Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA02172; Thu, 23 Oct 1997 23:05:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 23:05:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199710240305.XAA02172@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #290 TELECOM Digest Thu, 23 Oct 97 23:05:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 290 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Continued Billing Problems in Massachusetts (oldbear@arctos.com) Signaling, Routing and General Confusion (Brian Silver) County Criticizes Medic Alert Over 209 (Tad Cook) $5 LD Directory Assistance Charges? (Michael Hayworth) The NANP's New Manager: Lockheed Martin (Greg Monti) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 18:47:02 -0400 From: The Old Bear Subject: Continued Billing Problems in Massachusetts Pat: The following item comes to me from Terrance Beale who is the telecommunications manager for TIAC, a 65,000+ account ISP serving the east coast from Washington, DC to Portland, Maine. This may be of interest to you and TELECOM Digest readers because it is indicative of the problems which can occur when the RBOC local exchange company is unable or unwilling to achieve a smooth integration with the new-entrant LECs. In this particular example, Bell Atlantic appears to have found a way to generate revenue for itself by incorrectly billing calls to CLEC Nxx- numbers. Specificially, it has become apparent that a number of Massachusetts customers with "unmeasured" residential phone service are being improperly billed by Bell Atlantic for what should be unmeasured local calls within their contiguous calling area. Massachusetts has tarriffed three primary residential rate plans: measured, unmeasured and metro. Measured treats every call on a message unit basis against a limited number of included units. Unmeasured provides unlimited calling to one's own town and each contiguous (abutting) town, then charges message units for calls beyond that. Metro provides unmeasured service to most places in the Boston metro area. Message unit calls are billed a call set-up fee plus a message unit charge computed based upon call duration and 'zone' (1, 2 or 3) being called. The problem appears to arise because Bell Atlantic has not correctly programmed its billing system to recognize CLEC Nxx's in adjacent towns. Instead of treating these as part of the unmeasured service, they are treated as 'Zone 1' calls (as if they were in the same zone but non-abutting) and billed as non-itemized 'measage units.' For the consumer, it is impossible to determine the source of message units because Bell Atlantic does not print information on the number called on the phone bill and claims to not keep records of this information. However, customers seem to be getting large message unit bills on phone lines which are used exclusively for modem access to particular ISP numbers provided by CLECs in continguous towns. This is what has made this problem visible. (Interestingly enough, in the correspondence cited below, this problem appears to have been occuring in calls to Bell Atlantic Nxx- numbers as well as to CLEC Nxx- numbers. One may draw one's own inferences as to whether this represents an intentional overbilling or just incompetence and confusion.) The following provides more information on this nasty little RBOC practice, which at a few dollars a month over many tens of thousands of customers may be adding significant 'found' dollars to the corporate bottom line: ---------- begin included text ---------- From: terrence@tiac.net (Terrence Beale) Subject: Re: NYNEX?Bell Atlantic overbilling for ISP access Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 05:36:15 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company It is possible that you were billed as zone1 other or zone2 for calls that should have been zone1 local from your rate center. The TIAC Metro hunt lines are provided by Worldcom, a competitor to Nynex/Bell Atlantic. When dialing any number, your local switch generates billing information. This information is programmed locally at the switch. It is possible that your local switch was misconfigured to consider the Worldcom Nxx of 588 to be something other than zone1 local to your exchange. I have been doing all I can to identify these anomalies and get them corrected. I would like to think that the fact that your billing seems to be normal now is the result of my efforts, but this claim would be difficult to quantify. Getting problems like this resolved does not happen in the commonplace repair environment of opening tickets and following up through repair channels. It is more or less a hit and miss game of bitching at everybody you can get your hands on until you score. However, the thing is that when Nynex uncovers a problem like this, they invariably decline to admit it, they just fix it and hold firm in their contention that they found nothing and fixed nothing. Magically, the problem is gone. The problem consumers such as yourself have been experiencing is that Nynex, being deeply entrenched in decades of monopolistic tradition, does not have a system