Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA16018; Sun, 5 Oct 1997 20:55:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 20:55:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199710060055.UAA16018@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #273 TELECOM Digest Sun, 5 Oct 97 20:55:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 273 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Bell Atlantic Toll Alerting in Massachusetts (oldbear@arctos.com) Re: Bell Atlantic Toll Alerting in Massachusetts (Leonard Erickson) Re: Cell One / Albany Charging For Incomplete Calls (William H. Bowen) Re: NYS PSC Recommends "Overlay" For New NYC Area Code (Linc Madison) Re: Baltimore's 3-1-1 Service (Nils Andersson) Re: Help With Line Noise Please (Thomas Johnson) Re: 206/425/253 Split, Usual Problems (John David Galt) Re: Toll Free Domains (Judith Oppenheimer) Thanks for the Number (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: The Even Hand of the Law (J.D. Baldwin) Last laugh! Cyberpromo Aquires MCI (Babu Mengelepouti) 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: * telecom-request@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 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. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 11:23:56 -0400 From: The Old Bear Subject: Re: Bell Atlantic Toll Alerting in Massachusetts In TELECOM Digest, Greg Monti wrote: > ... The trouble is, they want BA to implement this in a "general way" > so the people who have the most common type of unlimited local service > get the toll alerting correctly. People who buy the "extended area" > local calling service (which increases the number of prefixes in your > local calling area for an additional monthly fee) would still be > required to dial 11 digits to reach those additional prefixes, even of > the call is local and free, and even if it is in the same area code as > the caller. > *This* is what Bell Atlantic is saying is confusing. That toll > alerting is correct for some people, but not for others. They're > going through all this trouble to re-implement full toll alerting, but > it won't be correct for everybody. BA's position is "why have toll > alerting at all?" They want Massachusets to go to 7 digits for within > area code, 11 digits for outside, both regardless of toll. > Just another reason why toll alerting through dialing plans is a bad > idea. Why not have the recorded sound of a cash register play just > after the last digit is dialed to indicate toll? ... Something is going on with the Bell Atlantic/NYNEX consolidation of billing functions where customers on 'unlimited' dialing plans are suddenly finding themselves improperly billed for calls which should be included in their dialing area. This may be exacerbated by the number of new exchanges being created by the new entrant LECs which are not always located where the LEC indicates that they are. (For example, the LEC may tell a subscriber located in "Smallville" that his new LEC number is a Smallville local call. The subscriber then puts the number in its ads as a "Smallville number," but when customers call it from adjacent Littleburg, they find they are charged for a call to some place outside of their calling area which is not Smallville.) Here are two recent examples [edited] illustrating the problem, which appears to be widespead: > From: Sean Marrett > Subject: Bell Atlantic inflating cost to access ISP > Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 12:58:36 -0400 > Organization: NMR Center - Mass. Gen. Hospital > I recently received a bill from Bell Atlantic that had a nasty > surprise: $175.00 for zone 2 calls. After an hour or so on the > phone with them (very polite folks), they adjusted the bill so that > the zone 2 charges became zone 1 (other). > We had been using the Quincy number for my ISP, which is zone 1 > (other) for me. But, all calls to my ISP are carried to their > Bedford operations center - (which is zone 2) - by the an LEC which > provides their number in Quincy. Customer service at my ISP assures > me that they pay for the forwarding from Quincy - but I'm scared of > what my next bill will look like - even if I only use Cambridge, > Brookline or Boston access numbers. > Has anyone had similar experiences with their ISP and/or with Bell > Atlantic/Nynex? I'm especially interested in knowing if anyone had > this happen to them with a local call. and: > From: annbal9@thecia.net (Ann) > Subject: Re: Bell Atlantic inflating cost to access ISP > Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 21:10:57 GMT > Organization: TheCIA - Complete Internet Access > I had called NYNEX back in April about my ISP's listed the numbers, > and I made sure they would be within my circle dialing (20 mile > radius). I was