and was also available through Sprint and MCI by dialling 1033316175551212 and 1022216175551212. I was so amazed by this finding because prior to this I had thought dialing 1+area code+555-1212 always gave one acces to the "one database" out there maintained by whatever LEC was involved that I confirmed and reconfirmed my findings several times. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 14:41:41 CST From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Alternate Directory Providers Lou Jahn <71233.2444@CompuServe.COM> wrote: > In 1984, the courts created a dual delivery of DA numbers. LECs were > not permitted to carry your DA inquiry across NPAs, hence IXCs owned > NPA-555-1212 delivery while LECs owned 411 and/or 555-1212 service. That did not seem to be the way it worked in the Chicago area. The rule appeared to be that LEC provided DA to intraLATA NPA's. Even though what had been NPA 312 is now five NPA's, the DA database was never broken up; local DA will lookup in any of the five NPA's. Until two years ago, DA for NPA 815 was handled in a bizarre manner. If calling from Chicago to 815 555-1212, the call was intercepted by an operator, who asked, "What city?" If that city was in the Chicago LATA, such as Joliet or Woodstock, the call was routed to a different DA bureau (and billed differently) than if it was Rockford, in which you were billed for long distance DA. Annoyingly, you couldn't simply dial "411" and ask for DA information for Joliet. Even though the Chicago LATA included a dozen or so Central Offices in 219, and a small territory in 414 was wired to a CO on the Illinois side, DA in 219 and 414 was always long distance. On an unrelated matter, does anyone know why you can no longer dial "411" from an Ameritech pay phone in Chicago to reach local DA? Now, you must dial 555-1212. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think until a couple years ago you could get Joliet and other stuff in the Chicago LATA portion of 815 using 411; I do not remember for sure. I know that the majority of 815 had to be obtained from 815-555-1212. Whether or not you can get DA for North Antioch, WI from the local 411 or if you must dial 414-555-1212 seems to be in how you ask for it. If you ask for it by the name of the town they'll almost always say to dial 414-555-1212 but if you ask for Antioch, IL via 847 and then she happens to see the listing is on the Wisconsin side some will be nice and say 'it happens to be a 414 number ... ' and give it to you. A few get rude and make you dial 414. Ditto dialing 414-555-1212 and asking for information in North Antioch, WI, then giving a name which happens to be listed in Antioch, IL. Most will go ahead and give you the number. I seem to remember this one place in Virginia City, NV from back in the days when that town was completely manual, with three digit numbers such as 'Virginia City 246' ... and there was this one place in town whose local number was non-pub but they had a listed foreign exchange number from San Fransisco. If you dialed 702-555-1212 and asked for Virginia City the operator would look for numbers there but stress that you had to place the call through your long distance operator; it could not be dialed direct. But when asking for the number of that one company, the 'local number' given was 415-whatever, and the DA operator remarked to me, 'that certainly is weird ...'; this one customer in a town that was all manual had a dial number out of another city published as the number to be used to reach them. Other oddities would come up in the 'olden days' when an out of town business had an 'Enterprise' number (but no local presence) in some other community. If you called DA for that community and asked for that company (which only had an Enterprise/Zenith type number) the DA operator would see that entry and think about it for a minute and usually say something like, 'well they have a listing, but it is only an 'enterprise' number, I do not know if you can reach it or not ...' You get odd results now sometimes with companies which choose to list their 800/888 numbers in the local directory for their community instead of/in addition to the toll free directory number 800-555-1212. Of course anyone can purchase a listing in any directory; I could have my Skokie, IL number listed in the San Fransisco phone book for some monthly fee if there were some reason for it. But if you try asking whatever-555-1212 for the 'toll free 800 number' of some company they will invariably tell you to dial 800-555-1212, but if you play dumb and just ask for the number of the company and the directory database you are calling contains an 800 number for the firm the operator will go ahead and give it to you. Another hodge-podge of entries will be found if you look in 'metro area' printed directories (instead of a local community directory) under the category 'police' or 'fire department'. In local community directories PD/FD will generally be listed twice; once just as the PD/FD but also under the 'Cityname, City of' listings along with other city departments. Now try just the generic phrase 'police' or 'fire department' in a large metro directory with perhaps fifty or sixty communities. Some of the communities listed will give seven digit numbers, some will just say '911' next to the entry for whatever good that would do you being in a different town. Then you will also get cases where the sheriff or fire protection district in some rural area is on a different area code than the community it serves. Once I got a listing from a DA operator in North Dakota for the local sheriff in a community there. He was in a town several miles away and the local directory only had an 'Enterprise' number for him. Seriously. An interesting result of the 312/773 split here in Chicago is that all city offices, regardless of location, stayed in 312 while all the public schools, regardless of location, moved to 773. That is because their respective centrexes are located in those areas (downtown for City Hall and southwest side of the city for the School Board offices.) I was told by someone at Ameritech that once the split is official and the correct area code is required, DA calls from anywhere in the USA directed to 312/630/708/773/847-555-1212 will all be 'aliased' or forwarded to just one place. 