Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id DAA03772; Tue, 27 May 1997 03:05:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 03:05:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199705270705.DAA03772@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #134 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 May 97 03:05:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 134 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Four-Year Recap Re: New Toll-Free Number Coming (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Dial Tone Device For a Cell Phone (Eric Kammerer) Re: MCI Cheats, Lies, and Steals (Peter Morgan) Re: MCI Cheats, Lies, and Steals (Dave Briggs) Re: "Good Morning, and Please Go Away" (Barry Margolin) Re: Pooling Phone Numbers (Lee Winson) Cell Phones and Health Hazards (Erik Florack) Re: GSM, SIM Cards, International Roaming (Michael Hartley) Re: GSM, SIM Cards, International Roaming (John R. Covert) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: Four-Year Recap Re: New Toll-Free Number Coming Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 12:24:49 -0400 Organization: ICB Toll Free News Reply-To: joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com Only the foolishness of why, and how poorly, 888 and 877 were created, can be attributed to AT&T (and company.) Yesterday's {Washington Times} told the story of The Association of National Advertisers, representing 5,000 members, lobbying Congress to no avail against the 888 auction. Daniel Jaffe, association exec vp, complained, "We don't see anything wrong with paying a premium for vanity numbers, but a public auction will only artificially drive up prices beyond anything that's reasonable." Perhaps Mr. Jaffe's constituents, including many of their telecom execs who no doubt read this Digest, should have thought of that sooner, and lobbied at INC and SNAC for user interests. It is after all the Toll Free Industry Guidelines created by those forums, that lay out the anti-user policies (no proprietary interest, no buying and selling numbers, etc.) that is the foundation for the new FCC Toll Free Ruling (see Cover Story, ICB Toll Free News, http://www.icbtollfree.com), and the wide path it lays to the Congressional auction door. Here's a recap of tha past four years: 1993 - Portability was enacted in May, transferring control of toll-free numbers from carriers to users. Carriers reacted to this loss by pronouncing these numbers a fragile resource which required their "protection" in the name of public interest. Concurrently, they promoted number 'ownership' and number branding to major advertisers, all the while negating the same in industry forums and policy. Taking advantage of their exclusive access to the 800 database, they also filled their own 800 coffers to facilitate rolling out ever more proprietary products and services, creating an industry-induced shortage. 1995 - The carrier-induced shortage of 800 numbers was further exacerbated by their foolish band-aid introduction of 888 as a co-brand, rather than a separate domain. This attempt to cover-up carrier 800 warehousing proved as short-sighted as their anti-user 800 industry guidelines. The users are, after all, their customers. And, according to Mr. Jaffe above, they are not happy. 1995-96 - Advertisers and other users deluged the FCC with complaints that 888 would compromise both the utility and brand value of 800. The FCC responded by offering to 'set-aside' those 888's in question until 'right of first refusal' could be studied. The FCC also responded by instituting micromanagement of the toll-free industry, in a too-little too-late recognition of industry wrong-doing. (The FCC 800 Ruling, however, illustrates that the FCC has no problem relying on industry anti-user propaganda to form its policies regulating subscribers. How odd. Perhaps just convenient.) Finally, all the tumult woke up Congress, which erroneously saw a new revenue stream in these numbers. (Erroneously because Congress is clueless about the unique features and characteristics of toll-free numbers, and the degree to which they differ from other kinds of 'spectrum'.) Nonetheless, the 888 auction was borne. Unfortunately for advertisers, it's specifically the 888 numbers in the FCC 'set-aside' pool established to protect advertisers, that Congress wants to auction. The essence of the Toll Free Ruling is that it further moves toll-free number control, granted by portability, away from users, beyond carriers and now on to the government. With the FCC transferring much of anti-user voluntary industry guideline in federal law, the carriers can no longer choose so readily, which "preferred" advertisers to protect, because the government now holds toll-free numbers hostage to *it's* own interests. User (both corp telecom and corp adv mgt) political alliance with carriers, has backfired in their face. Judith Oppenheimer ICB TOLL FREE NEWS - 800/888/global800 news, analysis, advice. http://www.icbtollfree.com, mailto:news-editor@icbtollfree.com Judith Oppenheimer - 800 The Expert, ph 212 684-7210, fx 212 684-2714 mailto:j.oppenheimer@worldnet.att.net, mailto:icb@juno.