using a Weymouth number, I have a Hanover exchange. > NYNEX assured me it was. Everything was fine until my July bill, I > guess that's when Bell Atlantic took over. My phone bill for the > period July 16 to August 15 was $194, $140 of it was calls to my ISP > at the Weymouth number! > When I called on August 24, the woman was very nice, and agreed that > the number should have been a free dial for me. (I guess she later > found out she was wrong, but she did adjust my bill.) She told me I > would have to call regarding the August 16-Sept 15 bill because she > couldn't adjust it until it had been issued. She credited me the > $140. > I got the next bill, and called again, got a different woman. She > was definitely NOT nice, and told me that "Bell Atlantic wouldn't > continue to give me free phone service." I explained to her that I > changed the number I was using as of August 24, and referred her to > what the other woman had told me. She was so abusive, it was > unbelievable, she ended up hanging up on me! I called back and got > a nice young man on the phone, who apologized for her treatment of > me. He saw that I had stopped using the offending number (which > Bell Atlantic recognizes as a Boston phone number only). He gave me > the $75.00 credit I was looking for. > Moral here is to recheck all those numbers your ISP says are local > calls, if they have foreign exchanges, in other words exchanges that > don't match the other exchanges in the town you are supposed to be > calling, call Bell Atlantic to be sure they aren't toll calls for you. ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Bell Atlantic Toll Alerting in Massachusetts Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 23:06:49 PST Organization: Shadownet Greg Monti writes: > The trouble is, they want BA to implement this in a "general way" so > the people who have the most common type of unlimited local service > get the toll alerting correctly. People who buy the "extended area" > local calling service (which increases the number of prefixes in your > local calling area for an additional monthly fee) would still be > required to dial 11 digits to reach those additional prefixes, even of > the call is local and free, and even if it is in the same area code as > the caller. > *This* is what Bell Atlantic is saying is confusing. That toll > alerting is correct for some people, but not for others. They're > going through all this trouble to re-implement full toll alerting, but > it won't be correct for everybody. BA's position is "why have toll > alerting at all?" They want Massachusets to go to 7 digits for within > area code, 11 digits for outside, both regardless of toll. > Just another reason why toll alerting through dialing plans is a bad > idea. Why not have the recorded sound of a cash register play just > after the last digit is dialed to indicate toll? Why not do like US West does here in Oregon? We get "full toll alerting", and it works for basic service *and* for all three (or is it four?) levels of "extended area" calling. It's doable that way and *not* confusing. It may require some extra programming in the phone switch, but it *is* doable. I suspect that many of the folks who are against "toll alerting" have never had to deal with equipment that dials numbers from a directory maintained elsewhere. With such a setup, you want the default to be trying to dial 7 digits if the exchange isn't explicitly listed in the translation table as a "local" prefix. That way you don't inadvertently make LD calls. There are other reasons as well. Things like the fact that *nobody* can keep track of which exchanges are local and which aren't if you live in a large metro area. The phone book lists are typically *two* years out of date. And trying to find out where an exchange that doesn't belong to your LEC is can be *very* frustrating ... Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ From: bowenb@best.com (William H. Bowen) Subject: Re: Cell One / Albany Charging For Incomplete Calls Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 18:03:43 GMT Reply-To: bowenb@best.com Douglas Reuben wrote: > I recently reviewed a series of bills for our company detailing > roaming charges in the Cellular One/Albany, NY (00063) system. > It seems that for ALL of our accounts, EVERY call, even unanswered > calls of a few seconds, are being billed! Douglas, Boy am I getting a case of deja vu!!! This used to be a really rampant problem -- sorry to see it still is. In the LA market, both carriers charge for all unanswered calls (busies, RNA, etc.) at 1/2 the one minute rate (if the one minute rate is $.50, you'll get charged $.25 for a non-answered call). On one hand I can see the carrier's point: you ARE tying up the system with the call, even if it is not answered. But, on