815 will not be handled by this office when calls come from outside the LATA since they will have no way of knowing if the person wants the part of 815 that is in our LATA or the parts that are not. Somewhere else will deal with 815 I guess. But, if you approach DA as a Chicago LATA customer through '411' then they will also provide 815 listings. Ameritech is still doing their national directory lookup service also through 411 which seems to be a pretty popular service. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wkim@NO_SPAMMERS.MediaLight.Com (Will Kim) Subject: Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? Date: Fri, 07 Feb 97 20:19:09 GMT Organization: Co-Op Student - University of Waterloo Reply-To: wkim@medialight.com In article , cgordon@worldnet. att.net (Gordon S. Hlavenka) Said Something About: > Let's say a consumer has an upgradeable USR modem. Would they pay a > one-time fee of $7 to cut their downloading times by a third? I think > so. Now, three months later, would that same consumer be likely to > pay an additional $150 for a Lucent/ Rockwell modem that would further > decrease their download times by as much as ten percent? Probably > not. .... > This means ISPs who do not currently have USR equipment may consider > buying USR for their next port expansion, since many of the ISPs' > customers would start to favor USR-compatible connections. If the > technology works, EVEN IF ONLY TO 50K, then USR stands to establish X2 > as a "defacto" standard simply by being the first ones to deliver. This is very reminiscent of the v.fc / v.34 problems ... people wanted the >14.4 speeds even if it meant only connecting at 24k. Of course, v.fc lost in the end. But I'm a firm believer in USR. (Though I really think their Sportsters stink, the Courier v.everything's are second to none. And I'm glad to have shelled out the money for one.) Will Kim MediaLight Inc. wkim@medialight.com 20 Queen St W, Suite 208 416.598.3200 / 1.888.999.ADSL x222 Toronto, ON M5H 3R3 Canada Designers Of The 1st ADSL PC Card http://www.medialight.com ------------------------------ From: Jim St. John Subject: Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? Date: Fri, 07 Feb 1997 22:38:55 -0500 Organization: Internet Indiana Reply-To: jim@su1.in.net Eric Elder wrote: > Ed Ellers wrote: >> Dave Sieg wrote in article > lcs.mit.edu>: >>> 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! >> 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! > Yes, but many ISP's simply won't be able to afford to offer this > service. Some writers in the comp.dcom.modems conference expect the > service to cost nearly as much as ISDN. The kicker is that the 56K technology requires that the ISP side be a direct digital connection to the CO. ISPs that use analog lines simply can't upgrade to 56K. In some areas the use of digital trunks by ISPs is common because of pricing. Here, in Central Indiana, it is far cheaper to buy bulk analog Centrex lines at a little over $20/month per line, compared to $50+/line/month for a digital connection. When you are looking at doubling or tripling your monthly local line cost, plus the major dollars to invest in the USR digital modems, converting to 56K is a very expensive proposition. On top of all that, at this point who can say what the prevailig rate for 56k connections will be? Without knowing that, it's impossible to do a cost analysis. Even the ISPs who are digital now aren't much better off, as most of them have non-USR digital modems. It's going to be a mess ... -jim- ------------------------------ From: Eric Elder Subject: Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? Date: Fri, 07 Feb 1997 10:19:46 -0800 Organization: Lucent of Largo Netcare Services Reply-To: eelder@mailhost.paradyne.com Gordon S. Hlavenka wrote: > A lot of consumers are going to fall into the "early adopter" > category, since most of them are already tired of waiting for Web > pages to load. They will buy USR "X2" modems (indeed; they've already > bought upgradeable modems) not because the technology is better, but > because it's available. The tired old example of VHS/Betamax shows > that superior technology doesn't always prevail. Not that I'm passing > judgement on any of the 56K contenders -- the point I'm trying to make > is that having the "best" technology isn't necessarily important. > Marketing is. It's not quite that simple. Most of the upgradeable modems have Rockwell chipsets. Modems with Rockwell and AT&T chipsets will get the K56Vflex upgrades. Most of the ISP's have modems that are flash ROM upgradeable. They will upgrade based upon what is avaiable to them from the manufacturer. In the immediate future ITU will sign off on a 56K -- actually a 53K -- standards. At that time all the manufacturers will send out firmware that is compatible with both X2 and V56flex. > This means ISPs who do not currently have USR equipment may consider > buying USR for their next port expansion, since many of the ISPs' > customers would start to favor USR-compatible connections. If the > technology works, EVEN IF ONLY TO 50K, then USR stands to establish X2 > as a "defacto" standard simply by being the first ones to deliver. Will the ISPs go out and replace there rack mount modems with USR products during the interim period? I doubt it. Those who do will be the ISPs with the really old technology that need digital upgrades to work with the new technolgy. It will be interesting to watch developments in the next year. Meanwhile the telcos are upgrading there switches to work with ADSL that runs 10-20X faster than the 56K modems. I suspect those who want to be trend setters will make some expensive mistakes. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? Date: Fri, 07 Feb 1997 15:08:13 -0500 Organization: PCM Magazine Reply-To: edellers@mis.net Eric Elder wrote: > Yes, but many ISP's simply won't be able to afford to offer this > service. Some writers in the comp.dcom.modems conference expect the > service to cost nearly as much as ISDN. I dunno. The added cost of *providing* ISDN service is based on the cost of ISDN lines, the cost of terminal gear and the cost of expanded bandwidth to the rest of the Internet to handle the load. If the ISP already has USR's digital V.34 modems connected to T1 lines (as many apparently do) the upgrade will be very cheap and the only added cost element will be the wider "pipe." ------------------------------ From: Gary Gunn Subject: Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? Date: Fri, 07 Feb 1997 21:30:00 -0800 Reply-To: garygunn@pacbell.net > According to USR's website (http://x2.usr.com/upgrades/index.html), the > upgrade cost varies from free to $7. (Some of the "free" stuff expired > 1/31, and no mention is made of new prices.) The x2 FAQ there now has upgrade prices, $60/Sportster $95/Courier. The $7 charge is shipping/handling for those Sportsters which qualify for free upgrade, purchased during a Dec/Jan window, now expired. Couriers and Winmodems are software-upgradable, Sportsters require replacing a rom chip. > And they'll upgrade the ISP's equipment for free. (Granted, the ISP > must be using USR's equipment in the first place ...) No, the free upgrade of ISP equipment is also a special offer for purchases within a limited time window. Previously purchased equipment costs approx $60/port to upgrade. Since the equipment costs $800+/port, that's probably still a bargain. I would think it likely there would be another charge later to upgrade from x2 to whatever becomes an adopted 56 standard. gary gunn ------------------------------ From: Michael Dillon Subject: Re: X2/56K: What if They Gave a War and Nobody Showed? Date: Fri, 07 Feb 1997 23:07:43 -0800 Organization: Memra Software Inc. - Internet and ISP Consulting Reply-To: michael@memra.com Dave Sieg wrote: > Just an idle thought while watching the stormclouds gather for the > coming 56KWar ... > The nearly 3,000 small ISP's in the US have been responsible for > getting millions of users onto the Internet, and have experienced > firsthand the pain of non-interoperating "standards". Many of these > ISPs have grown despite these obstacles, and are no longer so small! > They have yet to exercise their power as any kind of coherent group, > largely because they see each other as competitors. That's not entirely accurate. A major reason why there are 3,000 independent ISP's and growing, is that many ISP's are willing to help others establish their businesses by sharing technical and other information on several Internet mailing lists and through a number of websites like http://www.amazing.com/internet > (2) Place pressure on ISP's to buy expensive USR terminal equipment. > 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!" This is precisely what many ISP's are now doing. A lot of ISP's have invested in Cisco or Ascend or Xylogics or Computone or Shiva terminal servers with integrated modems. And many ISP's who use USR modems have them hooked up to Livingston PM2e terminal servers and find the new Livingston PM3 (with integrated digital modems) more attractive as an upgrade option than the USR TC equipment. Since all these other brands support the interoperable K56plus or v.flex2 (K56flex for short) they have an incentive to stop their customers from buying X2 modems. So, many ISP's are warning their customers to not buy X2 as well as warning them that there are a number of pitfalls with 56K including the fact that they may have to price the service higher than 33.6K. Some have already decided to sell 56K at the same price as ISDN. For the most part, customers are happy to be warned that there is a compatibility issue and are holding off on buying the USR models. Of course, ISP's are also taking a good look at ISDN since the terminal servers that will support 56K also support ISDN. The 56K movement is actually causing more ISP's to upgrade to ISDN capable equipment. And at least one manufacturer, Ascend, is supplying a new kind of xDSL. If an ISP install's Ascend's IDSL cards in their terminal servers in place of digital modems then the ISP will be able to supply 7/24 connections to any customer who has ISDN on their end, even if they are in a city in which the telco does not have ISDN switches. That's because IDSL, like all xDSL variants, is a direct connection and does not require a switch. And many ISP's are also using or experimenting with various spread spectrum wireless products as well. The independent ISP's are well aware of the existing and emerging technology options and most certainly *ARE* starting to flex their muscles. I should probably note here that I am on the board of directors of the ISP Consortium, a trade association that focuses on small and mid-size ISP's. More info is available at http://www.ispc.org or you can email me at Michael.Dillon@ispc.org Michael Dillon Internet & ISP Consulting Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-250-546-3049 http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #34 *****************************