Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA25892; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 00:30:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 00:30:04 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199706030430.AAA25892@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #146 TELECOM Digest Tue, 3 Jun 97 00:30:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 146 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ten-Digit Dialing in Houston (Tad Cook) Looking For V.35 Sync Hardware and Software (Vernon Harvey) ESS Computer Architecture? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Where to Put 100,000 Cell Phone Towers? (John R. Levine) Re: Where to Put 100,000 Cell Phone Towers? (Bill Sohl) Re: Legal Recourse Against Spammers (Bill Turner) Re: Of Course, If You Buy the Non-AOL Users Mailing List (James Bellaire) Re: Of Course, If You Buy the Non-AOL Users Mailing List (John R. Levine) Re: Of Course, If You Buy the Non-AOL Users Mailing List (Andrew Crawford) 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: Ten-Digit Dialing in Houston Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 16:13:55 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) In Houston, 7-Digit Dialing's Days Numbered BY DWIGHT SILVERMAN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 1--Ready or not, here comes 281. Beginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, making a call between the 713 and 281 area codes will require dialing all 10 digits -- the area code and the phone number. Since November, Southwestern Bell's phone system has been extremely forgiving -- callers have had the choice of dialing seven or 10 digits when calling between the new 281 and the old 713 area codes. But if you try that after Saturday, in most cases you'll get a recording saying you've reached a number that's not working, and you'll be told to redial with the correct area code. Most calls between 713 and 281 will not incur long-distance charges, unless the numbers were toll calls before the switchover. It's the final step in a long process that began three years ago and took a sudden left turn when state regulators told Southwestern Bell they didn't like the way it was implementing area codes in Houston and Dallas. And it's only the beginning. At least two more area codes will be launched in Houston before the century ends. "This is not going to make people happy," said Texas Public Utility Commission spokeswoman Leslie Kjellstrand. "But not having phone numbers is not going to make people happy, either." Roughly half the area's residents and businesses have had to change their area code to 281, forcing them to alter stationery, forms, signage, advertising and business cards. They've also had to reprogram phone switchboards, fax machines, autodialers and computer modems. "We're ready," said Bill Jackson, owner of Palace Doors and Glass, a small business near Tomball. "We have already changed all our signs, business cards and stationery -- the whole bit. We took care of it just as soon as we knew it was going to happen." That area-code vigilance came at a price, though -- about $400 to $500. "I see a lot of people with their truck signs that still say 713," said Jackson. "They still haven't changed them. They are not on the ball like we are." On the opposite side of the 281 area code last week, Ken LeBlanc was reprogramming the speed-dialing equipment at Clear Lake Flowers and Gifts. "We've been aware of it for some time, because we transmit orders to other cities," LeBlanc said. "This is going on all over the country. It is the wave of the future." Although the situation is complex, the problem is simple -- the 713 area code has run out of phone numbers. Growth in the Houston region, combined with a demand for second home phone lines, extra business lines, pagers, fax machines and computer modems, has been gobbling available numbers at an increasing rate. The demand for phone numbers is going to get worse when competitors enter the local phone market, said Kjellstrand, and new phone services are made available. The situation in Houston is not unique -- more than 70 new area codes are being added around the country this year alone. New codes were recently implemented in North Texas, around the Fort Worth area and in the Texas Hill Country. In California alone this year, five new area codes will be created. Another five are scheduled to take effect next year. The 281 area, which has been formally in place since November, covers the outer part of a loop very roughly defined by the Sam Houston Tollway -- 281 dips below parts of the tollway to the north, while 713 extends beyond the tollway in some western parts of town. The addition of 281 is only a temporary fix. Both 713 and 281 will run out of numbers by early 1999, and the Texas Public Utility Commission is considering plans that could add two or more area codes to Houston by mid-1998. Kjellstrand said everything is on the table in those discussions, including one or more overlay plans, the original design for 281 rejected by the commission last year. In an overlay, two or more area codes exist side by side, without regard to geography. The benefit to overlays, say phone system experts, is that they last longer. On the other hand, in an overlay system all phone numbers are dialed as 10 digits. When Southwestern Bell was arguing for an overlay for 281 and the 972 area code in Dallas, company officials pitched it as less confusing for callers. They said no one would have to change phone numbers, and those making phone calls would not have to figure out whether to dial the area code for a specific number -- all calls would require an area code. But the commission disagreed. It cited 10-digit dialing, along with other