Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA11639; Thu, 24 Apr 1997 02:57:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 02:57:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199704240657.CAA11639@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #101 TELECOM Digest Thu, 24 Apr 97 02:56:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 101 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson US West Fighting Flood (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Spanish Telco Blocks Call Back (John Hewitt) Book Review: "The Ultimate Web Developer's Sourcebook" (Rob Slade) Book Review: "Corporate Politics and the Internet" by Gaskin (Rob Slade) 904 Relief Plans (Bryan Bethea) UCLA Short Course: Cost Estimation & Economic Evaluation of Projects (BG) UCLA Short Course: "Automatic Speech Recognition" (Bill Goodin) Listing of 976 'Look Alikes' (NetNut!) Record Number of SUPERCOMM Exhibitors Expected in New Orleans (T. Bresien) Where Are the Numbers? (Bob Savery) How Do They Do It? (Hillary Gorman) 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: * subscriptions@telecom-digest.org * 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: 847-727-5427 Fax: 773-539-4630 ** Article submission address: editor@telecom-digest.org ** Our archives are available for your review/research. The URL is: http://telecom-digest.org (WWW/http only!) They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to archives@telecom-digest.org 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: US West Fighting Flood Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:04:46 CDT From: sewilco@fieldday.mn.org (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Among the reports in the Minnesota media about the "500-year" flood on the Red River of the North have been mention of the US West communication center in Grand Forks, North Dakota. About three-quarters of Grand Forks is flooded, with all utilities turned off. Several blocks from dry ground, a communication center which services the entire area is surrounded by sandbags and still functioning. Media reports have not given many details other than that pumps and electrical generators are being kept busy. Although most flooded homes don't need phone service, this center is servicing a large unflooded area and the overloaded cellular phone system. WCCO-TV took a minute on the 10 PM news on Tuesday night to show (from their helicopter's visual and infrared cameras) the center's island of lights in the middle of dark flooded buildings. Scot E. Wilcoxon sewilco@fieldday.mn.org Laws are society's common sense, written down for the stupid. The stupid refuse to read. Their lawyers read to them. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One really heroic effort in Grand Forks is being made by the local newspaper which was (1) flooded out like everyone else in town and then over last weekend (2) burned out in the fire which went out of control in the downtown area. They have not missed a single issue of publication, and on Monday of this week came out with an edition headlined, "Through Hell and High Water" with a photo of the burned and gutted out downtown area under several feet of water besides. Everytime there is a tragedy somewhere in the USA we look at it and say how horrible it is and things cannot get any worse; i.e. the terrible situation in California last year with fires and floods, etc. Then when we think we have seen it all, we see still more. Seeing how helpless the firemen were in Grand Forks last weekend reminds me of the unbelievable snow blizzard experienced in Chicago in 1967, the year of the two-day snow storm which dropped about 30 inches of snow on us. The worst night of the blizzard, when none of the streets had yet been plowed, a highrise apartment building in the Rogers Park neighborhood caught fire. Firemen got to about one block away and got stalled in snow drifts. Dragging their hoses and tools, etc the last block took them another 15-20 minutes on foot; meanwhile the fire got worse and the entire ten story building burned down. At the time we said how terrible it was; tragedies come, and tragedies go, but this latest mess in Grand Forks takes the prize. I guess the folks in Manitoba are none to happy either as they watch the water coming their way over the next few days as things thaw out up there. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jhewitt@ctv.es (John Hewitt) Subject: Spanish Telco Blocks Call Back Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 16:17:51 GMT Organization: Unisource Espana NEWS SERVER The Spanish State has the outmoded attitude of the telephone company being a social institution which should provide employment - not neccesarily service. Telefonica, like most European state Telcos, considers that telephone users are ripe for plucking, especially anyone who can 'afford' to call internationally. International call costs from Spain are typically twice that of the UK and N America. For this reason, Call Back services are very popular with ex-expatriates in Spain. They tend to call 'home' often and that means an international call, So expatriates use Call Back services (almost exclusively from the US) to lower internatioanl calling costs. Telefonica doesn't like this, they are losing revenue (and kinda forget the international revenue equlaization payments from the US). As a result, a game has developed between Call Back users and the Telco. You subscribe to a Call Back service and Telefonica 'watches for you at the CO. The CPU trolls the numbers called and looks for, I suppose, non-revenue calls. Too many uncompleted calls to the US, and bingo, you no longer have Call Back service. So, you ask your Call Back service provider for another number, the CPU starts watching again, and the game is on. Now there's a new slant to the game. Telefonica seems to have tired of denying access to individual numbers and has gone the whole hog. They appear to have withheld access to the entire area code used by Call Back providers. Now that ain't fair, it's not playing the game. Isn't there an international convention / agreement regarding open access to all telephone numbers through the ITU? Doesn't this amount to censorship? For example. Can ATT (or MCI, or whoever) block a US callers access to the entire Madrid area? Or, BT (or Marcury) block a UK callers access to metro Washington DC.? That's what appears to be happening in Spain. John Hewitt, Malaga Spain jhewitt@ctv.es ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 11:20:05 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Ultimate Web Developer's Sourcebook" by Sawyer BKWBDVSR.RVW 961218 "The Ultimate Web Developer's Sourcebook", Ben Sawyer, 1996, 1-57610-000-6, U$49.99/C$69.99 %A Ben Sawyer bensawyer@worldnet.att.net %C 7339 East Acoma Drive, #7, Scottsdale, AZ 85260 %D 1996 %G 1-57610-000-6 %I Coriolis %O U$49.99/C$69.99 800-410-0192 +1-602-483-0192 fax: +1-602-483-0193 %P 704 %T "The Ultimate Web Developer's Sourcebook" The real value in this book is contained in the contacts. Graphics tools, sound applications, video programs, multimedia packages, Web servers, CGI (Common Gateway Interface) tools, books, magazines, companies, and groups: this lists, overviews, and contact information goes on for chapters. The listings do tend to be more exhaustive than analytical, but you are almost bound to find some tool or resource that you are looking for *somewhere* in these pages. As for the rest, Sawyer tries to provide the concepts that professional developers will need on a daily basis. This is probably too ambitious a task: the operative word seems to be "tries". There are some very good ideas in the design of the book: one chapter concentrates on the various emerging technologies on the Web, relating each to "what this means for developers". Unfortunately, most of the advice is of the "wait and see what develops" form. Look at it as a phone book, rather than a tutorial, and you'll be happy. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKWBDVSR.RVW 961218 roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 11:00:55 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Corporate Politics and the Internet" by James Gaskin BKCRPLIN.RVW 961205 "Corporate Politics and the Internet", James E. Gaskin, 1997, 0-13-651803-6, U$24.95/C$34.95 %A James E. Gaskin james@gaskin.com %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1997 %G 0-13-651803-6 %I Prentice Hall %O U$24.95/C$34.95 +1-201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %P 452 %T "Corporate Politics and the Internet" Yes! Finally a book that speaks with forked tongue! Gaskin knows both the technology and the culture of the net. He also knows the corporate mindset (and who should know better than Konsultant Karl?) and politics. He can speak to both groups, and he can speak the truth. This work provides a realistic, complete, and thorough overview of the concerns of the corporate world as it approaches the net, and the net as the corporations close in. It is informed, thoughtful, and practical, allowing geeks to speak to upper management and executives to understand why you can't spam. And, since it's from Gaskin, it's readable by anybody. The primary purpose of the book is to ease the problems a company faces in getting on to the Internet, and providing net access for employees. However, Gaskin interprets this mandate quite broadly. As he should. The result is a very useful guide that provides help for the problems you can foresee--and warning of those you never knew existed. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKCRPLIN.RVW 961205 roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca Ceterum censeo CNA Financial Services delendam esse Please note the Peterson story - http://www.netmind.com/~padgett/trial.htm ------------------------------ From: I5050205@aol.com (Bryan Bethea) Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 02:02:38 EDT Subject: 904 Relief Plans The Florida Public Service Commission has reversed its earlier decision and will move the Pensacola, Panama City, and Tallahassee LATAs into a new NPA. Permissive dialing is slated to begin June 30, 1997 and end June 30, 1998. The Jacksonville and Daytona Beach LATAs will remain in the 904 NPA. The move surprised many including BellSouth who had expected the PSC to uphold its decision to move Jacksonville into the 234 NPA and Daytona Beach into the 386 NPA. Objections from the public as well as from the NANC, Bellcore, and the FCC may have changed the minds of some of the Commissioners. Based on current information (97-04-01), below are listed the exchanges that will move to the new NPA (850??): 209 216 219 222 224 227 229 230 231 240 243 244 245 256 263 265 267 271 283 286 293 297 298 301 302 309 310 314 315 318 327 335 342 349 352 369 379 383 385 386 402 408 410 412 413 414 415 416 421 422 425 429 430 432 433 434 435 436 438 442 444 449 450 452 453 455 456 457 458 469 470 474 475 476 477 478 479 484 487 488 490 492 494 501 505 506 507 508 509 510 513 514 516 522 524 526 531 534 535 536 537 539 544 545 547 548 551 552 553 556 560 561 562 566 568 569 570 572 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 584 585 587 592 593 594 599 601 609 622 623 626 627 638 639 643 644 647 648 650 651 652 653 654 656 657 663 664 668 670 671 674 675 678 681 682 683 689 697 712 715 718 722 729 747 762 763 769 770 773 784 785 802 803 814 819 827 830 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 841 843 849 853 856 857 859 862 863 864 865 866 870 871 872 873 874 875 877 878 881 882 883 884 885 887 891 892 893 894 896 897 899 906 913 914 915 916 921 922 925 926 927 929 932 933 934 936 937 939 941 942 944 948 951 956 957 960 962 968 969 971 973 974 980 982 983 984 986 994 995 997 (265 NXX codes) This is a much more balanced split than most recent splits that have been announced. The ratio of exchanges remaining to exchanges leaving is 55% : 45%. The shrunken 904 NPA is expected to exhaust before 2002 while the newly created NPA will exhaust near 2004. Bryan Bethea Market Designation Team Leader Touch 1 Communications ------------------------------ From: Bill Goodin Subject: UCLA Short Course: Cost Estimation & Economic Evaluation of Projects Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 11:21:00 -0700 On July 14-17, 1997, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "Cost Estimation and Economic Evaluation of Projects", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructor is Donald S. Remer, PhD, Oliver C. Field Professor of Engineering, Harvey Mudd College of Engineering and Science. Rapidly advancing technology, increasing project complexity, and competitive pressures demand better cost estimation and economic evaluation of projects, processes, products, or services, whether developing new ones or improving existing ones. Successful engineers, scientists, and managers must use modern cost estimating and economic evaluation techniques to select the optimum mix of projects for today's cost-conscious environment. Accurate project cost estimates and investment evaluations are critical to staying competitive and optimizing organizational resources. This course develops the skills needed to prepare, review, approve, supervise, monitor, and/or use cost estimates and economic evaluations in research, development, design, manufacturing, marketing, and management. The course also discusses how to produce accurate cost estimates and investment evaluations to avoid large cost overruns or unsatisfactory investment returns, whether the project budget is a few thousand dollars or millions of dollars. The course fee is $1295, which includes extensive course materials. Course materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. For additional information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/ This course may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ From: Bill Goodin Subject: UCLA Short Course: Automatic Speech Recognition Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 12:04:00 -0700 On July 21-23, 1997, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "Automatic Speech Recognition: Fundamentals and Applications", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructors are Abeer Alwan, PhD, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA, and Ananth Sankar, PhD, Senior Research Engineer, SRI International. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) has emerged as a promising area for applications such as telephone voice dialing, database access, human-computer interactions and hands-free applications such as car phones. Since speech is the most direct form of human communication, ASR can enhance the ease, speed, and effectiveness with which humans can direct machines to accomplish desired tasks. Speech recognition has become an established research area and current understanding has already produced several fielded applications. This course is intended to provide an understanding of the basic concepts of speech recognition including speech signal processing and feature extraction, and statistical pattern recognition and its applications in speech recognition. The course also covers recent developments in special problem areas such as the recognition of noisy speech or accented speech. The instructors assume basic