the other hand, the airtime rates charged in CA are so far out of line that it more than makes up for the airtime they lose in non-answered calls. Another "ugly secret" on cellular calls that most carriers don't admit unless you really press them: on a landline call, you only get billed time (either local for measured service or toll) once the called party answers - you don't pay for the time necessary to setup the call and for the calling party to actually get to their phone and answer it. On the other hand, on cellular calls, the meter is running from the instant you hit the "send" button on your cell phone until you hit the "end" button, INCLUDING call setup and teardown time. As with charging for un-answered calls, the carrier's argument is that you have a channel tied up. . > We have accounts with a number of "A" carriers from Boston, NYC, > Connecticut, Vermont, California, New Orleans, and New Jersey. All of > them reflected both incoming and outgoing calls which no one answered > and were significantly less than 45 seconds. Check your CA bills VERY carefully - a word to the wise by someone that got screwed by LA Cellular regularly! > Additionally, I was billed a $3 (daily charge) and $.99 on our Boston > (CO/Boston, 00007 account, not to mention their "Pizza Fund" rip-off > $4 "roamer administration charge" -- I've already cancelled two > accounts with them as a result of this outrageous charge and moved > them over to Bell Atlantic and AT&T), and $.99 on our Bell Atlantic/CT > 00119 bill, for the privilege of entering "*350" to turn on call > delivery! A genuine ripoff if there ever was one. <<<>>>> > If you roam in the Albany A system, or have in the past few months, > you may want to check your bill(s) for incomplete/unanswered calls and > contact your local carrier if you feel you were incorrectly charged. This doesn't go just for Albany - damn near every month I was with LA Cellular they tried to "slip one by me" (and I was with them for nearly five years). On the other hand, I must give GTE Wireless in the Bay Area credit for having never tried to screw me in the four years I've been with them. Regards, Bill Bowen bowenb@best.com Daly City, CA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I must say reading all the cellular phone 'horror stories' which come my way every day makes me really appreciate Ameritech Cellular. They are not that expensive, they do not have outrageous roaming fees in any of their five state region, and I have never had a billing error. Now, I actually get my service through Frontier Communications, which is a reseller of cellular service from Ameritech and the good customer service is a function of Frontier, however when I have had occassion to call Ameritech direct to clear up some small problem or another, they have been very courteous and effecient also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: NYS PSC Recommends "Overlay" For New NYC Area Code Date: Fri, 03 Oct 1997 12:30:43 -0700 Organization: No unsolicited commercial e-mail! In article , Danny Burstein wrote: > As an FYI, I testified at one of the public hearings, in favor of an > overlay (as opposed to to a geographic split). > I added two suggestions to the overlay concept: > b) I also requested that instead of using the plebian area > code of "6-4-6" which is kind of a throw-away, that they adopt the > "6-9-2" one and overlay it citywide. I felt this would be particularly > fitting for NYC and might even generate its own demand... Area code 692 is not assignable for any purpose, and New York City is not going to get a waiver on that. *ALL* area codes with '9' as the middle digit are reserved for future expansion of the numbering plan. My personal spin on the future expansion is to insert a '9' in the area code -- for example, 718 becomes 7918 -- and insert a '3' at the front of the rest of the number (555-0012 becomes 3555-0012) to make a 12-digit number. For more on that plan, see Assigning 692 to New York would conflict with, for example, 626 in the San Gabriel Valley (northeast side of L.A.). Of course, 626 would've been a nice choice for MANhattan, but it's too late now. Anyway, just think of all the gay chat lines you can have in Manhattan's new M-4-M area code ... ** Do not spam e-mail me! ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best-com >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must change "NOSPAM" to "com" << ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 04:46:53 -0400 From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Baltimore's 3-1-1 Service In article , The Old Bear writes: > This came to me from Robert Vroman who > particiaptes in an Emergency Services Discussion List. He says > original source was the {New York Times} web site on 10/2/97. > I personally find this a worrysome idea. It would seem that the 911 > staff should be able to better triage incoming calls. I wonder what > will happens when someone calls 3-1-1 because they only have a "small > fire" or didn't want to call the regular 9-1-1 number because they > were not absolutely sure they were having a heart attack. The fact > that Baltimore was dispatching emergency personnel to non-emergency > situations sounds more like a staff training problem in their dispatch > center than any kind of techn You know, we could really use a FLAT number, one per area code, I would suggest in the 555 series. Here is the scenario: I am talking to an elderly relative on the phone. I suddenly hear a set of gasps, and end up with a silent line. I am on the opposite coast, or out of the country. If there were a regular number of e.g. the format 212-555-1111, I could call it at the end where the emergency existed, and get help. I realize that it could not be as narrowly targeted as local 911, but area codes are getting geographically smaller through splits all the time. Any takers? Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: Thomas Johnson Subject: Re: Help With Line Noise Please Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 09:59:09 -0400 Organization: Erol's Internet Services Jonathan I. Kamens wrote: > My wife and I just bought a house, and in the process of undoing the > phone-wiring madness the previous tenants inflicted on it, I've > learned a few important tricks for reducing noise on phone lines (I've > tried to list them in order from most to least important, as I see > them): Thanks for sharing your experience about phone wiring in old houses. I live in an old house, but the wiring may not be the problem. I tried to download a huge file from Microsoft yesterday. I know that signals are sent from the originator (in this case New York, Washington, D.C. and Redmond, Cal. were all involved at one point or another) to the recipient via available computers used as relay stations, and the route information travels may change as better avenues become available. Each computer is responsible for its own segment of the package. If it drops it in transmission, a signal is sent back to the originator and the segment is resent. From watching the numbers (indicating progress) on my screen go up upand down, it occurred that lines were being dropped quite frequently, and the delivery was never going to be completed. After three or four hours and three restarts, I decided to save my electricity. The problem could be caused by heavy traffic on Saturday and Saturday night (although I have experienced the same thing on week nights with smaller packages) or it could be that the wiring in the local region is not upgraded as much as need be. Do you have any ideas on this? Thanks for any advice. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Subject: Re: 206/425/253 Split, Usual Problems Date: 5 Oct 1997 06:50:58 GMT Organization: Sacratomato Cynics Tad Cook quotes his paper as saying: > Puget Sound Business Are Frustrated with Temperamental New Area Codes > By Cynthia Flash, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. > Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News > TACOMA, Wash.--Oct. 3--Time is running out to fix any bugs associated with > the Puget Sound's new 253 and 425 area codes. > And with just six weeks before the new codes become the only option around, > some glitches do still exist. > The folks at Information Technologies Corp. in Puyallup report that some of > their customers from around the United States still can't get through using > 253. > "If you use 253, you may or may not get your calls. If you use 206, you may > or may not get your calls," said a frustrated employee of the company, > which offers courses on such topics as how to collect judicial judgments > and child support. A modest proposal: Telco switches should be programmed to poll each other, like machines on the Internet do. I don't see that it would be any great load on the network if each switch polled one 'upstream' neighbor (or a central source if 'upstream' isn't a meaningful term) once a week or even once a month to retrieve any new area codes and prefixes. Better yet, when a customer dials one the switch doesn't know about, have it poll a 'name server' immediately. This would eliminate the problem totally. (To eliminate the problem of 'spoofing' as was done to the Net earlier this year, I wouldn't give this 'DNS' full authority to edit the tables in your local switch -- only to provide _new_ area codes and prefixes.) John David Galt ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 09:15:18 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Reply-To: joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com Organization: ICB TOLL FREE - 800/888 news... commentary... consulting... Subject: Re: Toll Free Domains Greg, it's like real estate. If every time someone wanted a house, a new one had to be built because no one was allowed to sell an existing one, we'd all be pushed into the ocean by now. However, just as we build taller buildings - we will probably inevitably go to eight digits somewhere down the road, in which grandfathering the seven digit 800's would "shelve" a mere drop in the bucket. Judith 800/888 ICB TOLL FREE NEWS 800/888 ...today's regulatory news for tomorrow's marketing decisions. TRY US FREE FOR 15 DAYS !!! http://icbtollfree.com (ph) 212 684-7210. (fx) 212 684-2714. 