factors, in ordering Bell in May 1996 use a more traditional geographic split of existing area codes. Kjellstrand said developments in phone technology have since made an overlay less onerous. For example, it's now easier for phone customers to take their numbers with them -- a process called number portability -- if they change local phone service providers (which customers will be able to do in the near future). But that still would not prevent neighbors, or even two phone lines in the same house, from having different area codes. Southwestern Bell ran out of 713 numbers in spring 1996 and began issuing 281 numbers both to its customers and to other phone service providers. As a result, there are duplicate numbers in the 713 and 281 area codes and there are 281 numbers sitting in the geographic area of 713. Those numbers will be switched over to 713 by the end of the year, Bell spokesman Chris Talley said. Under permissive dialing, which has been in effect since last fall, anyone who places a call in Houston using just seven digits automatically gets the 713 number. That works fine, unless you're among the tens of thousands of people with duplicate numbers. If you are and you have a 281 number, then callers have had to dial the area code to reach you. In effect, the people with those 281 duplicates have been using their phones for months the way most Houstonians will starting Saturday. Holly Polgue, an assignments editor for the TV news operation at Channel 26, is one of them. She was given a 281 number when she moved into a home in Alief about a month ago. She must dial 713 before all numbers in that area code if she wants her calls to go through. "It's not really difficult, but I've been there about a month, and I still have to think about it every time I use the phone," Polgue said. "It's a little wacky." Polgue said she's had the most problems with people who call her from out of town and don't realize that she has a 281 number. The 713 duplicate of her phone number isn't assigned, so callers get a recording saying the number isn't in service. The permissive dialing period was designed to get people used to the idea of dialing the new area code and to encourage people to start using the area code when calling between 713 and 281. But despite the fact that every phone call in the Bell system is logged, company officials can't say how many calls are being made now with the area code dialed first. Talley said those numbers can't be extracted in a meaningful way from the company's computers. "We'd like to get those numbers, too," he said. On Saturday, if too many callers try to dial between 713 and 281 without first dialing the area code, it's possible the phone system could suffer problems, said Ed Frisa, Southwestern Bell's area manager for network maintenance. In a worst-case scenario, Frisa said, "it could have a severe effect on the dialing ability of our customers." That would include lots of busy-circuits messages as recordings advising callers to dial the area code are swamped, he said. It may not take that much for an overload to occur. In Dallas, which just went to mandatory area-code dialing in April, as few as six incorrectly dialed calls into some phone company switches caused problems, said Bell spokesman Bill Palen. But, Palen said, the cutover was "so smooth, it was a non-event." Part of the reason was because of the way permissive dialing was set up in Dallas. In Dallas, callers who dialed a number using only seven digits during permissive dialing defaulted to the 214 area code. If a number was duplicated in both 214 and 972, the call was routed to the number in the caller's area code. If the duplicate number wasn't assigned, the caller got a recording saying to try the other area code. In Houston, all seven-digit calls default to the 713 area code. "People in Dallas were used to the recordings, so it went very well," Palen said. "There was some congestion in the phone network the weekend it began. By the following Wednesday, calling levels were back to normal." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So the weekend has come and gone. How did the cutover work out? Were there the massive problems with the system the author implies may have occurred if large numbers of people misdialed? PAT] ------------------------------ From: vharvey@rydex.com (Vernon Harvey) Subject: Looking For V.35 Sync Hardware and Software Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 14:42:39 -0800 Organization: KTK Communications Ltd. (SmarttNet, http://www.smartt.com) Reply-To: vharvey@rydex.com I was wondering if anyone can recommend synchronous hardware and software for the OS/2 Warp, Windows 3.x and Windows NT 4.0 environments. I am looking for a single port card. Basically, our company provides ship/shore communications solutions for e-mail, and the new NERA satellite terminals have a high speed data channel which uses V.35 synchronous communications. The ships are usually running Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. On the shore side, we currently come into either an OS/2 Warp or a Windows NT system which is running our mail server. Multi-port cards for the OS/2 and NT side may be necessary in some cases, but on the ship side, we only need a single port card. Needless to say, API toolkits and drivers are required for all these platforms. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Please post or e-mail responses to vharvey@rydex.com Regards, Vernon Harvey Rydex Industries Corporation. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: ESS Computer Architecture? Date: 3 Jun 1997 02:37:41 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS I'm a business application computer programmer (COBOL, BASIC, etc.) and I always wondered what it was like to program Electronic Switching Systems. I've seen articles describing the logical organization of different ESS components, but nothing describing the programming language itself that they use. Could anyone answer the following questions? 