knowledge of signal processing and statistical analysis, and the lectures are designed to prepare participants for development work in speech recognition. The course should also offer enough background in speech recognition theory to foster the successful development of applications, and to expose new solutions to specific problems in speech recognition. The course fee is $1195, which includes extensive course materials. These materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. For additional information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206 -2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/ This course may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ From: netnut@loyolanet.campus.mci.net (NetNut!) Subject: Listing of 976 'Look Alikes' Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 16:40:49 GMT Organization: CampusMCI Reply-To: netnut@loyolanet.campus.mci.net Hello all -- Got this off a website which specializes in colleges and universities (www.acuta.org) 976 look-alikes MCI has identified a list of numbers that you may want to block. Increased demand for pay-per-call services has exceeded the capacity of "976" exchanges in many metropolitan areas. In response, local telcos have designated additional exchanges as "976 look-alikes." You should consider blocking calls to these numbers as well as to 900 numbers to avoid being billed when students or others knowingly or innocently connect to these services. While this is NOT a comprehensive list, we hope this will help reduce the volume of this type of fraud. Arizona (602) 676-xxxx (602) 960-xxxx Colorado (719) 898-XXXX (303)-960-XXXX Idaho (208) 960-XXXX Louisiana (504) 636-XXXX Maine (207) 940-XXXX (207) 940-XXXX Maryland (301) 915-XXXX (410) 915-XXXX Massachusetts (508) 940-XXXX (607) 940-XXXX (607) 555-XXXX Minnesota (507) 960-XXXX Nebraska (308) 960-XXXX (402) 960-XXXX New Hampshire (603) 940-XXXX New Mexico (505) 960-XXXX New York (212) 394-XXXX (212) 540-XXXX (212) 550-XXXX (212) 970-XXXX (315) 540-XXXX (315) 550-XXXX (315) 970-XXXX (516) 540-XXXX (516) 550-XXXX (518) 540-XXXX (518) 550-XXXX (518) 970-XXXX (607) 540-XXXX (607) 550-XXXX (607) 970-XXXX (716) 540-XXXX (716) 550-XXXX (716) 970-XXXX (718) 540-XXXX (718) 550-XXXX (718) 970-XXXX (914) 540-XXXX (914) 550-XXXX (914) 970-XXXX Ohio (216) 931-XXXX (513) 499-XXXX Pennsylvania (215) 556-XXXX (412) 556-XXXX Rhode Island (401) 940-XXXX South Dakota (605) 960-XXXX Texas (512) 766-XXXX (817) 892-XXXX Utah (801) 960-XXXX Washington D.C. (202) 915-XXXX Washington State (206) 960-XXXX Wyoming (307) 960-XXXX Does anyone know where I can get a comprehensive listing of 976 like numbers? I tried searching in Lycos and Yahoo but the only thing that came up was (predictably) were porno information and Cub Scout Troop 976! Thanks! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for going to all the trouble, but it may not be a big issue. Typically 976 and related prefixes are blocked from outside the LATA where they are located, mainly because there is no mechanism in place to bill for them. Believe it or not, often times the pressure to block 976 from outside the LATA comes from the information provider, who, if his service is any good or controversial enough, finds his lines swamped with calls from all over the USA, leaving no capacity for local calls for which he does get paid. I am reminded of 415-976-GAYS in San Francisco as an example. Now, there are lots of adult conference bridges around but if you call one in your local community you are going to pay plenty for using it. So what did the guys start doing? They started calling conference bridges on 976 *in other states* where all they had to pay was toll. The information provider got nothing out of it. The Chicago area guys called the SFCA bridge and the west coast guys would call the Chicago bridge. Wouldn't you rather pay 13-16 cents per minute at night (rates back in the early 1980's when they finally clamped down on this) to talk dirty on the phone to a stranger than three dollars? At 415-976-GAYS a recorded announcement answered each call telling the caller, "You have reached the San Francisco Hot Adult Conference Line. If you are not eighteen years of age, hang up now! Plenty of lively adult conversations; just three dollars for three minutes ... have fun!" Of course that meant nothing to the 99 percent of the callers not in area 415/408 (as defined in those days), and at that all they would do is get on long enough to pass their number and invite calls. So they paid 35-40 cents for an evening of 'lively adult conversation' ... not a bad deal for the end user, but for the bridge tender it sucked. MCI was first, and since then AT&T and others have followed suit by refusing to connect with 976 under pressure from the local telcos who in turn were trying to placate their Information Provider clients. We went through this a couple times in the past when the 'beeper scare' in Manhattan, NY was prevalent. Fools over there would send pages to beepers all over the country on (I think) the 212-540 exchange hoping to get calls back and run up the bill. Despite well- meaning memos from telecom admins everwhere warning against 'return- ing calls to any 212-540 number because of fraud' I do not think anyone outside 212/718/914/516 was ever victimized. If anyone reading this is able to connect with a 976 (or similar, 'lookalike') number in another LATA, I'd be interested in details. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 19:38:24 -0400 From: tbresien@eia.org (Tim Bresien) Organization: EIA Subject: Record Number of SUPERCOMM Exhibitors Expected in New Orleans More than 650 companies are expected to pack the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans this June, showcasing the very latest in communications technology. The Exhibit Hall (which is open June 3-5) will feature six Pavilions among the 290,000 square feet which are dedicated to some of the industry's most dynamic technology segments: WIRELESS, INTERNET, MULTIMEDIA, CTI, SOFTWARE, & FIBER OPTICS. Attendance is expected to eclipse last year's record of over 37,000. And with good reason. The most comprehensive demonstrations and discussions of tomorrow's hottest technology will occur at SUPERCOMM '97 in conjunction with the show's 10th anniversary. How will the overwhelming need for greater bandwidth be satisfied ? ill wireless become the infrastructure of the future ? What does the convergence of the cable and telco industries mean for today's public networks ? What will Voice Over Internet mean to the long distance business ? How is the expansion of network technology, on-line content and high-speed access driving the development of interactive services ? The answers to these questions and many more can be found only at SUPERCOMM '97. World class educational opportunities, covering every aspect of communications, will be presented by industry leaders from among the most respected companies in the world and from these renowned organizations: The International Engineering Consortium The MultiMedia Telecommunications Association The International Communications Association The IEEE Computer Society ( Internet Computing Conference ) SUPERCOMM '97 is endorsed by the United States Department of Commerce International Buyer Program and offers special amenities to the international delegations and attendees which represented over 90 nations last year. SUPERCOMM is co-owned and sponsored by: The Telecommunications Industry Association and The United States Telephone Association www.super-comm.com For information on remaining exhibiting opportunities please contact: Tim Bresien (703) 907-7483 or tbresien@tia.eia.org For information on attending SUPERCOMM please call (800) 278-7372 in the U.S. or on-line at: www.super-comm.com ------------------------------ From: bob.savery@hawgwild.com (Bob Savery) Subject: Where Are the Numbers? Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 06:29:24 GMT Organization: HAWG WILD! BBS (402) 597-2666 With all the talk of area codes being added almost daily, the urgent need to go to 10 digit dialing for everything (or changing to 8 digit local numbers or ....) one would get the impression the US is close to being totally out of phone numbers soon. I think I read something recently that hinted that could happen as soon as 2009 or so. Perhaps I'm missing something somewhere. Last time I looked, there were 890 possible area codes (Why is 1xx reserved anyway? Why is N9x required to be reserved for additional digits for local numbers??). If you take that 890 times 999 exchange codes times 10000 numbers in each exchange, there should be 8,891,100,000 possible phone numbers available. Yes, I know not all of those can be used (you wouldn't want exchange numbers starting with 911 for instance), but the vast majority of those should be good numbers. Where am I off in my figuring?? If I'm even halfway close, we couldn't possibly run out of numbers for a long time, if ever! There just isn't 9 billion ports available in the telephone network! Nor will there be anytime in the near future! (I don't think??!) What prompted this was the BellSouth Press release announcing they now have 6 million access lines in Florida. By my figuring, you could fit 6 million lines into a single area code. And yet Florida has 10 and says they need more??! That's an average of 16.65 numbers per line! Even figuring DID numbers into business trunks, I don't see that many numbers being used. Someone please esplain dis to me so I can sleep at night again?? Thank You! Bob Savery bob.savery@hawgwild.com Sysop - HawgWild! BBS HawgWild! BBS = (402) 597-2666 - Modem hawgwild.com - telnet www.hawgwild.com - World Wide Wait ->5008 - RIME ------------------------------ From: Hillary@johngalt.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: How Do They Do It? Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 02:46:09 PDT Check out SUBMITKING (http://www.submitking.com), the only place on the web to submit your URL to 100 marketing resources (search engines and the like) AUTOMATICLY for just $10US! Thanks for your time! Hillary ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #101 ******************************