Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id HAA22943; Tue, 28 Oct 1997 07:34:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 07:34:04 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199710281234.HAA22943@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #292 TELECOM Digest Tue, 28 Oct 97 07:34:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 292 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Paging Firm Collapses (Tad Cook) Modem Users, Who You Gonna Call?; Not Bell Atlantic (Robert J. Perillo) Book Review: "The Internet Unleashed" by Ellsworth et al (Rob Slade) Slamming: Some Results (Jim Youll) Gilder Says Reno Attacked Microsoft Too Late (Eric Florack) Bell Atlantic Still ISDN Clueless (Ken Levitt) Employment Opportunity: Software Engineer Wanted (James A. Gayhart) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Paging Firm Collapses Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 11:50:41 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) California Bay Area Pager Service's Collapse No Surprise By Jon Healey, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News SAN JOSE, Calif.--Oct. 27--The collapse of EconoPage Inc., the largest outlet for pagers in the Bay Area, has prompted a confusing din of finger pointing and recriminations. But the key cause of the trouble is clear: EconoPage gave its customers better rates than it could afford. The San Jose paging services reseller used low prices and heavy advertising to fuel an astonishing boom, going from scratch in late 1995 to an estimated 250,000 customers in four states today. So attractive were its bargain-basement rates that EconoPage single-handedly drove down the cost of paging across the board in the Bay Area, competitors say. Now, with the company having abruptly closed its stores Wednesday, there is debate about whether EconoPage was doomed from the start. Its pitch was $89 for a pager and one year of unlimited paging on a local number, $119 for two years and $139 for three years. But because EconoPage was paying suppliers approximately $60 for these pagers and $24 or more for each year of service, it's difficult to see how it expected to cover costs, said Danny Lee, a top executive at Future Paging and Cellular Inc. of San Francisco. The company's two main suppliers, on the other hand, say that EconoPage's strategy for generating revenue could have worked. As they portray it, EconoPage hoped to lure customers with low initial costs and then raise the prices when they renewed their contracts. The problem fingered by the suppliers was on the other side of the ledger: how much EconoPage spent. EconoPage's offices remained closed Friday, and its executives could not be reached for comment. In a private conference Wednesday, EconoPage told its creditors that it was closing its stores because it could not pay its bills. Its customers stand to lose as much as $7 million worth of prepaid service, while its other creditors are owed about $4 million. Angry customers flooded the Santa Clara District Attorney's office with complaints Friday, and Assistant District Attorney Robin B. Wakshull said the office was looking into the situation. She added, though, that the office did not have enough information yet to decide whether to take action. Meanwhile, an attorney in San Francisco said his firm is investigating legal action on behalf of EconoPage's customers, whose prepaid contracts for paging service are being terminated by the company's suppliers. The firm, Chavez and Gretler, specializes in consumer class-action cases, attorney Alexander Trueblood said. As a reseller, EconoPage did not operate a paging network; instead, it resold the pagers and services it bought in bulk from some of the nation's largest paging networks, including PageNet and PageMart Inc. of Dallas. Lee, whose company was the largest reseller of paging service in the Bay Area before EconoPage arrived, said he had warned his suppliers that EconoPage could not survive at the prices it was charging. He accused EconoPage of engaging in a pyramid scheme, taking money from a steady stream of new customers to cover the losses associated with previous customers. David Quintana, president of Beeper City Inc., said, "They were promising customers things that no one in the industry thought they could deliver. They put their prices too low. With the type of overhead that you need with the product, the customer service, the overhead of the stores, you can't continue to do business profitably." Other resellers dropped their prices to compete with EconoPage, but Lee said that Future Paging stayed on safe financial ground by paying suppliers in advance if they would accept prepayment. EconoPage's competitors also spent far less than EconoPage did on advertising, running smaller and less frequent ads, Lee said. Stas Wolk, a vice president at PageNet, said his company had doubts about EconoPage's pricing strategy, but those doubts were overcome last year when EconoPage explained its strategy. Although the company advertised a one-year rate of $89, the average customer went for a more expensive one-year plan that was more profitable for EconoPage, Wolk said. "They were were talented at (selling) people additional pieces of equipment, accessories and services," Wolk said. He added, however, that PageNet had no insight into how EconoPage spent the money it collected from customers. PageNet is now in the process of cutting off service to customers who purchased paging contracts through EconoPage, but it is also offering