Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA21782; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 00:05:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 00:05:10 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199710090405.AAA21782@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #276 TELECOM Digest Thu, 9 Oct 97 00:05:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 276 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Wall Street Journal: Electric Outlets Could Be Link To Internet (Editor) AT&T Wireless Long Distance? (Celeste Tyree) Pay Phone Rates May Go Up After Deregulation (Monty Solomon) WhoWhere Announcement (Eric Florack) Outside Plant Issues (Warrens Stiles) Question About PacBell SuperTrunk ANI (William Dietrich) Book Review: "Shockwave Studio" by Schmitt (Rob Slade) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Wall Street Journal: Electric Outlets Could Be Link To Internet Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 09:36:59 -0700 This report which appeared in WSJ on October 7 bears some discussion by Digest readers. --------------------------- Electric Outlets Could Be Link To the Internet By Gautam Naik The Wall Street Journal 10/07/97 LONDON -- Engineers claim to have developed a breakthrough technology that would let homeowners make phone calls and access the Internet at high speeds via the electric outlets in their walls. If the technology developed by United Utilities PLC and Northern Telecom Ltd. proves commercially viable, it could transform power lines around the world into major conduits on the information superhighway. Because electricity flows into virtually every home and office the new technology could give power companies easy entree into the phone and Internet access businesses, thus posing a serious threat to current providers of those services. Both United Utilities, a power company, and Northern Telecom, a Canadian maker of telecom gear, confirmed that their system was "ready for the mass market," but declined to reveal details until a news conference scheduled for tomorrow. A Northern Telecom spokesman also declined to elaborate. While the technology must still be proven on a large scale, the two companies have tested telephone service over power lines in about 20 U.K. households over the last 12 months -- with positive results, according to Alistair Henderson, chief of technology at Energis PLC, the telecom unit of National Grid Group PLC, which owns and operates the electricity-transmission system in England and Wales. Energis, one of several power companies that has secretly worked with United Utilities on the "power line telephony" project, hopes to use the system to offer data services to its own business customers. "It's very good news for utilities, indeed," says Mr. Henderson. "Everybody has an electricity line to their homes, and every business has electric supply. "At long last, the local monopoly of the incumbent telecom operators is about to be demolished." But some questions remain. Although United Utilities' initial tests have been successful, technical and safety wrinkles have to be ironed out. There's also likely to be intensifying competition from a host of other wanna-be phone and Internet service providers, including cable companies and outfits that use wireless technology to provide high-speed access. And for the new system to be commercially feasible, a power utility would have to sign up 40% or more of homes and offices in a particular neighborhood, Mr. Henderson says. This could prove a difficult task as existing telecommunications players have proven to be adept at making life hard for new entrants. The Baby Bells in the U.S., for example, have largely thwarted efforts by AT&T Corp. and MCI Communications Corp. to enter the local telephone business. In recent years electric utilities in the U.S. and Europe have been trying to enter the telecom fray by the more conventional method of stringing fiber-optic cables along power lines. But so far they've had limited success. As a result, utilities have waited for exactly this kind of breakthrough to make a big splash in the telecom wars. While electric lines have been used before to zap tiny amounts of data between computers, their capacity has always been limited, making commercial applications unfeasible. Now United Utilities' telecom arm, Norweb Communications, has found a way to transmit data at a speed of more than 384 kilobits per second over regular electricity lines -- more than 10 times the speed of Internet modems used by most households with regular telephone lines. The advantage of the latest system -- which uses cellular phone technology to transmit signals along electric wires -- is that utilities needn't spend vast amounts of to build new telecom infrastructure, since existing power lines can simultaneously transmit both electricity, and a phone call, say. Electricity doesn't interfere with the phone transmission for the same reason that a radio broadcast doesn't interfere with a