in place that fully accommodates the existence of a competitor. So, when Mr. Consumer calls the business office to correct a billing error such as this, the rep will ask for call detail. But, zone1 other and zone2 calls are not detailed on the bill, they are simply lumped as total zone1 other and total zone2. So, you have no way of saying "x number minutes to this number at this time and date". So then they ask "ok what exchange were you calling ", and you say "588". They look up 588, and the system doesn't recognize the existence of 588, because it is not a Nynex Nxx. They then go digging into a system that apparently does not generate consistently accurate information. When you called, you were told that the exchanges you claimed to be Medford and Cambridge were actually Boston Central, the Lexington number is really in Waltham, and that Lexington and Bedford were not the same rate center (a sign that the person you spoke with was lacking clue). However, Mr. Snow also called the business office (yes, the business office, not people with more clue who we could have called like one of our contacts at Nynex Systems Marketing or one of the market area centers or even one of my engineering contacts, he called the same number that Joe Consumer would call). He asked the same questions about the same exchanges and got from the rep he spoke with 100 percent correct answers. Nxx's are assigned by Bellcore, an orginazation which operates independently of its owners, the seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (did I say seven? Oh my of course I mean six. Don't get me started on my thoughts on how letting one RBOC buy another is conducive to the spirit of divestiture and expanded competition in the telecommunications industry ). It is Bellcore's role to dictate which Nxx is assigned to which community. If Bellcore says 588 is Cambridge, than anyone up to and including your favorite flunkie at Nynex Atlantic who says otherwise is nothing other than dead wrong. I am not convinced that Nynex has at this time has completely eliminated bogus billing spews from every switch in regards to Worldcom Nxx's. I would appreciate any feedback on this issue from any TIAC customer who feels he has been inappropriately billed for calls to the Metro Hunt. The Metro Hunt exchanges are (508)861, (617) 249, 531, 588, 831, 992, (781) 480, 658,778,852, 970, and (978)964. Terrence Beale Manager of Telecommunications The Internet Access Comapany in response to: From: Jay Hersh Subject: NYNEX/BELL Atlantic over billing for ISP (TIAC) access Date: 21 Oct 1997 14:54:01 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company, Inc. Lines: 115 I'm writing to describe an incident which has been ongoing over the last several months. It is a little bit complicated so I hope that you'll bear with me. I have discovered that I have been being billed by Bell Atlantic for local calls as if they were zone 1 calls. The calling plan which I possess is known as unlimited local residence which allows me to make calls in an unlimited manner to telephone numbers in towns which are physically adjacent to the one I live in, namely Arlington. I'm make very few local calls other than those to my Internet service provider, however I do make a reasonable number of calls to them, typically one each evening of about 5 to 10 minutes duration. As far back as I can determine up until the most recent bill I have been charged by NYNEX (now Bell Atlantic) at zone 1 rates for what I now know should have been local calls. What caused me to initially notice this was that my Internet service provider introduced a new access number located in Cambridge. Prior to that I had been using an access number located in Bedford. I was at the time under the mistaken impression that the Bedford number (275-0331) was not a local call and that was why I was being billed for the zone 1 calls. [OB note: While the town of Bedford is separated from the writer's location in Arlington by the town of Lexington, the Bedford central office is considered to be a Lexington exchange historically for tarriff purposes. The Bedford number in question is a Bell Atlantic (not a CLEC) Nxx, too.] Therefore in order to avoid being billed for zone 1 calls I switched over to accessing my Internet service provider via the Cambridge number (588-8422). I expected that this would greatly reduce or eliminate the number of zone 1 calls for which I was being billed. I found however that this was not the case. Even after changing over to the Cambridge access number I was still being billed for zone 1 calls when dialing this local number. It was at this time that I began contacting representatives from NYNEX to ascertain what the problem was. Initially I spoke directly with customer service representatives. Receiving no accurate information from them, I then escalated the calls to customer service managers. In July I spoke with a Mr. Attella who indicated to me that even though my Internet service provider (The Internet Access Co. aka TIAC, of Bedford) listed these phone numbers as local (I inquired about access numbers listed for Cambridge, Bedford, Lexington and Medford