them a discount rate of $60 to continue their service for another year. Eligible customers are those whose pagers have a PageNet logo. EconoPage's biggest growth spurt came in the last six to 12 months, after it had opened more than 30 retail outlets, Wolk said. About five months ago, though, checks that EconoPage had written to PageNet for pagers started to bounce. Wolk said that PageNet soon barred EconoPage from activating any new PageNet pagers. The two companies also worked out a payment schedule in June for EconoPage's past-due bills, which amounted to more than $1 million, according to papers filed with the Secretary of State's office. Bridget Cavanaugh, a spokeswoman for PageMart, said her company had a similar experience with EconoPage. It also worked out a payment plan with EconoPage and barred the company from activating any new PageMart pagers, Cavanaugh said, although that did not stop EconoPage from signing up new customers through other suppliers. EconoPage's financial picture improved over the summer, Wolk said, but things took a sudden turn for the worse in late August. PageNet took no action at first, hoping that EconoPage could work out a sale to Source One, an Illinois-based paging company. PageMart, however, started terminating its EconoPage customers in mid-October because of the unpaid bills. In the midst of this turmoil, EconoPage continued to sign up new customers and renew old ones. In fact, it paged some customers and urged them to renew early at a discount: $89 for two years, instead of the usual charge of just under $120. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 97 16:17 EST From: Perillo@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL (Robert J. Perillo) Subject: Modem Users, Who You Gonna Call?; Not Bell Atlantic Bell Atlantic has recently angered some customers with its new policy not to honor its inside-wire wire-maintenance plans for data or modem problems on its telephone lines. This decission is seen as a marketing move to stimulate demand for ISDN lines, and assymetrical digital subscriber line service (ADSL) when it becomes available next year. Bell Atlantic, has stated, that its regular repairmen are not equipped to resolve line data problems, and can rarely solve the problem resulting in a wasted service call. Under the new scheme, with a hefty per-visit service charge, they will send a specialist, line/data technician who might be able to fix or improve the service. These charges will still apply even if the problem or fix is found to be on the Bell Atlantic portion of the facilities. This questions the advisability of subscribing and paying the extra monthly fees for these wire-maintenance plans? Many Telecommuters, or business World Wide Web users were paying these fees as insurance to allow them to operate their PC at home without costly interruption. Also, Bell Atlantic seems to be saying that it considers its normal telephone lines as "voice only" services or facilities? ------------------------- "In a letter to all customers of its wire-maintenance plans, Bell Atlantic said the plans will no longer cover ''malfunctions in the dial tone resulting from the use of voice-grade lines to transmit or receive data or signals which exceed the operating capabilities of the line.'' In effect, the Bell Atlantic policy means subscribers to the optional wire-maintenance plans will not be covered for service calls that involve problems resulting from modem use on a standard voice line. Of the 21 million access lines in Bell Atlantic's territory, 13.2 million are residential. The company would not disclose how many customers use its wire-maintenance plan. According to Bell Atlantic, ''a service charge may apply when a repair person is dispatched and the problem is with the transmission or receipt of data or signals which are beyond the operating capabilities of the dial-tone line.'' ". "Bell Atlantic instituted the new policy because its support staff can rarely solve problems on its voice-grade lines that slow down or disrupt data transmissions, said John White, executive director of outside plant technology and standards at Bell Atlantic. The problems are especially acute with 28.8-Kbps modems, which ''use more bandwidth than we've designed the network to provide,'' White said. Users of 28.8-Kbps modems typically do not get 28.8-Kbps performance because of the limitations of Bell Atlantic's voice-grade circuits, he said. Standard voice lines operate at 300 to 3,000 hertz, but a 28.8 modem requires a range of 465 to 3,520 hertz, he said." "Other service providers do not plan to follow Bell Atlantic's lead. ''We provide customers with communications services, and a phone line provides both voice and data,'' said Gordon Reichard, acting president of Ameritech Advanced Data Services. ''To go in and tell customers that their line is specialized for voice applications is off base.'' " Reference: InternetWeek (formerly CommunicationsWeek), "Bell Atlantic To Modem Users: Don't Call Us", John Rendleman, Monday, October 13, 1997. Robert J. Perillo, CCP, CNE Perillo@dockmaster.ncsc.mil Principal Telecommunications Engineer Richmond, VA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 19:49:49 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Internet Unleashed" by Ellsworth et al BKINTUNL.RVW 970521 "The Internet Unleashed", Jill Ellsworth et al, 1997, 1-57521-185-8, U$49.99/C$70.95/UK#46.95 %A Jill Ellsworth %A Billy Barron %C 201 West 103rd St., Indianapolis, IN 46290 %D 1997 %G 1-57521-185-8 %I MacMillan Computer