Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id DAA23605; Mon, 12 May 1997 03:26:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 03:26:28 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199705120726.DAA23605@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #117 TELECOM Digest Mon, 12 May 97 03:26:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 117 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study (George Gilder) Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study (Anthony Argyriou) Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study (Jerry Harder) Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study (David Appell) Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study (A.E. Siegman) Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study (Stewart Fist) Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? (Eli Mantel) Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? (Nils Andersson) Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? (robertd672@aol.com) Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? (Robert Casey) Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? (wlevant@aol.com) Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? (Sanjay Parekh) Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? (John R. Levine) Re: City Fire Alarm Pull Boxes (Richard Enteman) Re: City Fire Alarm Pull Boxes (oldbear@arctos.com) Re: City Fire Alarm Pull Boxes (jmolter@pitnet.net) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 15:56:51 -0400 From: George Gilder Subject: Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study > The issue is whether those who use cell phones, etc. have a > statistically-significant higher increase in cancers than they would if > they did not use such devices or that they did before they used these > devices. > David > appell@together.net And of course this issue cannot be resolved in the face of a baffling complex of coincident and correlative factors and conditions, which can be summed up as industrial civilization itself with its associated measuring apparatus and vast increases in longevity. We are left with the choice of either overthrowing industrial civilization with all its overwhelming benefits (the choice of the radiophobes) or ignoring the latest legal target until conclusive scientific evidence is available. If every innovation had to face a prolonged barrage of speculative challenges, and endless courtroom speelunking for deep pockets, no innovation -- from the automobile to aspirin--could ever have been launched. Of course, the theory of global warming would have prohibited the industrial revolution itself. So far the enemies of cellphones have offered absolutely no evidence of interest except to the usual hypochondriacs with lawyers and rodents in tow (feeding on a now preposterous theory of linear human response to radiation). George Gilder ------------------------------ From: anthony@alphageo.com (Anthony Argyriou) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 17:37:02 GMT Organization: Alpha Geotechnical Reply-To: anthony@alphageo.com On Fri, 9 May 1997 10:17:05 EDT, gg@gilder.com (George Gilder) wrote: > On the contrary, voluminous recent evidence supports the proposition > of hormesis -- that radiation below a threshold not approached by > cellphones imparts a statistically significant increase in resistance > to cancers among humans. Perhaps that is why cellphone rich regions > such as Scandinavia and Japan lead the world in longevity and US users > of PCs and cellphones live longer than non users. In general, all > around the globe the use of electricity and other electromagnetic > oscillations correlates almost perfectly with greater longevity. It is doubtful that the EM exposure is the efficient cause of greater longevity in such areas, and cellular is definitely _not_ the cause, as those regions had higher lifespans before cellular. Much more likely is that high EM exposure and high longevity are both effects of the same cause, industrialization in a capitalist society. Confusion of cause and effect like this is what caused the idiocies of most third-world "development" schemes of the 60s and 70s (and continuing to this day). Cancer rates are higher in societies like Scandinavia, Japan, and the US than in the third world, because people live longer. Cancer is primarily a disease of old people, and when your society provides many colorful ways to die before the age of 50, you are not likely to live long enough to contract cancer. Anthony Argyriou ------------------------------ From: Jerry Harder Subject: Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study Date: 11 May 1997 04:52:56 GMT Organization: RTA, Inc. pastark@cloud9.net wrote in article : > Stewart Fist (fist@ozemail.com.au) wrote: >> A doubling of tumours in 100 exposed mice, is not an insignificant finding. >> In fact, statistically, it is above the 1% level of confidence, and is >> therefore highly significant. > It is easy to make instant judgments on statements like this, but I > would like to see some specific data. For instance -- how many of > those 100 "exposed mice" actually had tumors? Suppose in a group of > 100 "unexposed" mice, one develops a tumor, whereas in a group of 100 > "exposed" mice two mice develop tumors. Is this significant? > Look at it another way: In one group of 100 male casino customers, one > person won money, whereas in a group of 100 female customers, two > people won money. Is this doubling of winning customers statistically > significant? Does it mean that women are inherently better gamblers? > Does it mean that the casino's machines are prejudiced against men? > One could put all sorts of spins on this ... In Israel, the {Jerusalem Post} announced Friday that the two cellular phone companies have agreed to finance a health study. This move is based on the Australian study. According to the article, Israelis should be particularly concerned since they have one of the world's highest rates of cellular phone usage. Jerry Harder Senior Partner RTA, Inc. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study Date: 11 May 1997 01:43:51 -0400 Organization: Panix Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , George Gilder wrote: > Since cell phones are not exactly a rare technology, why on earth > should we pay any attention to the claims of carcinogenic effects > until the incidence of relevant cancers rises in the population using > the devices? For all the mumbo jumbo from the radiophobes with their > tortured rodents in tow, the fact is that there are fewer, not more, > brain tumors and other cancers among users of cellular phones, > computers, and other radiators, than among non users. Thus there is no > problem whatsoever to explain. Period. Okay, you said it; I didn't. A citation for each claim above, please? Without such, I don't see any reason why any TELECOM Digest reader ought to believe you, particularly considering that the other side of the argument was perfectly willing to provide them. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com Stumbling drunk in the railyard looking for God: http://www.panix.com/~tls/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 07:54:11 -0400 From: David Appell Subject: Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study George Gilder wrote: > Since cell phones are not exactly a rare technology, why on earth > should we pay any attention to the claims of carcinogenic effects > until the incidence of relevant cancers rises in the population using > the devices? For all the mumbo jumbo from the radiophobes with their > tortured rodents in tow, the fact is that there are fewer, not more, > brain tumors and other cancers among users of cellular phones, > computers, and other radiators, than among non users. Thus there is no > problem whatsoever to explain. Period. Not really. Comparing users of cell phones (etc.) to non users of electronic devices introduces other factors that muddy the waters. Users of cell phones are likely to be more affluent than non users, and more likely to have a higher education, more aware of nutritional factors and thus more likely to have a better diet, probably likely to have better access to health care, including preventative care, etc. These might well be the factors that lead to lower incidences of cancers in the group of interest. The issue is whether those who use cell phones, etc. have a statistically-significant higher increase in cancers than they would if they did not use such devices or that they did before they used these devices. David appell@together.net ------------------------------ From: siegman@ee.stanford.edu (AES) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 12:51:21 -0700 Organization: Stanford University I would like to thank Robert Heller for taking the effort to write such a clear, non-inflammatory, and readable message summarizing why the Royal Adelaide Hospital study remains entirely unconvincing, to me anyway, and apparently also to him. In addition to salient the points he made (this study is an "outlier", with questionable dosimetry, questionable subjects, and questionable reproducibility), additional points that reinforce my skepticism include: Mechanism: Despite extensive study, essentially no identified or well-established basic physical mechanims have been found by which the claimed effects could be produced. Wider-scale epidemiology: When claims of health hazards allegedly caused by EMF radiation from computer video displays first began to appear, I recall someone pointing out that a massive world-wide experiment on such hazards had already been carried out, called *television*. If the claimed effects were real, we should by then have seen a massive epidemic of similar effects, and of course we hadn't (nor had there been any evidence of ill effects among professional TV production and broadcasting personnel, despite sitting for hours surrounded by industrial-strength TV monitors. If one looks around a bit, one can surely identify industrial (or military) personnel who routinely experience much greater exposure to radiation similar to cell phone emissions in their routine professional pursuits -- yet visible evidence of ill effects has yet to appear. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 14:43:48 +1000 From: fist@ozemail.com.au (Stewart Fist) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Cancer Study George Gilder writes: > Since cell phones are not exactly a rare technology, why on earth > should we pay any attention to the claims of carcinogenic effects > until the incidence of relevant cancers rises in the population > using the devices? Maybe because people would rather not subject their offspring to a global epidemic of serious health problems. Most people I know would rather science and technology looked ahead at the long-term consequences, rather than wait for problems to be solved (as they now are with cigarettes and asbestos) by litigation after the event. > For all the mumbo jumbo from the radiophobes with their > tortured rodents in tow, the fact is that there are fewer, not > more, brain tumors and other cancers among users of cellular > phones, computers, and other radiators, than among non users. Where in God's name did this 'fact' come from. George, if this is an example of how economists think then I have a new insight into the problems of trickle-down economics. You aren't distinguishing incidence of these diseases from the mortality rates (we can now cure many forms) and you are not distinguishing between gliomas (brain and nervous tissue), leukemias and lymphomas, and about fifty other problems -- many of which are on the rise. Only cancers related to smoking and smog seem to be on the decrease in developed countries. Why brand all people interested in this problem as 'radiophobes'. I was praising the virtues of CDMA mobile phones in print before you were, and I have long been writing about the benefits of shifting back to Digital Terrestrial Television system, rather than sinking billions in HFC cable. I think radio systems are superb - but that doesn't mean I think it is safe to stick a small microwave oven against the side of your head and pulse it on and off 217 times a second. The main researchers in this area can't remotely be described as radio-phobes. This is a cheap shot -- trying to label everyone who disagrees with you as being a 'nut'. That is childish. > Thus there is no problem whatsoever to explain. Period. That is about the most banal certainty that I've heard since the fundamentalists discovered the world was created in 1440BC. > On the contrary, voluminous recent evidence supports the > proposition of hormesis -- that radiation below a threshold not > approached by cellphones imparts a statistically significant > increase in resistance to cancers among humans. We seem to swing from one fundamentalist certainty to another. While hundreds of legitimate scientific studies are dismissed in one phrase -- suddenly, a miraculous cure for cancer is offered in another. I can only guess you are talking about Dr. Ross Adey's work -- which is on analog R/F. If so, you obviously aren't making the distinction between the pulsed stroboscopic nature of GSM digital (217Hz) and analog, and this difference is fundamental to everything that is being discussed in these questions. GSM has a R/F component and a pulsed (square wave) ELF component -- and it is generally thought that the ELF may be the problem. R/F may indeed become a useful tool in medicine, but only when we know what the mechanisms are. In the past radio engineers and manufacturers have denied there are any mechanisms -- or any problems. I'm not sure that anyone involved in this research now feels certain about the threshold argument -- nor to most scientists have any feeling as to what exposures (to humans) may be significant. However the Adelaide research did strongly suggest that exposure problems with pulsed GSM are cumulative in time. > Perhaps that is why cellphone rich regions such as Scandinavia > and Japan lead the world in longevity and US users of PCs and > cellphones live longer than non users. In general, all around the > globe the use of electricity and other electromagnetic oscillations > correlates almost perfectly with greater longevity. Dare I suggest that another factor could be poverty, and perhaps exposure to another thousand other environmental and nutritional factors. I can't believe that any serious economist would deal with cause and effect in such a simplistic way. > Unfortunately among the beneficiaries of this public health boon > are product liability lawyers and their junk science accomplices > causing lucrative plagues of hypochondria and litigation. Do you count in here the liability lawyers working for the State Attorney-Generals in prosecuting the tobacco companies? This liability lawyer problem is an American one; it is almost irrelevant in Europe and Australia (where this research was conducted), and it is a problem resulting from your fanatical 'let-the-buyer-beware' approach to non-regulation. Robert Weller writes: > The Royal Adelaide Hospital study is an "outlier," inasmuch as > most other studies failed to detect any increase in the cancer > risk ratio "Most other" is a rather vague term. If you mean cell-phone research, then this is only correct if you include all those studies that came to inconclusive results. You can't prove a null hypothesis. There are plenty of well known, well conducted studies which say the opposite -- and none of them is conclusive, because no individual study of this type will ever be conclusive. Each, in its own way, is indicative. > Dosimetry There's a hell of a lot more to dosmetrics than this. Each research protocol has its problems. Mice are a bit too small to strap cell-phones to their ears, so they had to do with an antenna over the cage. This placed the mice in the far field, but at power-densities equivalent to the side of the head. The aluminium would simply have evened out the distribution and reduced the variations in body orientation. Scientist can actually measure power-densities, and set their experiments accordingly. > Subjects. While I am less familiar with this area, the transgenic > mice used in the research had genetic alterations in areas that > are not contained