1) What does the basic instruction set of an ESS look like? (This would be equivalent to the Assembler language for the machine -- the most basic programmable instructions.) I would assume they have the usual LOAD, STORE, ADD computer instructions, but do they have specialized instructions for call handling? That is, somehow the switch has to be programmed to send out ringing current to the called party, and a ringing signal to the calling party. Is this instruction set unique to an ESS, or is it similar to other computers? 2) When they program an ESS, do they use the basic assembler language, or do they have higher level languages to make it easier? If so, what are the higher level languages like? 3) I assume the basic call handling is programmed by the switch manufacturer. Settings for the application for the local exchange are placed in by the phone company -- I assume the phone company does NOT have to program the machine in native language. Is this correct? 4) Do the various kinds of switches (ie AT&T current models, older Western Electric models, Automatic Electric and DSS models) all use the same or similar machine architecture, or are each proprietary? Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 1997 15:44:26 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Where to Put 100,000 Cell Phone Towers? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > Since PCS is really being rolled out as a deluxe cellular service > today, even the number of towers needed is less than 800 MHz, > analog cellular, since digital is more robust ... I was under the impression that since PCS uses much higher frequencies than AMPS, the maximum cell size is considerably smaller. In cities, that's not much of an issue, since the cells are far less than the maximum size and in cities you tend to have plenty of places to hang an antenna. Out here in the boondocks, every antenna tends to sit on a large ugly tower on top of a hill, and siting them is very contentious. (The biggest current political issue in the Town of Ulysses where I live is just this, whether to let Frontier build a large cell tower in a farmer's field. A lot of us don't see any reason they can't colocate with Cell One's tower across the lake.) The AMPS cells are very large, 10 miles or more across, but PCS can't do that so you'd need considerably more towers to provide complete coverage. 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: billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) Subject: Re: Where to Put 100,000 Cell Phone Towers? Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 01:06:27 GMT Organization: BL Enterprises Barry Margolin wrote: > In article , The Old Bear > wrote: >> More than 300 communities already have revolted, imposing moratoria >> on cell tower construction, and the movement is growing. > My town newspaper has had several articles recently on the > negotiations taking place with PCS companies. If my interpretation is > correct, the law doesn't allow communities to prevent tower > construction. It varies from state to state, but generally the community can not outright ban towers as you note. > However, it does allow them to specify where the towers may be > constructed, Usually by specifyng them as allowed in commercial zoning areas. > and negotiate payment for the use of town property. If the tower is, in fact, on town property. There's nothing that forces any town to allow township property to be used for such purposes. > Although there's some NIMBY feeling, allowing towers to be > installed on places like fire stations is apparently seen as a > money-making proposition. My town has leases for antennas placed by several cellular and pager companies on township water tanks. Bill Sohl (K2UNK) billsohl@planet.net Internet & Telecommunications Consultant/Instructor Budd Lake, New Jersey ------------------------------ From: Bill Turner Subject: Re: Legal Recourse Against Spammers Date: 2 Jun 1997 16:41:55 GMT Organization: Amateur Radio Station WB4ALM Reply-To: wb4alm@gte.net John Diamant wrote: > Protecting people from spamming is nowhere to be found in federal > powers. If you make some vague argument about interstate commerce, > let me point out that it would have no validity to spam sent > entirely within a single state. Even if the ISP was in another state? Drawing a "verrry thin line", it occurs to me that the "no validity" would apply only if no portion of the message crossed a state border. I would think that Internet, by definition, has to be "Interstate Commerce". Now that might not be true for an INTRANET, but if you are receiving SPAM on an INTRANET, you probably have other, much bigger, problems. But I would like to get rid of the commercial spammers and the non-profit fund raisers, and the religous messages, and ... Damn, that is a big list isn't it? Which of course, is why it is so hard to define ... I was going to say that the way I define SPAM is getting something I didn't ask for, but that would then prevent "unknown others" from emailing me with requests for Technical help -- which I generally don't mind receiving. Back to the drawing board. /s/ Bill Turner, wb4alm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 06:48:53 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Of Course, If You Buy the Non-AOL Users Mailing List ... Henry mensch suggested: > Of Course, If You Buy the Non-AOL Users Mailing List ... > ... and you make it available freely on the web ... then having $60 > won't be the gating factor to send anyone on that list junk