Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA15004; Sun, 21 Sep 1997 22:31:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 22:31:03 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199709220231.WAA15004@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #256 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Sep 97 22:31:00 EDT Volume 17 : Issue 256 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bell Atlantic CDMA Privacy Option (brian@his.com) 56k Standards Fight is a Patent Fight, Too (Eric Florack) DNS Scheme For All Telephone Numbers in NANP? (J.F. Mezei) Master List of SLC's by LEC's (Herman Ohme) Online Service Provider a Moneygrubber? (J. DeBert) Re: MedicAlert and 209 Split (Babu Mengelepouti) Re: The Medic-Alert Brouhaha (Ed Ellers) Re: The Medic-Alert Brouhaha (Tom Watson) Re: AGIS Pulls Plug on Cyberpromo Due to Ping Attack (William H. Bowen) 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: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 18:27:02 -0400 From: brian Subject: Bell Atlantic CDMA Privacy Option When I got my BANM CDMA phone in January the saleswoman told me several things that turned out not to be true. The first was the availability of the hands free car kit with external antenna. She said it would be available in about a month. It has been almost nine months now and they still say they don't have it. And the other thing that was not true is the "Privacy" option on the Qualcomm phone. Basically, it is the encryption in the IS-95 CDMA standard. She said that I wouldn't like it because it added about a half second of delay into the audio due to the processing; however, it would be available "shortly." Well, I have never been able to get BANM to define "shortly." Last week however, I finally got a somewhat-knowledgeable customer service agent. She said the only thing on their service menu remotely like encryption is 'Transcrypt' and it was on the analog phones, not the digital phones. So then I send my fourth e-mail to BANM in eight months, hoping to get a higher-level response. This time, they call me back for the first time. A lady in Networks says they have no plans to activate the option. Why? "Dunno." Has anyone else been told anything about "Privacy." Caveat Emptor. And as always, please visit my home page at http://www.his.com/brian Find my PGP keys at http://keys.pgp.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=brian@his.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 05:58:39 PDT From: Eric Florack Subject: 56k Standards Fight is a Patent Fight, Too This has been under discussion, and this adds information to that discussion. /E Fighting Over the Bone by Brian McWilliams, PC World News Radio September 18, 1997 Setting international modem standards used to be a private process carried on behind closed doors, but the heated discussions over the pending 56-kbps modem have spilled into the streets -- again. This time, it's Lucent Technologies that claims to be in the driver's seat regarding intellectual property. "We think that the patents we have will limit the ability of other parties to get patents that read on the core of the technology," says Bob Rango, general manager of Lucent's modem chip-making group. "We didn't say that no other patents would be granted, but since we invented this thing back in 1992, we started filing patents way back then. I mean, the patents that we're getting issued now were filed two to three years ago." Lucent was responding today to the announcement earlier this month by 3Com that it had exclusive rights to the intellectual property of inventor Brent Townshend, who claims to have patents pending on core 56-kbps modem technology. Rango said that Lucent sent a letter to the International Telecommunications Union today saying that it will license its patents on PCM, or pulse code modulation, to other companies under reasonable terms and conditions. 3Com, of course, earlier made a similar announcement regarding its patents. Dataquest analyst Lisa Pelgrim says it's all a continuation of the jockeying that's historically occurred during the modem standards process. The only difference today is that PC users are closely following the twists and turns. "In past standards, most recently V.34, there were a lot of issues that came up in court that were not publicized," notes Pelgrim. "One of the things that has happened with 56K is that it has been very public. A lot of it comes from the Internet taking off and so many people finding that they do want faster [access] speeds, which makes 56K a big story." (Eric notes: Not to mention the lack of real commitment to ISDN from locals, as has been suggested previously in this forum.) One significant element of Lucent's intellectual property that we know won't be in the ITU draft standard that's in the works now is Lucent's technology for doing PCM on the upstream side of the connection. Last January, Lucent said it had developed and was testing PCM for transmission from the PC to a host modem, and had been able to get nearly bisymmetrical connect speeds with upstream speeds of 45 kbps. But Rango today said Lucent had to shelve that technology for compatibility reasons. "In order to expedite the technology deployment on K56flex, we elected to do V.34 upstream because we wanted to get the quickest interoperability with our partner, Rockwell," he explained. Rango says Lucent and other modem companies involved in the ITU standards process are doing everything they can to get a draft standard in January. He said most are already designing their modem code to reflect the standards work that's occurred so far. ------------------------------ From: J.F. Mezei Subject: DNS Scheme For All Telephone Numbers in NANP? Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 03:45:00 -0500 Organization: VTL Reply-To: "[non-spam]jfmezei"@videotron.ca 800 (and 888) numbers are "router" based, right ? When I dial an 800 number, the telco translates this to a standard telephone number, right ? Why not do the same for *ALL* NAP numbers ? You dial any number, and the telco translates it to an actual "network address" wherever that phone might be ? This would remove the need to constantly split area codes since there wouldn't be "area codes" anymore, just 10 digit telehone numbers. Need a new line, just grab the next available number. With more and more cities being split into different area codes, dialing 10 digits for ALL numbers might become more natural than having to decide whether one has to dial 7 or 10 digits. Also, when one person moves, one could keep the same telephone number and the telco would simply change the routing tables. If one changes supplier of dial tone, same would happen. Keep your number, change routing table. This would be quite similar to the internet domain name system. The questions: -Has this been studied ? -Is computer technology fast enough to allow such a "DNS" based scheme (similar to the internet) for all calls in North America ? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would think this would be sort of risky, although there is lots of talk about 'number portability' and I guess we are going to have it in the not to distant future. The problem I see is the inability of the technology at the present time to keep up with the speed needed. Now, this look-up arrangement is done with most (all?) 800 numbers (are there still any 'hard-wired' 800 numbers around in any telco, anywhere, dating back to the late 1960's perhaps?) but toll-free calls make up only a small percentage of the total traffic, and if one listens closely one can detect a very slight delay in processing those calls now while the lookup is being done as contrasted to 'regular' local calls. Also, I have to wonder about database failures as happens occassionally now with 800. Just the other day AT&T's 800 numbers were out of service for a short period of time -- was it a couple hours? -- due to the database having been incorrectly loaded. When number portability becomes the norm over the next few years should we expect from time to time that the entire national phone system will freeze up and reject calls if the database happens to be trashed? And what happens if the database is deliberatly tampered with? I am reminded of an occassion quite a few years ago when in the process of mailing out this Digest one day, every single copy got tossed back in my face. Not a known host in the bunch, but then a couple hours later I found out from someone that, "well, you see there is this domain/host resolver in (I think they said Georgia) that got all screwed up last night. There was a comma in one of the entries which messed up everything after that point; it propogated around the net ... made quite a mess ... but they edited it and reloaded it and now all is fine ..." Well ... accidents will happen I suppose; the latest problem with AT&T and the 800 number fiasco several days ago was blamed on 'human error' which is all quite understandable. But to trust every single telephone number to a database which is susceptible to 'human error' seems like quite a risk to me, to say nothing of human malice and terrorist hackers, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 08:57:22 -0500 From: Herman Ohme Subject: Master List of SLC's by LEC's Is there a master list of (SLC's) Subscriber Line Charges by all LEC's for fixed monthly fees for special telco circuits (ie. WAL, DAL,T-1), or Special Access Surcharge (SAS) on special access circuits. ------------------------------ From: J. DeBert Subject: Online Service Provider a Moneygrubber? Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 20:23:28 -0700 It seems that there is a problem with one of the oldest online service providers, based somewhere in Ohio. Three months ago they "double-dipped", charging both my checking account _and_ credit card for monthly fees, including a rather significant amount they had previously credited back to me. Since then, all they tell me is, "Your refund is in process" or "We'll submit a refund request" and to "wait two weeks", until the last time when they said that they could not issue a refund. Since then I closed my account, waited fourteen days then called to see what was up. Again, I am told that "it is in process", whatever that means -- apparently it does not mean that they intend to repay the money they owe me. They double-billed once, long ago, but refunded the money relatively quickly. Has any other comp.dcom.telecom readers had such a thing happen to them? Are they perhaps so strapped for cash that they cannot pay? Are they so desperate that they need to double-bill? Any advice? Should I sue them? File a report with a credit bureau such as Standard & Poor's? Call a newspaper "Action Line" and set them on this service provider? Complain to the BBB? Call the FCC? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Since the oldest online service provider anywhere, as you point out, based in Ohio, has a few management people who read this Digest regularly, I'd hope one of them would call you after seeing this and make the needed correction. Honestly, they are pretty good most of the time in their customer service. Try to get through to a supervisor or the head of customer service. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 19:23:04 -0400 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Re: MedicAlert and 209 Split jay@west.net (Jay Hennigan) wrote Re: California's 209 NPA Split and MedicAlert > You mean someone actually BOUGHT the "Help, I've fallen and I can't > get up" gadget? And it costs them a long distance call every time the > neighbor opens his garage door? And they're still working? Somehow, > these have always seemed to be in the same realm as Chia pets and the > Clapper. Actually, my grandparents purchased these at my insistence two years ago. My grandfather had been stricken with bone and prostate cancer, and was immobile (the cancer had made his bones so brittle he'd broken both hips). And my grandmother was able to totter around the house a bit, but due to severe arthritis she could not even walk so far as from the house to her car without assistance -- and usually was taken around in a wheelchair. I cared for them over the summer, but had to return to school in the fall. And I was worried. They lived on a farm on a remote road six miles outside of town, in a remote valley in the North Cascades. Since they never went anywhere, it could be days before anyone noticed that something was wrong. What if my grandmother fell down? It had happened before -- shortly after I got there for the summer, she fell down in the kitchen and I had to lift her. Clearly it was necessary for them to have something. While there were two cordless phones in the house, I wasn't sure that if she fell the phone would not break -- and besides, a 78 year old woman with arthritis, in pain after having fallen, may be unable to dial the phone. So I discussed the situation with them, and insisted that they get the "I've fallen and I can't get up" device. The device itself is a radio transmitter which communicates with a base unit. The base unit is connected to a regular phone line. When the button is pressed (in the event of an emergency), the base unit has a yellow light that starts flashing and sounds an alarm. If the button on the device was pressed accidentally, you can go press a button under the yellow light and it won't summon help. If within 2 minutes you don't go press the button, it calls an 800 number, and a modem transmits to the company's central computers that there is a situation. The company (I believe they're called "LifePlus" in Issaquah, Washington) calls back the number they have on file to make sure that everything is okay. If everything is NOT okay, or there is no answer, they make an aid call to the fire department. While these devices did not save the lives of my grandparents (my grandmother recently passed away due to heart problems, and my grandfather died of cancer last year), it did extend them by awhile. She did fall down and used the device to summon help. Without it, she could have died! I think that this much-ridiculed invention can be a lifesaver to older people living alone, especially in remote areas -- of which we have many in Washington state. And I'm glad that it was available for my grandparents to use. Given the circumstances, I very much am in favor of the 209 split happening the way that it did. Each unit would have to be returned to the company to be reprogrammed, or someone sent to every home to reprogram each of them before the split. And there is always a possibility that one might be missed -- one which could later need to be used to summon emergency help. I think it would have been a far better design for an 800 number to be used, as the company in Issaquah does. But what's done is done and I don't think that an old woman who's fallen down ought to pay with her life (or health) for MedicAlert's incompetence. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I got the very same thing for my mother several years ago and paid for the first year of service in advance. Hers operates the same way and calls an 800 number. The range of the base unit is pretty good; it works anywhere in her two-story house, the front or back yard, and over into the neighbor's yard as well. On hers, she can either press the button on the necklace she wears *or* she can not respond to a phone call at a certain time of day as pre-arranged. I think she has them call her at 9:00 AM daily which is a time she is always up. If she presses the button -- and she has done so a couple times by accident, and once when she first got it to test it out -- a speakerphone comes to life and dials the number. Within a few seconds the operator/dispatcher has her name and address on the screen (they do not rely on ANI, but rather, the base unit transmits data over the line when an answer is received) and the dispatcher will say something like, "Ruth? (that is her name) ... are you there Ruth? Is something wrong? Please speak to me." If she answers she can explain the problem (or say it was an accident). If there is no response or if the dispatcher does not like the sounds he is hearing -- for example someone screaming or crying -- then he can make a decision on how to handle it. If the dispatcher does not get an answer at the agreed-upon time for a call each day he can also make some decision for handling it. The company asks for the name and address for a couple of close relatives as well as the name, address and phone number of the neighbor on either side, provided those people have given their written permission to be listed with the company. A 'no-answer' situation on the daily phone call means a call will go to the two neighbors with a request that they check on my mother. If the user answers and describes a problem then a call will go out to police/fire/medical personnel as needed. In the event of a 'no answer' to the daily call and the neighbors are not available then police are called and asked to check the well-being of the person. I think it is a great system for elderly people who insist on retaining their independence and living alone, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: The Medic-Alert Brouhaha Date: 21 Sep 1997 06:27:13 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Joey Lindstrom wrote: > What's wrong with simply going ahead with the split as originally > intended, and then REPLICATING THE MEDIC-ALERT PHONE NUMBER IN BOTH > CODES until such time as Medic-Alert can, over time, ensure that all > the existing Medic-Alert bracelets are replaced? Or indefinitely if > we want to save some expense? It's one phone number. It's done with > toll-free numbers all the time for FAR less needful reasons ... am I > missing something here?" The difference between replicating toll-free numbers and replicating conventional numbers is that the former use a lookup table while normal numbers *always* go to a specific central office based on the NXX. Once the "mandatory" dialing period (where you get a warning recording) ends and the NXXs open up any seven-digit calls to this number, dialed within the new NPA, will either go to a different central office in the new NPA -- which would have to call-forward them to the desired number -- or else will fail if there is not yet a CO in the new NPA that uses that prefix. I don't know of any way to "fix" the switches so that that one seven-digit number will be sent directly to a different CO from the one that normally handles that NXX. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There really would be nothing to be 'fixed'. Have the number which winds up in the wrong area code be a 'foreign exchange' (FX) line to the place where it is desired, or use 'remote call forwarding' where a virtual number terminates in the central office (never going to any actual subscriber) and from there it gets forwarded to the same number but in the new area code. When Ameritech opened 847/630/773 they were offering remote call forwarding to customers -- at a price of course -- telling people they could have 'their' number in any area they desired. The only catch was assuming the 312/708 version of the number was not already taken, which usually it was not since the former 312/708'er was being put in 847 or 773 anyway. So, you just let the distant telephone switches do their thing in the usual way; when the receiving switch gets the call it handles it like FX or RCF to wherever the subscriber is. With RCF the person receiving the calls pays for them being forwarded, and with FX there is just some monthly rate to the subscriber; it is all transparent to the person originating the call; all he pays for is what he actually dialed, period, not what the receiving CO decides to do with it. Also you are mistaken on how 'normal' numbers are handled where the competition is concerned. For example, MCI now offers local service in this area and they allow you to keep your existing Ameritech number if desired. Ameritech's CO still gets the call, but sees it now goes to MCI and translates it (or maybe call forwards it) to the MCI pseudo-number assigned to you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tsw@cagent.com (Tom Watson) Subject: Re: The Medic-Alert Brouhaha Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 15:44:28 -0700 Organization: CagEnt, Inc. In article , Joey Lindstrom wrote: > What's wrong with simply going ahead with the split as originally > intended, and then REPLICATING THE MEDIC-ALERT PHONE NUMBER IN BOTH > CODES until such time as Medic-Alert can, over time, ensure that all > the existing Medic-Alert bracelets are replaced? Or indefinitely if > we want to save some expense? It's one phone number. It's done with > toll-free numbers all the time for FAR less needful reasons ... am I > missing something here? No, you ARE NOT missing anything. The whole decision is/was POLITICAL. Political decisions are not based on anything reasonable. Somebody wanted their way, and found a "good excuse" to get it that way. Similar arguments have been touted as "starving " and thus detremental. Based on fact, you ARE joking!! Welcome to the USA. It was related to me this way: Legislation is like sausage. The final product is OK, but you don't want to know how it is made. This probably relates to almost ALL area code problems, "equal" local access, why the Bell system was broken up, why Microsoft is intact, etc ... the