1 800 THE EXPERT. ICB Headlines Autosponder: mailto:headlines@icbtollfree.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 19:59:34 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Thanks for the Number My thanks go to the two or three dozen of you who wrote me in response to my request for the modem number at NAVOBS. PAT ------------------------------ From: baldwin@netcom.com (J.D. Baldwin) Subject: Re: The Even Hand of the Law Organization: Revealed on a need-to-know basis. Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 16:01:13 GMT In article , The Old Bear wrote: > From what I can tell from this wire-service story, it looks like > the court made the correct legal decision -- my personal feelings > notwithstanding. Her personal feelings notwithstanding, as well! As your article points out, the judge herself denounced Cyberpromo's business practices. In fact, the ruling could have been much, much worse and still been within the bounds of the law. The AGIS agreement with Cyberpromo requires AGIS to give 30 days' notice before termination, and all she did was say that Cyberpromo had to get their service back until Oct. 16th. Note that this retroactively counts the initial disconnect as the commencement of "notice," and gives Spamford no credit whatsoever for the days he's already lost. There's been a lot of loose talk about "spamming" or otherwise harassing this judge. Leave her alone, or congratulate and thank her. She did the right thing, and then some. This decision is a major victory for the anti-spammers, and quite unlikely to be appealed, since it grants Spamford pretty much the relief he asked for. Spamford was also required to post a $12,500 bond before being reconnected. As of noon EDT on Friday, October 3: traceroute to ns7.cyberpromo.com (205.199.2.250), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 192.100.81.254 (192.100.81.254) 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 2 sjx-ca-gw1.netcom.net (163.179.1.29) 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 3 h2-0-1-mae-west.netcom.net (163.179.233.214) 10 ms 7 ms 6 ms 4 mae-west.agis.net (198.32.136.21) 15 ms 18 ms 15 ms 5 * * * 6 * * * ... and so forth. > I place more blame on AGIS and its counsel for not having prepared and > negotiated a document with better protection of AGIS under these > circumstances. Supposedly, AGIS requires that its spammers adhere to the IEMMC guidelines. It is trivially demonstrable that Spamford is not living up to the letter of these guidelines in any way whatsoever, nor has he made the slightest bit of effort to ensure that his customers do so. Ergo, Cyberpromo is in breach, QED. To my knowledge (mostly gleaned from news accounts posted and summarized in nana.*), AGIS did not even attempt to make this argument. Where *did* they get their legal counsel? From the catapult of J.D. Baldwin |+| "If anyone disagrees with anything I _,_ Finger baldwin@netcom.com |+| say, I am quite prepared not only to _|70|___:::)=}- for PGP public |+| retract it, but also to deny under \ / key information. |+| oath that I ever said it." --T. Lehrer ***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 12:57:59 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Last laugh! Cyberpromo Aquires MCI Dateline-New York: Trading in MCI was temporarily halted today when a public announcement that Cyber Promotions had beaten out competition from Worldcomm and British Telecom to acquire MCI. CP reportedly won the bidding war by offering 650 billion shares in Cyber Promotions stock and a dozen cases of SPAM to each member of MCI's board. Wall Street was taken completely offguard by this development although it has been rumoured on the street that CP's president has been looking for a means to secure sufficient communication capacity to accomodate the corporation's present and future requirements. The merger will see the creation of SpaMCI. CP's president, contacted at company headquarters in Papua New Guinea, had no comment. Cyber promotions can be contacted at it's email address: Spamford@lawsuit.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #273 ******************************