Publishing %O U$49.99/C$70.95/UK#46.95 317-581-3535 800-428-5331 %P 1269 %T "The Internet Unleashed" This book is very "net-like" in a way: it seems to have been produced the way the Internet is run, by consensual anarchy. No one is taking responsibility here; there isn't even an editor listed. Individual items in the book are excellent. Overall, there is a tremendous resource of Internet information. Unfortunately, there are also inconsistencies in the quality, style, audience, and technical level of the material. One chapter may contain an in-depth analysis of certain RFCs and specifications, while the next is a "gee-whiz- isn't-this-neat" puff piece. There are fifty-four chapters, three appendices, a generally well done "yellow pages", and a detailed table of contents which takes up twenty-seven pages, alone. The three chapters of part one is the usual conceptual and historical introduction. Part two is a guide to access and connection: generally pretty useful but often apt to leave you in the lurch just as you get into trouble. Parts three, four, and five cover communication, including mail, mailing lists, Usenet news and real time chat systems. Some of the chapters give great detailed documentation on, for example, various UNIX mail readers, but related chapters give little coverage of the use of mail for information gathering and dissemination. Part six deals with both access tools for obtaining information, and resource tools for finding information. Seven through ten all really deal with various aspects of the World Wide Web; even those chapters on specific topical uses of the net deal mostly with browsing through related sites. The volume of paper does not correspond to an equal volume of material. There is much duplication of content. The duplication of actual chapters has been reduced, but you can still tell that this is a "committee" book. I would recommend this as a resource, but not necessarily as a sole source. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994, 1997 BKINTUNL.RVW 970521 DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca BCVAXLUG Envoy http://www.decus.ca/www/lugs/bcvaxlug.html ------------------------------ From: jim@newmediagroup.com (Jim Youll) Subject: Slamming: Some Results Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 22:45:45 -0500 Organization: Agent Zero Communications My business lines were slammed last month by a Sprint reseller called "LDC" based in Oldsmar, Florida. I'll summarize: This took over 15 hours of work to sort out, between Sprint's non-cooperation/disinformation, the inability to reach anyone at LDC, and the time spent explaining, re-explaining, and handling all the followup calls from those carriers which were helping me. Sprint accepted NO responsibility and would not even tell me anything about the reseller except the company's TOLL phone number. I asked for, and received, "the company's toll-free number" but the number I was given was for a completely different reseller who told me he's tired of acting as whipping-boy for all of Sprint's ill-behaved resellers. Two Spring operators hung up on me when I asked for a supervisor. Sprint would not remove the charges, pay to have the problem resolved, or contact the reseller. The president's executive assistant told me it was my problem, that she would not help me, and that I shouldn't call there again. AT&T (my chosen LD carrier) took an interest, and has also been proactively contacting customers when it becomes aware that their PIC has been changed (one of my clients was slammed by these same guys this month / AT&T made him aware of it). But AT&T can't do anything to penalize the offender. AT&T's pandering calls became a little annoying, as they phoned to "reassure me" and so forth. I UNDERSTAND the process - that's why I knew I'd been slammed before anyone else did. A lawsuit by AT&T against LDC would satisfy me. Apparently they're not going to do that. Too bad for everyone. GTE (my LEC), and I admit I'm surprised to say this, was the most helpful of any of the involved parties. While they had LOST my PIC restriction (which allowed this to happen) they did expedite the signature form to me, called today to followup, didn't call with pandering niceties, promised to remove the PIC-change charges, will recourse all LD charges back to Sprint for the slammer period, and flagged my account for a followup in a few weeks. LDC Telecomm -- "Says here we had a voice authorization. There's nothing we can do about it.". Enough said, except that they only work 9 to 5, if that, and you can't talk to anyone but the receptionist. (STOP acting surprised by their response). BTW, if you've had problems, their "Street address is proprietary" (yes, that's a quote from Chris Knox of LDC)... but I have it: LDC Telecommunications, Inc., 391 Roberts Rd., Suite 4, Oldsmar, FL 34677. The Florida Attorney General's office is acquainted with the company's antics. LDC President Henry Rodriguez was not taking calls when I phoned. Their registered agent is Shelley Weber, 1245 Court ST., Suite 102, Clearwater, FL 34616. Weber represents the phone company, something called Shirley Weber Inc, and three kaput corporations including a closed paintball park. FCC -- e-mailed instructions for filing a complaint, and is VERY aware of LD slamming and the problems it causes. I sense they are quite fed up with this crap. Ohio Attorney General -- clueless, and useless. Referred me to the Better Business Bureau. I'm working on referring myself to court instead. My only regret is that our AG is a "good ol' gal" from my county, and my friends there probably helped her win this office. Conclusion: To hell with Sprint. As for the rest, I'll let you know how the court case goes if I take it there. It appears that I have several options under Ohio law. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 04:51:56 PST From: Eric Florack Subject: Gilder Says Reno Attacked Microsoft too Late From INTERNET DAILY: ** Gilder: Reno attacked Microsoft too late Technology futurist George Gilder thinks this week's Justice Department complaint against Microsoft Corp. is "irrelevant and too late." Antitrust regulators are seeking a $1 million-a-day fine against Microsoft for allegedly violating a 1995 agreement barring the company from anti-competitive practices. He said "the contest will be settled by the success of Sun Microsystems and IBM in perfecting Java, rather than by the success of Janet Reno in collecting fines against Microsoft," according to CMP's Network Computing magazine. Gilder also predicts that Java-based browsers ultimately will outperform Windows integrated browsers when it comes to network applications. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't think Ms. Reno is very good at math. Let's pencil this out: how many shares of Microsoft does Gates own? How much is the value of each share? His net worth now is around 48 billion I think. Given a fine of a million dollars per day, Gates will be broke in 101 years ... ... allow of course for interest to accrue on the remaining billions before she is allowed to get her hands on his money. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 11:58:27 From: Ken Levitt Subject: Bell Atlantic Still ISDN Clueless In case any of you in Massachusetts thought that the recent radio commercials for ISDN by Bell Atlantic means they are ready to really sell it, think again. I have a customer with two offices in different towns (five miles apart). They need a data connection up all day, so I decided to price out ISDN service for 2 B channels. Here is what happened: 1. I call BA business line department, and I'm told I need to talk to the ISDN department. 2. I am connected to the ISDN department where they ask me for the phone number of the business. Me: I don't have the phone number of that location, I have the business name and address. BA: We can only search by phone number. Me: Why don't you just look up the number. BA: I'm not able to do that. 3. I hang up, call directory assistance to get the number, then call back the ISDN people at BA. BA: What is the area code and exchange? ME: 978-957 BA: I can't find that. Can you tell me what the old area code was? ME: 508 BA: There is no direct ISDN, but there may be "Virtual ISDN" if you are within 18,000 feet of the Lawrence Hub. Me: Can you tell me if this location is within 18,000 feet of the Lawrence Hub? BA: No, the only way to find out is if you place an order for the line. 4. I did not place the order, but I did get prices for installing and using an ISDN line at each location. Note, prices do not include the $135/hour charge for inside wiring. Install: 2 * $328 = $656 Monthly costs: Monthly fee: 2 * $70 = 140 usage costs for 160 hours = 307 ===== Total monthly cost $447 Would anyone really pay this much? Ken Levitt kl21@usa.nospam (replace .nospam with .net) ------------------------------ From: James A. Gayhart Subject: Employment Opportunity: Software Engineer Wanted Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 04:33:02 -0800 Organization: The Silver JAGuar, Inc. Reply-To: Emperor_ACE@SilverJAGuar.com BAJA Systems Job Description: Software Engineer Department: Software Development and sustaining engineering Title: Software Engineer Reports To: Senior Software Engineer Primary Function: A Software Engineer's primary responsibility is as a team member in the design and development of products that make up the BAJA Systems product line. In addition to this is the responsibility of sustaining engineering on existing products for addressing the needs of the customer. This requires a thorough understanding of MS Basic, Pascal, or Visual Basic languages in a Client/Server environment. In addition, a working knowledge of Data Base programming, Data communications, and Cellular swithc interfaces is helpful. A BAJA Systems Software Engineer must have a dedication to our client base to provide the best service and support possible. Major Duties and Responsibilities: Assist the team in project planning and scheduling. Assist the team in developing documentation in the areas of Functional and Design Specifications, Test Plan, and Operational Instructions. All code written must be written to adhere to BAJA coding standards. All code written must be tested in accordance with approved test plan. Customer support must be handled with a "Do Whatever It Takes" attitude. Some travel may be required (up to 25%). Education Required: BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience. Experience Required: At least two years software engineering experience in MS Basic, Pascal, or Visual Basic development or sustaining engineering. Experience in Data Base, Data Communictions, Telecommunications is a definite advantage. Make all replies to: General Manager 146 Wikiup Drive Suite D Santa Rosa, CA 95403-7756 (707) 575-9984 (707) 575-3705 Fax softcell@microweb.com James A. Gayhart AKA Emperor ACE The Silver JAGuar, Inc. http://www.silverjaguar.com mailto:Emperor_ACE@SilverJAGuar.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #292 ******************************