in the human genome. The study set out to establish whether GSM phone radiation could promote (not cause) tumorous changes in mice cells. Since at the cell level DNA-is-DNA, and this is the most likely cause of tumours, then surely it established something worth while which has a high degree of relevance to humans. It does not prove that GSM phones produce cancer -- but it says loud and clear, "We had better find out damn quick". The other criticisms here are objecting to this being a part-solution to a long-term problem; the writer want it to be a total solution. Scientists can argue for days about the use of different strains of mice, so I doubt that this engineer's opinion of which mice should have been used is necessarily better than the combined resources of the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council, Telstra, and the scientists involved. > The FDA has been pushing the Wireless Technology Research > (WTR) organization, funded in the US by an industry blind trust, > to use rats rather than transgenic mice. From what I can see, the FDA has been pushing the WTR to spend the last few million of their $25 million budget just doing anything. Pete writes about the findings of double the tumour rate in exposed mice, and the 1% level of significance. > It is easy to make instant judgments on statements like this, but > I would like to see some specific data. You got the 'relevant' data -- the tumour rate doubled in only 18 months. The specific is in the paper itself, available for anyone to read. > For instance -- how many of those 100 "exposed mice" actually > had tumors? Suppose in a group of100 "unexposed" mice, one > develops a tumor, whereas in a group of 100 "exposed" mice two > mice develop tumors. Is this significant? The 'level of significance' concept used in all scientific work grades results as either 5% (the results could have arisen one in every twenty times by chance) or 1% (once in a hundred). These results were above this higher level of significance. That is why the scientists provide these figures, so non-scientists will have some judgment of the relative importance of the evidence and chance factors. It doesn't help you to know that the transgenic control mice had 22 tumours, and the exposed had 43 (after an adjustment down), because you don't know whether the 22 is a high or a low figure. Some 'normal' lab mice strains have 100% tumour rates in 18 months, some are down at the 5% level. These mice were from a low-susceptible (5% strain) which had the gene inserted about 10 years ago to make them 'sensitive' to environmental effects. (Note 'sensitive') In other words, these mice are sensitive detectors - and the better the signal-to-noise ratio they have, the more trust we can put in the detection. Stewart Fist, Technical writer and journalist. Current Australian columns: Archives of my columns are available at the Australian and also at the ABC site: Development site: Phone:+612 9416 7458 Fax: +612 9416 4582 Old Homepage: [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Not that it is critical or important to Mr. Fist's response at all, but I would like to correct one small error. The religious fundamentalists do not claim the 'world was created in 1440 BC'. Most fundamentalists agree with the conclusions drawn by Archbishop Usher in the early seventeenth century after considerable study and calculations done by the Archbishop: the world was created on Tuesday, October 14, 4004 BC at 9:30 AM. He did not say what time zone that was; ie. Greenwich Mean Time, Eastern, etc. However King James had his own scholars review Usher's work and they concluded he was accurate. Thus when King James ordered a revision and updating of the scriptures in 1612 AD, Usher's calculations were used in the concordances or footnotes of that edition of the Bible. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Eli Mantel Subject: Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 18:52:17 PDT I'm certain that I'm missing some essential aspect of the network access charges, but it seems to me that a critical error was made in how these fees were imposed and allocated in the years since long distance service was opened to full competition. Prior to this time, local phone companies had been receiving a credit based on billings for long distance calls originating or terminating in their area. Continuing that in the same form would have substantially impeded competition, while totally eliminating it would have threatened the phone companies' financial stability. Access charges were never intended to reflect the cost for the local phone company to provide any service, just to replace the value of the revenue stream that they had been credited with for long distance calls at the instant in time that deregulation went into effect. Over the years, as the number of phone lines and the amount of long distance have increased, it would seem that these access charges have probably grown to the point at which they substantially exceed the revenue stream they were intended to replace. As these access charges have grown, local phone companies have become dependent on this increased revenue stream. Had the access fees been reduced to reflect the increased volumes, the significance of the fees would have decreased over time, and we would have been seeing both categories of access fees reduced annually over each of the past 13 years. I've been wondering what's wrong