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 97 08:15:45 PDT From: erick@sac.AirTouch.COM (Eric Kammerer) Subject: Re: Dial Tone Device For a Cell Phone > Is there a device available that provides dial tone on a cell phone? > I have the need for a device that would provide a dial tone to a > external device so that a regular telephone or fax machine could be > used. I do remember seeing a device, many moons ago at a construction > trade show, that connected to a GE 3000 cell phone that allowed > regular POTS phones to be used ... (the user picked up the phone, heard > a dialtone and dialed) ... The general category is called a Cellular Data Interface. Most cell phone manufacturer's have them. You should be able to get them from your cellular carrier, or a computer store. Some models include: Cellabs MiniJack Cellabs MiniDial Ora Cellular/Data Link Spectrum AXCELL NEC INT 4000 Fujitsu Pocket Data Interface II Motorola THE Portable Cellular Connection Interface Oki Data Link Direct Telular PCS ONE Audiovox STI-75 ------------------------------ From: Peter Morgan Subject: Re: MCI Cheats, Lies, and Steals Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 08:36:51 +0100 In message PAT wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can report it direct to the Federal > Communications Commission if you wish, but good luck in getting any > action taken. I would suggest you send them only the money actually > due, however you may wish to just put a freeze on payments to them > until they re-rate the calls and send a corrected bill. In the future Surely these companies send out written details of their tariff? Verbal promises are worthless - get them to fax/mail you to confirm the rates they've told you. Surely you can tell them to fax you and tell you their 800 number so you can agree to switch once you've had chance to look over the full terms of their deal? Something in writing gives you much better peace of mind, and can be used back to the company and to any authorities if you were accused of non-payment. I've only seen one company which had small print implying they could make changes to their rates without notifying customers -- I ignored them. In the UK, if any carrier was offering calls at a particularly attractive price, I know most people would get the information in writing. BT has a Pricing InformationService which sends out little booklets describing the national and international rates, and alternative companies (Mercury, ACC and Enegris, to name a few) would be completely ignored by individuals if they didn't give a price listing. AT&T refused to send me a tariff guide until I'd signed up, so I told them flatly that they must be mad to begin to believe people would sign up without knowing what they would charge or have rates changing without information about it, and they did eventually send some information (though not comprehensive). Peter ------------------------------ From: dbriggs@banet.com (Dave Briggs) Subject: Re: MCI Cheats, Lies, and Steals Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 02:38:04 GMT Organization: CampusMCI Reply-To: dbriggs@banet.com On Sat, 24 May 1997 22:49:56 -0700, joseph kim wrote: > Not only will I never use MCI again, I really DO NOT want to pay the > large bill that they have charged me. Can anyone direct me to some > consumer advocacy group or some agency to report this to? I would also > suggest to anyone out there to use extreme caution in dealing with MCI. Our firm has been using MCI for about six years and have been thoroughly pleased. The rates we were quoted have always been accurate and any disputes (which don't happen very often) with our invoices are handled in a quick manner. Over all we get good service from MCI. I am sorry to hear you had problems, but upon seeing your note I thought I would show there are some folks out there who do like MCI. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is better to go with a smaller > company or a reseller which appreciates your business. I have always > had very good luck with Frontier/Allnet. PAT] I have to disagree with you a littler here, Pat. Don't always assume that smaller means better. One of our divisions decided to go with a smaller company (Frontier actually) and within two months they were at my door requesting to be back on our MCI contract again. For residential customers maybe smaller IXC's are the way to go in some cases. Dave Briggs Telecom Director OLI Systems ------------------------------ From: Barry Margolin Subject: Re: "Good Morning, and Please Go Away" Date: 27 May 1997 01:42:39 -0400 Organization: BBN Planet, Cambridge, MA In article , Anthony E. Siegman wrote: > Says the article: "Systems capable of calculating individual customer > profitability will make it possible, for example, to let > less-profitable customers sit on hold longer when they call into a > telephone center." There's nothing very new about this, except that it's automated. Many businesses already provide different services for different levels of customers. At a bank I used to use, you could get a "Plus" account if the total of all your (non-IRA) accounts (savings, checking, CD's) was more than a certain minimum, and this got some fees waved and I think entitled you to use of a 24-hour hotline. My employer (a tier-1 ISP providing commercial Internet connections) most of the large customers are designated "key" customers; there's a set of customer service reps dedicated to handling them, and management gets notified when there are problems affecting these customers. Such services are often implemented by giving the key customers a different phone number to call for service, so they bypass the regular queue. All that this bank is doing is detecting the customer category automatically based on CNID. Why do businesses provide better service to big customers? A satisfied customer is likely to increase his business with you. If a big customer increases his business by a certain percentage, that's worth much more than a small customer increasing his business by the same percentage. Assuming the average big customer does M times as much business as the average small customer, you would have to satisfy M as many small customers as big customers to result in the same increase in revenues. The math is simple: it's more cost-effective to give excellent service to a few big customers than lots of small customers. Of course, you can go too far. If you actually *neglect* the masses, you could lose the majority of your business. The trick is to provide good service to all customers, and provide even better service to the key customers. Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com BBN Corporation, Cambridge, MA Support the anti-spam movement; see ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (Lee Winson) Subject: Re: Pooling Phone Numbers Date: 26 May 1997 23:47:51 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS > Penn. Public Utility Commission Seeks Alternative to New Area Codes > With pooling, the Number Plan Area coordinator would give out numbers > only as they were actually needed to serve customers. The above article also appeared in the {Philadelphia Inquirer}. I was very glad to see it, as for the first time it alerts consumers to the fact that the new area code split/overlay is largely due to competiting phone companies tying up 10,000 line blocks which they're nowhere near fully utilizing. The split of Philadelphia from 215 to 215/610 was not at all welcomed a few years ago. Now Bell Atlantic says multiple new area codes are required statewide and consumers are very upset--they expected the 215/610 split to carry them for many years. The PUC is having the "overlay vs. split" and both approaches have many critics. The PUC, as the article reported, is now looking at the pools themselves. Bell Atlantic's response was that its switches are not designed to accomodate other approaches and would require reprogramming. I suspect it would not be too difficult given everything is ESS nowadays. (However, Penna has a lot of small independent companies, I don't know what kind of gear they have.) A big question is: Who will pay for reprogramming/rewiring? Will it be existing Bell customers? Bell stockholders? The new carriers? IMHO, all costs should be paid by the new carriers. Their existence is responsible for this problem. They need the new infrastructure to support them. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ah, but when you ask the new competitors to do anything -- anything at all other than skim the cream -- they whine and complain about unfair everything is. They'd prefer that Bell simply hand them the keys and walk away, after paying all their bills first of course, and cleaning some of the deadbeats out of their customer base. Don't expect much of anything from the new carriers other than continued wasteful use of telephone numbers and degradation of the existing service. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 12:10:29 PDT From: Erik Florack Subject: Cell Phones and Health Hazards billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) says: > fist@ozemail.com.au (Stewart Fist) wrote: >> Michael Wright (voe@telalink.net) writes: >>> There is no research out there that has established ANY causal >>> relationship between cell phones and brain tumors. >> Complete utter balderdash. Apparently this correspondent can't read. > Please point us (me) to the specific study or studies that hae made > such a conclusion. Just one of the ones I found. This one was obviously snanned in with a OCR. I've corrected the spelling where I've noted problems. From: http://www.shieldworks.com/rfread2.html The ANSI standard has accomplished its intended purpose, so far as cellular telephone users are concerned: their brain tissue is not being cooked! Instead, it seems to be developing cancer under conditions of long-term exposure to the near fields of these low-power transmitters. (The near field lies within a volume having a radius of 1/p2, 1 being the wavelength of the signal.) lhe frequency used by cellular telephone in the USA is in the vicinity of 900 MHz. What is the evidence from elsewhere in the electromagnetic spectrum? In an earlier article (Network News, Holiday Issue 1994), I discussed the historical rise in the incidence of childhood brain cancer suggestive of an urban source that became active in the 1920's, which is when commercial radio broadcasting began in the USA. lhe frequencies employed were in the kilo- and megahertz regions, which are below those now being used for cellular telephones. 'His evidence is suggestive of an association between childhood brain cancer and the fields around amplitude-modulated radio transmitters, but is far &om conclusive. On the other hand, it is quite consistent with the concept that prolonged exposure to the near field of a radio-frequency source is carcinogenic, because these wavelengths are on the order of a mile-long, which means that people living anywhere within 0.15 miles of such a transmitter would be living in its near field. So the evidence from lower radio frequencies is consistent with the concept that the major carcinogenic hazard from a transmitter resides within its near field. ------&<---snip Although the demand for cellular phone service is at a fever pitch, the service providers are encountering obstacles to building the cell sites that are the backbone of their network. A profound global concern has developed over the health and safety issues surrounding proximity to cellular facilities as well as fears of tumbling property values.These fears are not unfounded. A recent study carried out in Sydney, Australia found that children who live in the shadow of television broadcast towers had more than twice the rate of leukemia than those with homes further away from the antennas. "The radio &equency (RF) and microwave (MW) radiation exposures in the study are similar to those emitted by cellular facilities and were up to 1,000 times below many current RF/MW health standards. Dr. Vera Garaj-Vrhovac and co-workers at the University of Zagreb in Croatia, found abnormalities in block lymphocyte chromosomes in Yugoslavia microwave workers. The workers exposure had been over a period of eight to twenty-five years with intensities that are approximately one percent of that currently allowed by the FCC. The same research produced similar chromosome abnormalities in laboratory cultures of mammalian cells at levels of only one-twentieth of the limit currently allowed by the FCC. The length of time these workers were exposed brings home the point that long term, low level effects are cumulative and would similarly affect anyone living near a RF or MW transmitter, such as radar, radio, television or cellular phone towers. The same issue of low level long term exposure was identified as a determining factor in the work of Terry Thomas and co-workers at the National Cancer Institute. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 18:38:00 +0100 From: Michael Hartley Subject: Re: GSM, SIM Cards, International Roamin In message jfmezei wrote: > Furthermore, one must question how much it costs to rent a telephone > without service vs renting one with a local service package. Not all > rental shops at airports may be willing to rent you a telephone > without a sim card (service). Perhaps this will change, or perhaps > this is only isolated cases in certain countries. If only the US had adopted the same frequency and standards as (most of) the rest of the world. More from the UK ... > With so many of the phones being tied to a particular network, and the > GSM networks here operating on two separate frequency allocations (900 > MHz for Cellnet + Vodafone, 1800 MHz for Orange and one2one) I doubt > that many non-UK SIM cards would work ... and you'd find the UK > network operator has no agreement with your home SIM card issuer. Vodafone do operate SIM roaming with one of the US networks, as do Cellnet. It costs a fortune, and I'm not sure which network(s) they have agreements with, or if the arrangement is reciprocal. Check out the web sites, I'm sure they'll make a big splash of it: Cellnot advertised US roaming on UK TV recently but interestingly only added the 'remember to buy or hire a US compatible phone first' warning a few weeks