Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA21730; Mon, 20 Oct 1997 23:39:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 23:39:09 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199710210339.XAA21730@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #287 TELECOM Digest Mon, 20 Oct 97 23:39:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 287 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Compuserve Spams Own Customers, Refuses to Stop (Wolf Paul) Re: Compuserve Spams Own Customers, Refuses To Stop (Alan Boritz) Re: Compuserve Spams Own Customers, Refuses To Stop (Michael Hayworth) Re: Compuserve Spams Own Customers, Refuses To Stop (Gregory Johnson) Re: Toll-Fraud via Remote-Access to Call-Forwarding (Bruce Wilson) Re: Local Number Portability and Interconnecting Network Service (A Varney) Local Number Portability in California (Robert Lee Harris) Netizens Reviews and in Japanese Edition (Ronda Hauben) EC at INFORMS '97/Electronic Commerce FAQ (Electronic Commerce News) I Need Some Basic Telephony Knowledge (Sermkiat Vibulpatanavong) How to Ask For Internet Service? (Franky Wong) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: wolf.paul@aut.alcatel.at@aut.alcatel.at (Wolf Paul) Subject: Re: Compuserve Spams Own Customers, Refuses To Stop Date: 20 Oct 1997 06:18:54 GMT Organization: Alcatel Austria AG In article , aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) writes: > Ever have a service provider who insists you read their spam email, > while YOU'RE paying connect time charges, and they refuse to stop > after you tell them nicely? Compuserve appears to be doing that now. I think you're being a bit unreasonable, considering that CIS allows you to see mail "From" and "Subject" lines before downloading mail. I never yet had a service provider who did not use e-mail to inform customers about important developments -- how else do you expect them to get information out to their customers? And most CIS subscribers would want to know what the implications of the AOL deal are, most would like to know about new pricing plans, etc. SPAM is unsolicited e-mail from people or companies with whom one does not have an ongoing business relationship; mail from a service provider pertinent to the service being provided can hardly be called spam. W. N. Paul/KSRU * Alcatel Austria AG * Scheydgasse 41 * A-1210 Vienna, Austria wnp@aut.alcatel.at * +43-1-277-22 x5523 (voice)/x1118 (fax) * +43-1-774-1947 (h) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 08:50:05 EDT From: Alan Boritz Subject: Re: Compuserve Spams Own Customers, Refuses To Stop Reply to note from wolf.paul@aut.alcatel.at@aut.alcatel.at (Wolf Paul): > In article , > aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) writes: >> Ever have a service provider who insists you read their spam email, >> while YOU'RE paying connect time charges, and they refuse to stop >> after you tell them nicely? Compuserve appears to be doing that now. > I think you're being a bit unreasonable, considering that CIS allows you > to see mail "From" and "Subject" lines before downloading mail. No, Wolf, I have no opportunity to "preview" headers before downloading, without paying for the connect time to manually log on, capture info (with some horrible Windows program), and then log off. My OS/2 CIS access program does the same thing, and that's not acceptable, either. Since CIS doesn't yet support POP3, the only programs that can be used to retreive email have to be text-based, specific to CIS's system, and do NOT allow for unattended deletion of email on the host based on message headers, before beginning a batch download. For the past 10 years, or so, I've been accessing everything in batch in a dos session (dramatically reducing connect time charges), so my access program spends the absolute minimum amount of connect time to do it's thing. > I never yet had a service provider who did not use e-mail to inform > customers about important developments -- how else do you expect > them to get information out to their customers? Well, gee, maybe I expect they'll put non-critical info in the many (paper) mailings they send their customers, and ALL of the emails they've been forcing me to download out are NON-critical. > And most CIS subscribers would want to know what the implications of the > AOL deal are, most would like to know about new pricing plans, etc. How do YOU know what "most" CIS subscribers would like to know? > SPAM is unsolicited e-mail from people or companies with whom one does > not have an ongoing business relationship; mail from a service provider > pertinent to the service being provided can hardly be called spam. No, Wolf, you're not the authority on what is, or isn't, considered spam. Unsolicited commercial email traffic on a connection whose expense is time-sensitive is absolutely unacceptable. It's doubly unacceptable when that traffic doesn't stop when I ask. I'm sorry you didn't understand the original problem, but I've probably been dealing with these people a lot longer than you have (if you do, at all). It's serious stuff when a VAN service-provider fraudulently increases it's revenues by forcing it out of their customers, whether intentionally, or through simple ignorance. Alan ------------------------------ From: Michael Hayworth Subject: Re: Compuserve Spams Own Customers, Refuses To Stop Date: 20 Oct 1997 19:04:07 GMT Organization: Innovative TeleSolutions Unless you're dialing through their 800 number, or calling long distance (your choice, not theirs), you're not paying anything for the time you spend reading e-mail. Connect time charges don't apply to e-mail, customer service, and some other places. And now that they've gone flat rate, except for the game areas, you won't even have to worry about connect time on the forums, either. Business have to have a way to communicate with their customers, and I'd much rather they e-mail me