since these are all physically adjacent to Arlington) that these phone numbers actually existed at different billing exchanges than what TIAC identified them as. Specifically he indicated that the phone numbers listed as Cambridge and Medford were Boston Central exchange, that Lexington was actually a Waltham exchange, and that Bedford was not physically adjacent to Arlington despite the fact that the NYNEX phone books themselves indicate that Bedford is considered part of Lexington for billing purposes. I subsequently contacted TIAC to relay this information to them. I spoke with a person there named Brad Snow [who is the TIAC employee responsible for physically locating remote points of presence for TIAC]. He indicated several things to me. He indicated that upon contacting NYNEX he received entirely different information regarding the location of the access numbers both physically and with respect to billing. At my request he also investigated the possibility that the third party companies which provide them their phone service might not actually be providing the service which TIAC thought they were getting. Specifically it might be that TIAC thought they were getting local phone numbers in various towns but were actually getting a forwarding service whose toll charges got billed back to the caller. Brad was able to verify that this was not the case. This led me, after several weeks of delay due to vacation and personal reasons, to once again try contacting NYNEX for an explanation of these erroneous billing practices, and a credit for the overbilled amounts. On the subsequent contact I spoke with a Ms. Fowler. Ms. Fowler indicated that both the Bedford and Cambridge numbers should indeed be local calls and she had no explanation as to why I was being billed for them as if they were zone 1 calls. She took my contact information and indicated she would call me back, something which she has not done over the last 14 days despite my having called and left messages inquiring about the status of this investigation. Since my conversation with Ms. Fowler I have received another phone bill from Bell Atlantic. This bill finally reflects my actual zone 1 usage in that rather than being billed for some 50 or 60 zone 1 calls for some 250 to 300 minutes I was billed for only two dozen calls totaling 74 minutes. There has been no change in my actual calling habits and I still contact my Internet service provider's access numbers almost daily. I can therefore only conclude that whatever previous billing error was being made has now been corrected. I have not however been credited for the approximately $3 to $4 per month (approximately 25 calls of 10 minute average duration billed at 1.6 cents per call and 1 cent per minute) over billing which has occurred over the last 10 to 15 months. NYNEX has to this point insisted that because these zone 1 calls are not itemized that it is not possible for them to ascertain whether these calls were actually made by me, or whether they have been billing me erroneously for well over a year now. Of course given that there is no itemization of these calls the only concrete proof that I have is the variation between bills for the month in which I was on vacation and therefore made no access calls to my Internet service provider, and the most recent bill from Bell Atlantic which represents a significant drop in both total number of zone 1 calls placed by me as well as the total number of minutes those calls comprise despite no change in my actual calling habits. At this point I intend to contact both some of the local consumer advocate people on television (such as at WBZ TV) and the attorney general. However if you believe you have also been erroneously over billed and would like to be a party to this complaint please email a brief (hopefully briefer than mine :-) synopsis of your situation along with name, address, telephone number and email information. I will forward these along with my complaint. If any of the consumer advocates or the attorney general does begin a formal inquiry into what appears to be a systematic over billing of customers by Nynex, then they will probably contact you regarding the outcome of your individual complaint. Thanks for your attention, Jay [Note from The Old Bear ] Shawn Lewis of XCOM provides some additional insight into the problem with NYNEX/Bell-Atlantic's billing problems: From: "Shawn Lewis" Subject: Re: NYNEX?Bell Atlantic overbilling for ISP access Date: 22 Oct 1997 11:08:48 GMT Organization: XCOM Technologies, Inc Maybe I can be of some assistance here. The number in which you are dialing, though reaching TIAC, the actual phone service is supplied to TIAC by a CLEC (Competetive Local Exchange Carrier) - In other words another phone company competing with NYNEX. I myself work for XCOM, which is also a CLEC. BA/NYNEX is known for this gross billing problem, and just last week, under emergency relief and consideration from the the Mass. Department of Public Utilities - filed by a petition submitted by my company -- a meeting was held between NYNEX/BA, XCOM and the DPU. Well, NYNEX got slammed real hard. The DPU is