with my thinking for a while, so I hope someone can clarify this situation for me. Thanks. Eli Mantel --------------------------------------------------------- Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 22:02:12 -0400 From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? In article , The Old Bear writes: > One should not think of this as a surcharge on multiple lines, but > instead as a surcharge on *ALL* lines with each "household" getting > a single exemption. Under that perspective, it begins to make a > little more administrative sense. Logically, this is what a lawyer would call a distinction without a difference. It is, however, a perfect example of how sematics can be used to manipulate the appearance, in this case by trying to establish a different "baseline" against which to compare a new phenomenon. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: robertd672@aol.com (RobertD672) Subject: Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? Date: 12 May 1997 04:57:18 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com A second line on the same residential bill perhaps? In all of the examples you mentioned which had multiple occupants in a shared living space each of the phone bills would be in the name of the person for whom the service was installed (trust me, a landlord does not want a tenants utilities in their name.) Therfore, each initial line would be charged at the primary rate. If in fact there was more that one line on a bill then that line would be charged at the "second line" rate. The people who will mainly be paying this are the ones who either have computer equipment or a fax machine for which they want a dedicated line or parents with minor children living at home (as minors are not capable of entering into agreements in most localities.) > Here's another one for you: What happens if there is a single phone > line in the home of a married couple, and it happens to be in the > husband's name only. Now the wife has a need for her own phone line, > so she applies for one in her name, and is told she will have to pay > the higher charge. If she applies for the line in her name I would think that she would be billed at the primary rate. As an aside, what need would a married couple have for private lines? If they are for business purposes then they would be charged at business rates and handled by the business department. In other word residential tariffs would not apply. > This is, after all, a form of discrimination . . . you get service > at one price if it's the only line into a building, but you may pay a > higher price just because you choose to, or are forced to by economic > considerations, live in the same building as someone else who already > has phone service. Not if the bills are in seperate names. > My final thought is that I don't even think this will have the > desired effect of recovering revenue lost from the lowering of "access > ... otherwise have been ordered, will more than offset any gains made > by increased access charges on additional residential phone lines. First of all, the decrease in access charges will be recouped from a new charge to the long distance companies of between $1.50 (residential) and $2.75 (business) for multi-line customers as well as additional rate increases for multi-line business customers. Second, I am sure that the phone companies would be very happy if everyone (excluding of course business customers) were to cancel service for more than one line. It would prevent them from having to spend money to upgrade equipment and capacity to handle the explosion in phone service. At any rate the money will be recouped mainly from multi-line business customers. In addition the telcos are targeting ISPs for additional rate hikes because of the traffic they have added to the phone system. In effect the current rate increases have already hit them, try that $1.50 or so a month by several hundred lines to several thousand lines and see what it adds to your overhead (Hint: A LOT!). Strangely enough most of the RBOCs (henceforth "fat bastards") either already have or are in the process of rolling out Internet access. While they are affected by the current rate increase and would also be affected by any "ISP tax" (Internet access is unregulated) look at who they are paying the phone bills to. The fat bastards can easily absorb the extra cost (not only because they are in effect feeding themselves but also because they do not have seperate expenses for billing, advertising, etc) while many smaller local ISPs will lose a substantial amount of revenue. Of course I am sure that this would not phase the fat bastards, and it may in fact make them very happy because it would add gold to their coffers. My final thought is this. I don't actually see the baby Bells as being very succesful in the role of ISP. Yes, they will maintain a certain number of subscribers who may not even know that a better alternative is literaly right down the street. Overall though I don't think that they have the skills needed to prosper. Internet access is a very customer sevice oriented business, customer service and the word Bell (in any derivative form i.e. Pac Bell, Bell Atlantic) don't work well in the same sentence. I don't think that this will turn out to be the big gravy bowl that they expected. I could be wrong, I hope I am not. I am just waiting to see the costs for local loops go up substantially. Well, enough of my rants for now. I just got my latest phone bills and had to vent somehow. Please cc any comments, flames, etc. to me directly. I would love to hear your thoughts. Rob D. ------------------------------ From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) Subject: Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 03:27:36 GMT If the second line shows on the same phone bill as the first, than the phone company gets to charge extra for it. If you tell the phone company you have created a seperate apartment in a part of your house, and give them a bogus name (or maybe give them your wife's middle name and maiden name) they probably couldn't tell the difference and you'd have two 1st lines. And two seperate phone bills. For a buck fifty, I doubt most people will really care. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 21:17:34 EDT Subject: Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line ? I seriously doubt that even our intrepid federal government would attempt to characterize a multi-tenant apartment building as a "residence", as has been suggested. On the other hand, at our house (a single home), we have two POTS lines. One's in my name; the other's in my wife's. They aren't billed together, and otherwise have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Our last names are different, too. How can the telco decide that "we" really have two lines? We also have two kids and four cats. Guess that means we can get six more POTS lines at the "first line" rate :-) Come and get us, coppers. When the FCC characterizes something as "the greatest day for telephone consumers since the breakup of AT&T in 1984", you should consider it fair warning. Run -- don't walk -- to the exits. And hold on to your wallet. And one last, random thought. Maybe this is a silly question, but when PAT said "Western Union['s telephone number] was (of course) 4321" ... why "of course" ? Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In nearly every community where there resided a Western Union facility or a telegraph agent (generally affiliated with Western Union as an independent contractor providing 'telegraph services') the phone number was something-4321. This was true at least throughout the midwestern United States. An interesting exception was here in Chicago where the main switchboard for the Western Union Building and their executive offices at 410 S. LaSalle Street was WABash-2-4321 but the phone room for the message takers and telegraphers was WABash-2-7111. (But from a coin telephone, dial the operator and ask for Western Union). All the outlying neighborhood offices in Chicago were owned by the Company (I think, maybe a couple were not) and they were all something-4321. My copy of the 1946 issue of the great big 26-page phone directory for Coffeyville, Kansas issued by the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company has only a few dozen entries under the letter 'W', one being: WESTERN UNION AGENCY ......... Bus Terminal Bldg, 8th & Walnut ... 4321 If calling from a pay station, ask operator for Western Union. A phone book from about 1959-60 for Evanston, Illinois showed that a WUTCO agent was located on or near the campus of Northwestern Univer- sity with the phone number DAVis-8-4321. But the same entry noted that 'if calling from a pay telephone, dial operator and ask for Western Union.' An office on the south side of Chicago was HYDe Park-3-4321, again with the special instruction for pay phone users. Probably since sometime around 4004 BC at 9:30 AM the WUTCO and the Bell had a very close, almost incestuous relationship. People now-days complain about non-telephone call related billings appearing on the phone bill, i.e horoscopes and sex, but WUTCO billed on the phone bill for probably seventy years. The reason payphone users had to ask the operator for Western Union rather than dial something-4321 was because the operator would alert the WUTCO message taker that in effect there was no phone number to be billed. The operator would tell the WUTCO person the caller was at a payphone. After the caller gave the message to be sent to the WUTCO person, the clerk would say 'okay please flash your hook and get the operator back on the line ...' the caller would jiggle the hook and when the operator responded, the WUTCO person would say 'collect seventy five cents from the caller' (or whatever the message cost) and the caller had to deposit that in the coin box on the payphone. Having done so, the local operator then had to 'dump the coins' meaning hit a key on the switchboard which caused the table in the phone to tip in the company's favor rather than tip the other way sending the coins back out the return slot. If the caller had dialed something-4321 direct, there would be no way to flash the operator for 'assistance in collecting' as they referred to it. People of course committed fraud all the time; they would tell WUTCO the wrong number for billing purposes. There were certain 'established' phone numbers in those days. In addition to WUTCO having 4321 almost everywhere, you could count on the telco business office being something-9411. Again, oddly, in Chicago all the public business offices (literally a dozen or more, walk in off the street, sit down and talk to a service rep) were something-9411. In manual offices they were just 9411 although as often as not the caller would lift the receiver and just say to the operator 'give me the business office'. But in the case of Illinois Bell's big corporate headquarters in downtown Chicago, the corporation PBX was OFFicial-3-9411 while the service reps down on the first floor were OFFicial-3-9100. In quite a few communities the police were 2121 and the firemen were 2131. But, when you had two communities served by the same central office and each maintained their own police/fire departments then the 'other' one was 2151 and 2181. Don't ask me why. In some places police were 1212 and fire was 1313. Telephone recorded announcement services were quite often 1234 or 1515. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 09:58:43 -0400 From: Sanjay Parekh Subject: Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? Jack Decker wrote: > charges" on toll calls. The reason is that as the cost of additional > lines increases, many people may disconnect existing second lines, or > put off ordering additional lines, or figure out ways to make exiting > lines do double-duty (for example, making one line serve both a > computer and FAX machine). I have a gut feeling that the number of > disconnections, and the lost business from additional lines that would > otherwise have been ordered, will more than offset any gains made by > increased access charges on additional residential phone lines. The business I'm in (cable telephony) is directly impacted by this. But that raises an interesting question. How do you know and control rates when one line is provided by one company, say an RBOC, and an "additional" line is provieded by another company, say a cable company? Also, do cell phones count as "additional" lines? They can provide secondary dialtone in the same house as a normal line. It's gonna be a whole new can of worms ... | Sanjay Parekh | | sanjay.parekh@arris-i.com | | Systems Engineer - Cornerstone | | Arris Interactive | | Atlanta, GA | ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 May 97 10:32 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: What Constitutes a Second Residential Line? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > My point is this: Whatever you may think of the rest of the FCC's > actions, the idea of mandating different rates for exactly the same > service, simply because someone has more than one line coming into the > home, seems like an idea that would make sense only to a government > bureaucrat. I agree it's a pretty lame idea, but it shouldn't be all that hard to administer because telcos already have special cases for additional lines. In some states such as New Jersey there's a different, lower, rate for second lines. In every state I'm aware of, second lines can be unlisted at no charge, even in Massachusetts where for some idiotic reason you can't put two residential lines on one bill. On the other hand, I have two lines at my house and one at my cottage, all three on the same bill. Does the cottage phone count as an additional line? Who the heck knows? Seems to me the fairest and easiest way to collect USF money is with a small increase to the gross receipts tax on all telephone service. That's easy to administer and doesn't cause distortions. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 ------------------------------ From: Richard Enteman Subject: Re: City Fire Alarm Pull Boxes Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 18:39:09 PDT lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (Lee Winson) wrote: > Per the talk about 911 ... > I was in Philadelphia and noticed the fire alarm pull > boxes were gone. > I was wondering if other cities have removed their boxes. > They've been gone in Trenton NJ for years. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The reason [the boxes are > gone] is they were subject to too much abuse. People who like to play > games would pull the alarm on a street corner box then run off before > the firemen arrived to find nothing going on. With 911 working as > effeciently as it does, and the prevalence of telephones, there is no > longer any real need for the boxes anyway. PAT] The police and fire boxes often run on separate lines with their own power supply. They serve as an important back-up system. During power outages the police and fire boxes are often the only means of communications. To minimize the number of false alarms many fire alarm boxes had microphones added for dispatcher to talk with someone reporting an emergency. Things go in cycles, and the call boxes are bound to come back again someday after the large expense of removing them. ------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: City Fire Alarm Pull Boxes Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 05:16:36 -0400 lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (Lee Winson) writes: > I was in Philadelphia and noticed the fire alarm pull boxes were gone. > They used to be mounted on utility poles at corners. As a child, we > were trained to know where the nearest pull box was to our home. If > we used it, we were to wait there for the fire truck so they'd know > where to go. Fire drill posters in buildings included the nearest > street pull box. . . >In the early 1970s I had a tour of the Philadelphia fire dispatching > center (this was pre-911 days.) At that time, it seemed most calls > came via boxes, not the telephone. A pullbox caused a loud oscillator > to beep the four digit code of the box. (I think the beep was > duplicated in the fire house that served the location, but I'm not > sure). The dispatcher identified the location, and telephoned > (through a private direct line PBX) the fire house to provide details. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The boxes have been gone in Chicago > for years with the exception of schools, hospitals and residences > for geriatric patients (old people's homes) where they are required > by law. The reason is they were subject to too much abuse. People > who like to play games would pull the alarm on a street corner box > then run off before the firemen arrived to find nothing going on. > With 911 working as effeciently as it does, and the prevalence of > telephones, there is no longer any real need for the boxes anyway. PAT] The boxes are part of the "Gamewell System" which dates back to 1852. Gamewell is still very much in business -- and even has a web site at URL: < http://www.gamewell.com >. The familiar red pull boxes were based on classic DC telegraph technology. A single DC loop (wire pair) was run many locations in a neighborhood and each location would have a Gamewell box which contained a spring-driven internal sprocket wheel with teeth notched in a unique pattern. When a citizen would pull the lever on the outside of the box, the spring would be wound and the wheel would then turn, activating a switch which would close the circuit on the loop, sounding a gong in the local fire house. Because each box had a unique number, the firemen could then identify which box had been pulled and proceed to that location. In small towns, the system might activate an air-horn or steam whistle which would muster the volunteer fire company. The pattern of whistle blasts, for example 3-4-1, would identify the location so that volunteers could rush directly to the site and meet up with the crew bring the equipment from the firehouse. Many of the boxes also contained an old-fashion morse code key inside the box, which could be unlocked by the arriving firemen and used to send messages back to the firehouse. Certainly quaint by today's standards! The beauty of the system was its simplicity. The electro-mechanical assemblies were very reliable. The fire departments liked the system because it provided a positive identification of location and there were no problems with trying understand a panicy or non-English speaking citizen on a poor quality early telephone system. I worked with the City of Boston in 1969-72, and I recall a number of discussions about the pros and cons of the Gamewell system. At that time, there was considerable urban unrest from both anti-war protests and inner-city disturbances. (Fortunately, Boston remained quite civil although local government was concerned the unpleasantness of other cities might spread.) It was decided that a few false alarms were preferable to the risks involved in replacing the system with one which required citizens to use a telephonic system. Anyway, the city had long since stopped maintaining its own wires in most locations and was getting dry copper from New England telephone for the purposes of the Gamewell system. One of the Fire Department technicians had been experimenting with what other data or voice they might be able to run over the same copper loops, but datacom in those days was pretty primitive. One of the things which we looked at was using the system for security alarms on public buildings. The idea was to provide a second set of numeric codes to indicate breaking-and-entering at the public schools and then filtering those signals to the police or school department security people. Unfortuantely, the issue of life-safety was considered so important the the state legislature decades earlier had manadated that the fire alarm systems in schools be separate from any other telephone or telegraph device -- thus the limitation was legislative rather than technical. By the way, if you like those Western Union clocks which were discussed in TELECOM Digest a while back, you'd probably love to look at the insides of the old Gamewell apparatus. The fire alarm call boxes are elegant assemblies of brass gears and contactors, beautifully machined to the highest standards of their day to assure maximum reliability. And on the firehouse end, there was equally intersting equipment, including paper tape printers which, looking like time-recording seismographs, used spring driven clockworks and ink pens mounted on the ends of magnetic arms to keep a permanent record of the exact time and date of each alarm. Or, as Ogden Nash wrote: The one-L lama is a priest. The two-L llama is a beast. But I will bet a silk pajama, there isn't any three-L lllama. (*) (*) Some readers informed Mr. Nash that this was a type of large conflagration -- to which Mr. Nash said, "pooh." Cheers, The Old Bear ------------------------------ From: jmolter@pitnet.net (JeepMan) Subject: Re: City Fire Alarm Pull Boxes Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 08:21:40 GMT In Milwaukee WI they discontinued the pull boxes in 1988 due to abuse of them. The pull box was in a police call box on all the corners. Pull box one side unlocked and on other side police call phone. Locked. About half of the police call boxes were removed in 1988 the other half are still in service. You can still see quite a lot of them on corners. (Painted blue) These are for the police to use to call in to stations. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #117 ******************************