than junk mail me. Nobody likes spam, but the whining level about it on the various telcom groups has reached the point where it amounts to spam itself. If you don't want to read it, delete it. Michael Hayworth VP, Technology Innovative TeleSolutions ------------------------------ From: gkj@panix.com (Gregory Johnson) Subject: Re: Compuserve Spams Own Customers, Refuses To Stop Date: 20 Oct 1997 10:23:58 -0400 Organization: Panix Public Access Internet & Unix, NYC In article aboritz@cybernex.net (Alan Boritz) writes: > Ever have a service provider who insists you read their spam email, > while YOU'RE paying connect time charges, and they refuse to stop > after you tell them nicely? Compuserve appears to be doing that now. > A couple of weeks ago they started sending me the electronic version > of the magazine they've been sending me as junk (paper) mail for > years, for an account I have there. I emailed customer service and > told them to stop sending *any* unsolicited junk email, and they > responded that they don't know who sent it (it had their CIS id in the > header), but they'd get on it and get back to me. That was on 9/23, > and I haven't heard a word since. Now that AOL has purchased CompuServe, perhaps CompuServe is adopting AOL's tactics with respect to "marketing" to their subscriber base. AOL is not in the business of providing online information services; it is in the business of delivering a market to its advertisers. In this respect, it seems AOL works a lot like the much-maligned Prodigy service of yesteryear, except that Prodigy was up-front about the fact that the advertisers are the ones who are paying for your access to their service. I use an AOL account which belongs to my firm in the course of my daily routine, and it is clear to me that AOL is uninterested in the business of actually providing information services. Their primary focus is capturing you as an online customer for the purpose of selling advertising. The principle is sort of like a cable channel. They offer content to get you to subscribe, and then you are forced to watch the sponsor's advertisements. In their re-vamping of the service this month, they mentioned that various content areas will have "anchors" (doublespeak for "sponsors"?) Tech support at AOL is unresponsive, which is unsurprising considering they have to support a legion of users "who can't program their VCR's, but they're online", to paraphrase their advertising. It seems likely that AOL will try to migrate CompuServe's subscribers to the AOL service. If you want to be a customer rather than a "target market", run, run, as fast as you can to a legitimate online service. Greg ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 21:23:52 -0400 From: blw1540@aol.com (Bruce Wilson) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Toll-Fraud via Remote-Access to Call-Forwarding In article , ctelesca@pagesz.net (Chris Telesca) writes: > An engineer with the PUC says he doesn't want to help me with this > problem, because he thinks he can use his time better. He also told > me that he thinks the phone comanies don't want to solve this problem > because it isn't worth their time to solve it (apparently it costs > more to solve it in terms of labor rates for technicians and engineers > as opposed to the charges involved). He also says I should drop the > service. I don't know what the procedure there is (or if there even is one), but Iowa starts with an informal docket handled by the staff; and the aggrieved party can appeal to the commission to make it a formal complaint proceeding before an administrative law judge if dissatisfied with the staff's response, with the findings of the ALJ appealable to the full commission and ultimately to the courts. I suggest finding out where you can go (and when) if you're dissatisfied with the staff's performance. Bruce Wilson ------------------------------ From: varney@ihgp2.ih.lucent.com (Al Varney) Subject: Re: Local Number Portability and Interconnecting Network Services Date: 20 Oct 1997 18:39:55 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies, Naperville, IL Reply-To: varney@lucent.com In article , Mario A. Castano-Gonzalez wrote: > We at CINTEL (Centro de Investigacion de las Telecomunicaciones de > Colombia) are analyzing the problem of implementing the national-wide > interconnection of the intelligent network services provided by the > several local telcos (with special interest in how to provide local > number portability LNP). > Thus why we are interested in knowing how these problems are being > faced in USA, and the products the IN providers are currently > offering. ITU-T is currently addressing LNP in a standards context (Study Group 11). Information on USA LNP solutions is at: . Information on Canadian/Stentor LNP documents: . If you are contemplating interconnecting IN databases, not just switches that use IN, then I don't believe any of the above are following that approach. Al Varney ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 14:16:21 -0400 From: rlhrrs@aol.com (Robert Lee Harris) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Local Number Portability in California It is my understanding that with local phone service now open to long disance carrier companies (ie: MCI, Sprint, etc.) the local phone number is now supposed to have the same portability as an 800/888 number now has. Two questions come to mind, the first is a general question: How will the Central Offices handle numbers that used to belong to other service areas. If AT&T decides that it wants to point a (562) 436 #### prefix number to a CO that is outside of the "traditional" service area, will it have to be poinhted to a CO based subset of numbers? This couldn't be a free service, especially when comapared to the cost of Remote Call Forward, which before was the only option. Does this mean we will no longer be able to tell where any number goes based