into the campaign (hmm, wonder why they did that. ;=) ) > The networks, as well as being on different frequencies, have had some > different target users -- the lower freq ones offer more international > roaming, True for the moment as there aren't too many 1800 networks around. However dual band phones are very close so you can expect the one2one and Orange to give the other two another good run for their money. Mike Hartley ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 97 08:31:38 EDT Subject: Re: GSM, SIM Cards, International Roaming From: John R. Covert jfmezei wrote: > Furthermore, one must question how much it costs to rent a telephone > without service vs renting one with a local service package. Not all > rental shops at airports may be willing to rent you a telephone > without a sim card (service). The North American GSM subscriber wishing to travel abroad should rent the phone before leaving home from his own carrier. Not only is this much more convenient than having to find the rental shop in a foreign airport, it can also be much cheaper. Omnipoint will rent European phones to its subscribers for $40/month, $70 for three months, and $100 for six months. Compare that to the typical rental shop rate of $90 for the first week and $200 per month and you can pay your year's GSM contract with two short foreign trips! There is the advantage that incoming calls with an in-country SIM card will be charged to the caller, but the disadvantage that you will have to communicate a new number to your correspondents each trip rather than just having them call your home number. Omnipoint's incoming rate while roaming in most of western Europe and major Asian business centers is only $0.99, total price including LD. See www.omnipoint.com. jfmezei is in Canada, so his local carrier is MicroCell Fido. They don't yet have any operational roaming agreements outside North America, but have signed agreements with France and Switzerland and should have them running soon; see www.fido.ca. P Morgan wrote from the UK ... > With so many of the phones being tied to a particular network, and the > GSM networks here operating on two separate frequency allocations (900 > MHz for Cellnet + Vodafone, 1800 MHz for Orange and one2one) I doubt > that many non-UK SIM cards would work ... and you'd find the UK > network operator has no agreement with your home SIM card issuer. That's really not going to be the case. As I've mentioned earlier, Omnipoint already has an operational agreement with Vodaphone -- I've used it; it really works. And since Omnipoint will be the _only_ GSM carrier in New York City, it will be to the advantage of all four UK carriers to get agreements with Omnipoint. Cellnet has already signed, but haven't gone operational, and at least one of the 1800 MHz carriers is working on an agreement with Omnipoint, both probably will. It is to their advantage to be able to offer U.S. roaming to their customers. Since it will be the case in North America that each geographic area will typically only have one single GSM carrier (the other 1900 MHz carriers are in most cases using North American specific technology) every GSM carrier elsewhere in the world will be arranging roaming with the GSM carriers in North America. Canada, for example, will only have Fido, nationwide. Even within Europe the 1800/900 barrier is being broken, with the 1800 MHz carriers rapidly establishing roaming agreements with the 900 MHz carriers in other countries. They have to do this in order to attract local customers as well as to get some of the traffic from visiting roamers. An example of this can be seen with eplus in Germany, the 1800 MHz operator, who have established roaming agreements with 900 MHz companies in several countries, and are offering a phone they call the "Traveler" which supports both 900 and 1800 MHz (looks like probably the Motorola 8800 from the picture on their web site). Their web site is www.eplus.de. They say that they already have agreements with 900 MHz carriers in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and Greece, and are working on agreements in Italy, France, Turkey, Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, Norway, and Portugal. They have had to establish these 900 MHz agreements, because they only have 1800 MHz agreements in England and Switzerland as well as the Helsinki area (900 needed in Finland outside Helsinki) and Singapore. Sometime in the second quarter they expect to add the 1800 MHz carrier in France (note they already have the 900!) as well as Hongkong and Malaysia. The clear plan for GSM is for every carrier to establish a roaming agreement with every other carrier not operating in its own geographic area. Everywhere in the world, and regardless of the frequency band in use. /john ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #134 ******************************