the controlling party of regulated entities:ie MFS, TELEPORT, XCOM, etc. All you need to do is contact the DPU explain your problem to them, (my meeting was with the DIRECTOR of the DPU, so he is very aware of the problem) As well, TELEPORT has filed a petition supporting XCOM and complaining of the same problems with BA/NYNEX. Now that this problem has been brought to light, watch how fast the DPU will get NYNEX to credit you ALL that is do you, and if you should still have problems, feel free to EMAIL me personally, as NYNEX was mandated to provide me with a single point of contact for these disputes. Granted, we were granted this person to handle any NYNEX customers calling our customers and being billed incorrectly, but I think I can pass along the Directors name within NYNEX. TIAC, and the rest of the ISP's are not the ones at blame, and believe me, their intentions are 100% honorable. Unfortunately, NYNEX/BA would love everyone to leave there current LOCAL isp, and move on over to the new BA Internet Service. They will probibly stop at nothing. Please take into consideration the ISP has a love/hate relationship with BA/NYNEX and I am sure TIAC did everything in its power to help remedy the problem, but they were not to blame. Good luck. Shawn Lewis slewis@xcom.net 617-500-0000 XCOM Technologies, Inc 617-500-0001 VP/Chief Operating Officer ------------------------------ From: Brian Silver Subject: Signaling, Routing and General Confusion Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 15:33:06 -0400 Organization: DECthreads I'm curious about the "stuff" that happens when I call my ISP using my modem. I have read all the info I can get my hands on (can't seem to find a FAQ, a pointer would be great!), and I have a few questions. The way I see it is that my modem goes off-hook. This signals my CO switch, and I get a dial tone. This tells me (or my modem) to send the address information, the number. So the CO swtich gets the address information, and lets say for the sake of the argument, that the ISP (or destination number) is located on another switch. So, my CO switch then *finds the next switch that it needs to send the address information to*. Question #1. How does this happen? My understanding is that based on the number, the switch has a routing table that tells it based on time of day, and trunk availability what switch to go to next. So if the switch sees an area code, it knows "Hey, that call needs to go InterLATA, so this is the next switch in line", if it sees an exchange, it knows based on that what trunk to use. Right? Just switch configuration, or does SS7 have something to do with this? Ok, so the first switch now knows what switch to go to next. It must signal that switch, telling it it has an incoming call. Now, I think there are a number of signaling methods, but lets focus on Robbed Bit and SS7 and MF. My understanding is that using MF signaling, the first switch would assert the proper tone on the trunk to the next switch. Does this happen in one time slot in a TDM trunk? If the signaling is robbed bit, does it just assert the bit? I'm a bit unclear on how signaling happens on T-carrier trunks. Also, how does this happen using SS7? Does the first switch send a request to an STP, and address the information with just the destination phone call? How does SS7 tell the first switch what trunk the call needs to go out? I'm a bit confused when it comes to call routing and SS7. Does SS7 even play any role in call routing? Ok, so the first switch signals the second, and then second winks back, telling the first that its ready for address information. This process happens all down the line until the last switch is reached. The last switch then says "Ah! This call goes to this number, and its on me!". I assume that switches are configured to tell the switching tables "This number == This Line"? Now here is where the fact that I'm calling my ISP comes into play. My ISP gets a T1, lets say. The switch then hunts for a TDM slot on the trunk for the call, right? And it uses robbed bit signaling (unless ISDN, when it uses Q.931 ...). Question #2. (Ok, more like question number 800 ...) Does the single bit for signaling represent the presence/absence of the old-fashioned 2600Hz tone? The way I see it working is the ISP RA box sees the signal bit on the incoming DS0, and knows to pick up the phone (equivilent of a ring). But how does off-hook get signaled? Needless to say, I'm a bit confused, but I've gotten this far and I'd really like to know how all of this works. I know that I'm probably asking someone out there for a dissertation on the phone system, but a pointer to a book or what not where all this is outlined would be great. All the books I have read separate routing and signaling, but it seems to me that the two are somewhat linked since MF signaling set up the route at the same time the signal was propagated. Thanks. Feel free to mail directly, if you'd rather. Brian Replace ! with @ for email address: silver!zko.dec.com ------------------------------ Subject: County Criticizes Medic Alert Over 209 Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 