mail > anymore. In turn, this could open the floodgates to those folks > listed on that list. How about incorporating the list in a server side application, say a web page or 'finger' port, that allowed a user to type in an address and have a result message displayed reflecting the results. ie: "The address you entered is not part of the 'Non-AOL' address list" or "The address you entered is part of the 'Non-AOL' address list, for class action suit information, visit " The user would need to be able to trust the application's maintainer, lest it become a way to add your name to yet another spam list. And whoever ends up with the list would need trusted status with their service provider to set up any kind of server side application. I suppose the seller of the list could just mark it "(c)1997, display or retransmission of this list prohibited." Then they could take the poster to court if they used it other to send email. Now that would be an interesting case. A spammer as plaintiff. James E. Bellaire (JEB6) bellaire@tk.com Telecom Indiana Webpage http://www.iquest.net/~bellaire/telecom/ ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 1997 15:46:41 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Of Course, If You Buy the Non-AOL Users Mailing List ... Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > ... and you make it available freely on the web ... then having $60 > won't be the gating factor to send anyone on that list junk mail > anymore. In turn, this could open the floodgates to those folks > listed on that list. Good point. I'd suggest computing the MD5 checksum of each name and putting the list of checksums on the web. If you want to check a particular name, you compute its MD5 checksum using any of several freely available programs and see if that checksum is in the list. This lets people see if they're on the spam list without revealing the contents of the list to anyone. If the IEMMC were honest and competent, they'd do something similar. Sadly, I see little evidence of either. 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 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:28:52 GMT From: Andrew Crawford Subject: Re: Of Course, If You Buy the Non-AOL Users Mailing List ... > ... and you make it available freely on the web ... then having $60 > won't be the gating factor to send anyone on that list junk mail > anymore. In turn, this could open the floodgates to those folks > listed on that list. That's true - but what if someone - someone in the UK, say - was to send "remove me" emails "from" each of those addresses? I speak hypothetically of course. Also hypothetically, someone might also send several thousand "add me" emails with bogus "from" addresses. It would be quite easily done in a few lines of PERL ... I could never condone that, of course, but if the list turns out to contain "treb@euitew.com" you'll maybe have some idea why. There's a lot to be said for fighting fire with fire. I don't think any spammer could seriously complain about receiving unsolicited emails with fake "from" addresses ... Andrew [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't think spammers have much to complain about at all. Some would say, 'you do not fight fire with fire, you fight fire with a fire extinquisher ...' and that is a very good theoretical solution, but it seems to me things have gotten so bad there is very little time left for the net as a respectable and decent medium for the public anyway, so it might just as well all go out in a blaze of glory with email logjams and network con- gestion the likes of which has never been seen before. Just bring it all to a screaming halt so no traffic can get anywhere. To do that, you would start by wreaking havoc on their mailers. I suggest you sic their autoresponders on each other. Compile some massive, hellish, humongous spam files for mailing. Carefully 'adjust' the header so that it is 'From ' and 'From:' with a Message-ID appropriate to the sender. Next set the 'To: ' line to . If you want to add a few 'bcc: still.more.autoresponders@different.places' go right ahead. Better to make them bcc instead of cc so they won't ever know for sure what is coming or going. Now with your missive prepared, dump it in the stream. Naturally you won't want to use conventional email programs; far better to get everything prepared and then telnet to their sendmail socket. That will help prevent a lot of information from getting into the header that you don't want them to see. Telnet over to whatever socket it is, get their HELO and hand them a load of crap sure to generate a few thousand responses in each direction by the time they wake up in the morning, notice the mess and start killing off processes, etc. It would be a good idea to coordinate this so that a couple dozen of their autoresponders were all involved, answering each other from all directions all night long. The other day I suggested starting a mailing list of spammers, and simply remailing all spam received to every name on the list. The trouble with this, as Bill Pfieffer pointed out to me is that so many of the addresses they provide are bogus that within a short time your own mailer would be overloaded handling mail daemons. Better to leave yourself out of the loop ... I suppose you could write a script however that would take incoming spam and route it back out using the techniques I mentioned above, randomly selecting two or more autoresponders each time around. God only knows where it would all end. Be sure and include a line or two saying that the autoresponders can take themselves off of future mailings any time they want by putting the word 'remove' in the subject line. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #146 ******************************