on it's prefix? The second question may be a real life situation: Everything that I have read in PUC articles suggests that the Customer will own the local CO number, rather than the carrier. But if the long distance carrier were to sell the customer local phone service with a specific number that is actually part of a carrier controlled DID group, can the carrier refuse to let the customer keep the phone number if they decide to switch services. It seems like a sneaky way to hold an unsatisfied customer hostage with their published phone number to me. I welcome any real life info anyone has. I'll post later with the outcome if there is any interest. Robert Lee Harris - Telecommunications Productivity Services (562) 867-3827 RLHRRS@aol.com ------------------------------ From: rh120@columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Netizens Reviews and in Japanese edition Date: 21 Oct 1997 00:27:30 GMT Organization: Columbia University There have recently been two reviews of the print edition of "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet", one in the November issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal on page 103 another in the Oct. 13 issue of Computerworld. See http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/reviews.html Also, a Japanese translation of Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet was published by Chuokoron-sha last week. Ronda rh120@columbia.edu Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ronda, keep up the good work! Your work is an invaluable part of the task of keeping our history accurate for future generations of netters. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 21:38:55 -0500 From: Electronic Commerce News Subject: EC at INFORMS '97/Electronic Commerce FAQ Electronic Commerce News Announcements October 20, 1997 Send feedback to soon@mail.utexas.edu Thank you very much. 1. Electronic Commerce Sessions at INFORMS '97 Conference (Dallas, Oct. 26-29): Participants and other EC professionals are urged to check out online information about Electronic Commerce sessions. The official INFORMS site is http://www.informs.org/Conf/Dallas97/ and Electronic Commerce sessions organized by Prof. Jan Stallaert and members of the CREC are: Electronic Commerce Cluster Sessions : http://www.informs.org/Conf/Dallas97/TALKS/C20.html Network Design/Advertising and Economics Issues http://www.informs.org/Conf/Dallas97/TALKS/S9.html 2. CREC website has been overhauled to provide easy access to EC-related announcements, news and resources. While complementing various IT/network/information sites, CREC website provides an EC-focused forum for EC-business professionals of the digital economy. CREC welcomes your EC announcements. CREC Website: http://cism.bus.utexas.edu ----------------------- 3. Electronic Commerce FAQ ----------------------- Do we really know what electronic commerce is, or how it will affect the market? Will we be watching WebTV? How should we handle spamming? Should a Website be jazzy? Do digital products have zero marginal costs? Does Microsoft really stifle competition? These and other EC questions are answered in this FAQ. See http://cism.bus.utexas.edu and follow EC Resources link. ELECTRONIC COMMERCE NEWS The Center for Research in Electronic Commerce, UT-Austin http://cism.bus.utexas.edu SEND CORRESPONDENCE TO:soon@mail.utexas.edu ------------------------------ From: Sermkiat Vibulpatanavong Subject: I Need Some Basic Telephony Knowledge Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 18:44:27 +0700 Organization: Samart Cybernet I have graduated in the Computer Science field but I had to deal with the maintainance of the server for controlling the PABX machine. Since I didn't have no knowledge about the telephony before I found it extremely difficult for me to start. Moreover, there are no expert about telephony in my organization, most of people deals with the telephony is just a technician whose knowledge is just for how to do but not why they do. And also they don't know much about how to use the computer. Would you please tell me where could I find these knowledges? Can you suggest me some books to read? Please help me. Sermkiat Vibulpatanavong sermkiat@samart.co.th ------------------------------ From: fwong@uog2.uog2.uog.edu (Franky Wong) Subject: How to Ask For Internet Service? Date: 20 Oct 1997 14:21:25 GMT Organization: University of Guam Dear fellow guru, Recently our University is interested to send out a Request for Proposal for Internet carrier (e.g. T1 line). I would like to make sure the RFP is technically sound. May I ask what requirements should I state in the RFP? For example, the followings are concerns that I could think of: 1 Price schedule for bandwidth upgrade in the future. 2 A certain ratio that would restrict the carrier from selling much more than the bandwidth that it actually has. I don't know the correct term, but I think it is not fair if the carrier sells T1 connections to ten customers when in fact it only has one T1 link to Internet. 3 When the line comes to my premise, do I have to waste a subnet when hooking it up to my router? Or is it recommended that I make use of some "IP-unumbered" feature available on CISCO or certain routers to save IP addresses? Or thirdly, is it recommended that I rent the ip address from the carrier? Please email me if you could. Thanks. | Franky C. H. Wong | Email : fwong@uog.edu | | Programmer/Analyst | Voice : +1 (671) 735-2626 | | Computer Center | 735-2635 | | University of Guam | Fax : +1 (671) 734-9422 | | 303 University Dr, UOG Station | Coordinate: 13.5N , 144.45E | | Mangilao, Guam USA 96923 | Time : GMT+10 EST+15 | | | | A LAND GRANT INSTITUTION ACCREDITED BY THE WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF | | SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES | ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #287 ******************************