list goes on. Everybody comes up with an "excuse". Some are more reasonable/palatable than others. They mask the "real" agenda. tsw@cagent.com (Home: tsw@johana.com) Please forward spam to: annagram@hr.house.gov (my Congressman), I do. ------------------------------ From: bowenb@best.com (William H. Bowen) Subject: Re: AGIS Pulls Plug on Cyberpromo Due to Ping Attack Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 20:37:04 GMT Reply-To: bowenb@best.com rseoeg@site33.ping.at (Chris Mathews) wrote: > snipped Spamford's "crying in his beer" for brevity< > (submitted to the net by) >> Mark Boolootian >> booloo@cats.ucsc.edu > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What a rotten shame! So is Spamford > still out of service or has he managed to snooker other ISP's and/or > networks, etc into handling his nasty traffic? I wondered why my > inbox had so little spam when I checked it early today, and now I > know. Whoever was doing the pinging which caused this to happen, you > have the heartiest congratulations of net-people everywhere. PAT] Chris, The latest I've heard is that BBN Planet is going to provide Spamford with connectivity. BUT, on another note, I've also heard that two large BBN customers in the Bay Area are going to have a long talk with BBN and tell them "if you accept Spamford, we're out of here". Maybe the saner heads at BBN will prevail. BTW, I still think the only thing that will dissuade Spamford and his ilk is a direct physical attack (a commando raid) on his operation and put it out of business. A little drastic maybe, but, as the Sean Connery character said in the movie "The Untouchables": "if he brings a knife, you bring a gun. If he puts one of yours in the hospital, put one of his in the morgue". Regards, Bill Bowen bowenb@best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well now, I certainly cannot condone any unlawful activities, which I guess would cover a commando raid on Spamford's heaquarters, busting up his computers, tearing down all his circuits, etc. I mean, I would not be surprised to see it happen one of these days/nights, knowing human nature as I do, and knowing how *really bitter and angry* a lot of netters are over his antics, but I still cannot and would not condone it. Violence is never an answer to the problems of the net. I think back to the olden days of Citizens Band Radio when it was in its glory and how after periods of massive interference and static caused by CB'ers operating illegally certain vigilantes would go out late at night to use triangulation to locate the offender. When located, indeed the response was pretty ugly. Antennas would be toppled over, the coaxial cable would be sliced in several pieces; if possible, the vigilantes would gain entrance to the premises and totally destroy the radio. By the time it was finished and the vigilantes left, the illegal CB-er would be wishing it was the FCC which had raided him instead. Now the FCC agents could be and were pretty vicious -- I have often joked that FBI agents in those days were trained by the FCC field inspectors which is how the FBI guys got such ugly dispositions -- but the FCC at least could usually be counted on to do no more than smash up the radio, seize everything which remotely looked like radio equipment to use as 'evidence' and give you your day in court. The vigilante CB-ers on the other hand had no time or patience to waste on the justice system in the USA; a couple broken arms or a house set afire were not unheard of. And then for a few days the radios would all be very, very quiet. Most all the CB community knew who the vigilantes were, and most condemned violence to the extreme they had seen it, but at the same time their attitude was damned if they would cooperate with the police at all when it came to catching/prosecuting the 'community heroes'. We never, not once, in the 1960's and early 1970's ever thought that our wonderful communications medium known as Citizens Band Radio would ever be abused or come to an end after people got so bitter and fed-up that they unplugged their radios and tossed them on a shelf in the closet. And who on this net who has been around since the early 1980's or even five years ago would have suspected that we may indeed see physical violence against abusers, or even the technological violence -- pinging, email bombs, etc -- that are so common today. Years ago on Usenet we would have discussions about 'the death of Usenet'. I even got into them and everyone would laugh and predict the 'death of the net' for whatever reason. Maybe the death of the net will come when we turn on the news some day and read that Spamford was found dead; his office a shambles; and FBI agents harassing all the netters they can find about it. Maybe people will say to hell with it and toss their computers on the shelf next to the dusty old CB radio. I don't know why, and I don't really approve of violence, but I have a feeling we are going to experience a net catharsis sometime soon in the form of such a shocking act of violence. It just seems to be the logical response to the direction in which we are moving very rapidly. And like the CB community more than twenty years ago, if I did know anything about it I'd be damned before I told the government anything. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #256 ******************************