15:21:45 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) County criticizes Medic Alert in attempt to keep 209 area code By Joe Bigham Associated Press Writer FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Fresno County is trying to keep the 209 area code by criticizing Medic Alert, the medallion identification service cited as a key reason to retain 209 in the northern San Joaquin Valley. Three emergency medical workers, including the county's emergency medical director, said they've never used Medic Alert's emergency telephone number and have never seen anyone else do so. The declarations were among material the county gathered and presented to an administrative law judge for an appeal hearing Thursday and Friday in a last-ditch effort to retain the 209 telephone area code. The PUC already has decided to keep the 209 area code in the northern valley counties of San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced and adjacent Sierra counties. A new 559 area code is to be assigned to Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Madera counties in late 1998. The administrative law judge is expected to decide by the end of the year whether to uphold the PUC decision. Officials of Turlock-based Medic Alert said changing the area code in the north could endanger 3 million people in North America whose bracelets or necklaces carry the group's 209 telephone number. They feared doctors or nurses would be unable to get through to learn additional information beyond that carried on the patient's medallion. "We cannot, even with our best efforts, reach our total membership to change their emblem's call number," said President Tanya Glazebrook. "Emergency responders will be confused and frustrated. Members will be in danger." But Fresno County's appeal is largely based on a contention that few medical providers call Medic Alert even if they check the medallions for data on ailments or medications to which a patient is allergic. That was the substance of written declarations by a nurse, paramedic and Dr. Gene Kallsen, chief of emergency medicine at the formerly county-run hospital and head of the county's emergency medical system. "In my 20 years as an emergency room physician, I have never used the telephone number provided on the Medic Alert medallion for any purpose," Kallsen wrote. But in oral testimony Thursday, Kallsen called information on Medic Alert medallions "very helpful." And Kallsen said emergency physicians nationally endorse Medic Alert. He added, "I endorse it as well." Medic Alert spokesman David M. Roth said the nonprofit group receives 20,000 emergency calls a year. Roth called Fresno County's attack on Medic Alert "a desperate and ill-considered strategy." The county suggested technical methods to let the southern counties use 209 but keep it in the north just for Medic Alert. Fresno County's appeal also contends the southern counties should keep the 209 area code because they have more residents than the north. But H. Douglas Hescox, the California area code administrator, wrote in a declaration that the number of residents and Medic Alert were not the main reasons 209 is being kept in the north. Hescox said the decision was made because there are more telephone prefixes in the northern end of the valley, indicating the north has more telephone customers. As of September, the north had 295 prefixes and the south 280, Hescox wrote. "I estimate that if the north had to change its area code instead of the south, about 150,000 additional customers would need to change their numbers," he added. ------------------------------ From: Michael Hayworth Subject: $5 LD Directory Assistance Charges? Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 17:45:26 -0500 Organization: Innovative TeleSolutions I've got two AT&T directory assistance charges on my Lubbock, TX office's phone bill -- one is for $4.95 and the other is for $3.95. The AT&T customer service office claims that "we have different charges to different areas of the country for long distance directory assistance". Did I miss something here? We don't use it often, but I don't recall paying more than about $.75 for LD directory assistance in the past. Michael Hayworth VP Technology Innovative TeleSolutions ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 21:50:09 -0400 From: Greg Monti Subject: The NANP's New Manager: Lockheed Martin On page 37 of the October 20, 1997, issue of _Network World_, buried at the bottom of a story entitled, "New Pay Phone Ruling Upsets AT&T," is a note that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has picked a new North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA). It will be "a division of Lockheed Martin Corp." The story says that the decision ends a five-year process to name a successor to replace Bell Communications Research (BellCoRe) which was "judged to be too partial" toward the five Bell Operating Companies who own it. Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA gmonti@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~gmonti ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #290 ******************************