simultaneous TV broadcast: the frequencies are very different. "Utilities won't have to touch the wires underground," notes Mr. Henderson. Of course, there will be some cost to utilities that want to commercialize the new technology and enter the telecom business. Utilities will have to install a device in each residence or office to separate the electricity and phone transmissions. From the device, one line will deliver the telephone and Internet link, while the other will deliver electricity. In the case of the two companies' test, Northern Telecom is believed to have built the box that separates the power and data transmissions. Jennifer Schenker contributed to this article. ------------------------------ From: Celeste Tyree Subject: AT&T Wireless Long Distance? Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 13:52:05 -0700 Dear Pat, WARNING! WARNING! This is for all the cell phone users that were so excited about getting their new Digital phones and did not worry about who their long distance carrier. Here is what the latest scam is from AT&T Wireless. In the past I have had no problem getting my residential rates on my cellular phones. Yes, I did use a reseller for my analog service. When I signed up with Airtouch I requested that they pick AT&T for my carrier. I then called AT&T and asked that they add my new number to my account. No problem. About three weeks later MCI called with a better rate. Okay, I switch and I called Airtouch to let them know. Then AT&T called again with an even better deal "free minutes". Okay, I'll switch. Again, I called Airtouch and told them about my carrier change. No problem. I received my bill from MCI with my 1+ calls from my cell phone on it. No problem. Surprise! When I get my bill for my calls from AT&T it is a separate bill from AT&T Wireless and my rate is $.17 per minute !!! Calmly, I phoned Airtouch to see if that had made an error. No everything was fine on my account and this was the first time the rep had heard of this type of problem. Okay, now I have to call AT&T. I am sure everyone has had that experience and normally it is not a good one. First, I called to see what numbers were on my account. There are two residential and one cellular. The one cellular is my analog phone. I said where do you show the number for my digital phone? Oh, it's not on this account you need to call AT&T Wireless. I called 1 800 367 0226. (The number on my bill.) I asked what was going on and if I could get my $.10 a minute rate. No, you can't but call 1 800 742 5288 for True Rewards and they can discount your rate 25%. So, I called, can I get my $.10 per minute. No. Call AT&T Wireless and around I went. In the meantime my friend calls who has a cell phone from AT&T Wireless and says that they charged him $.26 per minute for his 1+ on his phone. HELP! He told me he called AT&T and gave them the number to add to his account. We all know that someone here is pulling something and it is AT&T Wireless!! So instead of trying to stay a customer with AT&T, I phoned both AT&T Wireless and Airtouch and asked who I could pick for a long distance carrier. They read to me a very long list. Since I knew that MCI was able to be my carrier for $.12 a minute and $.05 on Sundays I picked MCI for both phone plus they have excellent international rates. Everyone please make sure that you check your long-distance carrier on your new cellular phone. AT&T Wireless was not the long distance carrier I picked for my cellular phone. Celeste M Tyree Exotek Telecom Consulting 25424 213th Place SE #5 Maple Valley, WA 98038 Phone/fax 1 425 432 5311 Mobile 1 206 948 9855 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 00:09:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Pay Phone Rates May Go Up After Deregulation Pay Phone Rates May Go Up After Deregulation By Roger Fillion WASHINGTON - Consumers will probably have to dig deeper into their pockets for more coins when making a local call from a pay phone now that price caps on pay phones have been abolished. On Tuesday, Federal Communications Commission rules took effect that deregulate pay phone rates nationwide. States no longer can impose their own ceilings that in some cases have kept the cost of a local call as low as a dime. Analysts predict the typical call will rise to 35 cents from the 25-cent rate that now predominates at the 2.1 million pay phones scattered around the nation. "Clearly, the assumption is many pay phone companies will be raising their rates," said analyst John Bain of Hoak, Breedlove Wesneski & Co. in Dallas. Phone companies say they have no immediate plans to raise rates and are studying their options. But analysts expect many will move over the next several weeks to boost rates in search of profit on what has been a money-losing venture. "This is long overdue," Bain said. "In most jurisdictions, coin rates have not gone up for decades." Vince Sandusky, president of the American Public Communications Council, a trade group, said the typical pay phone rate has been 25 cents "for roughly 15-20 years." He added that industry figures put the cost of delivering a pay phone call at 32-35 cents. Consumer advocates cry foul, however. They charge that callers are not in a position to "shop around" and that rate hikes will hit those least able to pay. "Allowing pay phone providers to charge an unlimited rate for pay phone calls will disproportionately affect the poor and those consumers who are least able to afford an increase," said Janee Briesemeister of Consumers Union in Austin, Texas. "We know that lower-income families frequently do not have phones in their homes and rely on pay phones." The FCC rules stem from the Telecommunications Act of 1996. They are aimed at letting market forces, instead of state regulators, set rates. The regional Baby Bell phone companies and GTE Corp. account for the lion's share of pay phone operations. But there are more than 2,000 small independent operators. "We don't have any immediate plans to increase rates. But we are looking at how much it costs to serve a particular area," said GTE spokeswoman Nancy Bavec. "It's a competitive market," she said. "The cost will go to what the market will bear." Ameritech Corp., a Chicago-based Baby Bell, said it was "pleased" with the deregulation but that it was "not prepared to speculate" about possible price changes. "We'll make our decisions ... as we monitor and evaluate our competitors' responses and consumer reaction," it added. A spokesman for another regional phone company, Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. said it is studying the use of "market-based pricing." Analysts and industry officials say the pay phone business is labor intensive. They cite the need to send workers to pay phone sites to clean and repair phones and collect the coins. They also said larger phone companies have managed to subsidize their pay phone rates through other operations. Those subsidies must end under the new FCC rules. Consumer advocates suggest callers who are unhappy with the price should complain to the convenience store, service station or other "location owner" where a phone is located. The owner of the site gets a fee from the pay phone company. Consumers also should complain to state regulators, who in turn can ask the FCC to change the rules, the advocates suggest. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have mentioned here a couple times about the COCOTS I had installed for a business in Skokie which requested my assistance. The three Ameritech payphones located very close by (about twenty feet away) already charge 35 cents per call and don't give any bargain on long distance either. I deliberatly had 'my' two COCOTS programmed for 25 cents on local coin calls and also programmed for three minutes of long distance at one dollar in coins. Additional long distance minutes are 25 cents each. My phones have a very nice brilliant blue housing, are *brightly* lighted with flourescent tubes and have a lighted sign on a mast overhead which says 'phone' with a picture of a handset. They are fully compliant for the purpose of using the long distance carrier of choice, and there is no charge -- zero -- to call 800/888. Reflective signs mounted on the mast announce the rates. Ameritech just found out about them the other day when the collector came out to look at their three phones which sit directly under a pigeon roost (about thirty of the creatures live in the area under the roof overhanging on the sidewalk there, on the wooden beams around the edge of the building); they are not lighted and two of the three have illegible instruction cards. He noticed his coin boxes were almost empty after two months and the phones covered with pigeon droppings, feathers, graffiti, etc. 'My' phones get wiped clean daily and the handsets cleaned with Lysol. So the Ameritech collector came over to check them out and he asked how much they were taking in. I told him the collector comes out usually twice weekly and typically pulls $75-100 out of each phone each time. This is right at a very major bus stop in Skokie. He complained that I should have those set for 35 cents like his. I asked if the 35 cents would include all the pigeon droppings one could stand in and next to while using the phone ... he checked them out and made a call on one, then walked away. I have noticed that when a Greyhound bus pulls up the driver will usually give the passengers five or ten mintues to run in the station for snacks, etc ... the passengers will be lined up waiting to use those two phones as soon as they see the sign saying 'three minutes for one dollar using coins as payment'. Multiply that by nine Greyhounds coming through every day. All those passengers, you see, used to go use the Ameritech phones in the same way, although not at the same rates, as the Ameritech collector knew quite well when *he* used to come out twice a week for his despite all the pigeons, etc. I think Ameritech was sorry to lose that revenue, but I don't feel sorry for them at all. Had they responded promptly to fix the phones when they they were out of order, lighted them up as requested, kept them clean and paid a decent commission, I am sure the proprietor would have kept them exclusively. The company which operates my COCOTS gave the proprietor a choice of commission options: one was for 30 percent of *all* (coin and non-coin) revenue since they get a kick back from their Alternate Operator Service, or 35 percent on coin-in-the-box only, less line charges. I recomm- ended the later; it seemed like more money. They would have gone to 40 percent had I not insisted on 25 cent local rates and the three minutes/one dollar rate. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 05:35:41 PDT From: Eric Florack Subject: WhoWhere Announcement From {Internet Daily}: ** Improved telephone directory assistance on Web WhoWhere?, Inc. announced today a partnership with DirectoryNET to bring what it calls the first affordable real-time directory assistance service to the World Wide Web. WhoWhereConnectNOW, jointly developed by WhoWhere? and DirectoryNET, a subsidiary of Telstra Corporation Limited, allows Internet users to obtain up- to-date directory information by providing direct access to the RBOC (Regional Bell Operating Company) databases widely used by telephone directory assistance operators throughout the United States. For a monthly subscription fee of $9.90, users of ConnectNOW have Web access to more than 130 million business, residential and government listings -- the same information used by local directory assistance, or ``555-1212'' services. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Too bad they did not include a URL or net.address for reaching/using the service. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 14:09:34 -0700 From: Warrens Stiles Reply-To: mail.isomedia.com Subject: Outside Plant Issues I am interested in learning what concerns people most regarding outside plant installation and maintenance. I recently learned of a new ANSI & ICEA recognized compound that is supposed to stop water intrusion into splices and cable while offering improved bandwidth performance in copper lines. Has anyone heard of abosrbing thixotropic gel? I wonder if it has any appeal and if anyone knows if it works. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Oct 1997 15:45:34 -0700 From: William Dietrich Subject: Question About PacBell SuperTrunk ANI We just installed SuperTrunk (voice T1) service from PacBell, in the San Francisco Bay Area (Sunnyvale, CA). We thought we could get ANI (Caller ID) on this T1, but PacBell says they don't offer that service; you have to get Primary Rate ISDN to get ANI. I find this hard to believe; I thought one of the main uses of voice T1 was for 800 numbers, and ANI would be extremely common in that situation. We do get incoming digits (after winking), but they are DID (last 4 digits of our T1's phone number). Side note: they can't just type a command somewhere to change us from voice T1 to PRI; they have to un-install and re-install wiring, and charge us money. Another side note: the monthly fee for PRI is LOWER than the monthly fee for voice T1 ! Seems backwards. Can anyone tell me if my PacBell representative is right or wrong? Is it possible to get ANI on a PacBell SuperTrunk? Thanks, Bill Dietrich Sr Software Engineer, VOIS Corp billdietrich@voiscorp.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 10:46:51 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Shockwave Studio" by Schmitt BKSWVSTD.RVW 970320 "Shockwave Studio", Bob Schmitt, 1997, 1-56592-231-X, U$39.95/C$57.95 %A Bob Schmitt %C 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472 %D 1997 %G 1-56592-231-X %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %O U$39.95/C$57.95 800-998-9938 707-829-0515 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com %P 200 %T "Shockwave Studio: Designing Multimedia for the Web" With Java, as an experienced programmer, you can dedicate two weeks to learning a new language, master object-orientation, and then animate a graphic figure on a Web page and make it dance. Big deal. At this point, one normally says something like, "Enter Shockwave," except that Shockwave, and its Director predecessor, have been around longer than Java. The title of this book is slightly misleading. Although Shockwave is capable of handling a variety of media, this work concentrates primarily on animation via static image files and other related effects. The explanation is through sample code, but the annotation of the code is both extensive and clear. The scope of the material covers not only the basics of the language, but finer points in terms of performance and compatibility. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997 BKSWVSTD.RVW 970320 roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca link to virus, book info at http://www.freenet.victoria.bc.ca/techrev/rms.html Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #276 ******************************