Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA23302; Sun, 23 Nov 1997 21:18:14 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 21:18:14 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199711240218.VAA23302@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #326 TELECOM Digest Sun, 23 Nov 97 21:18:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 326 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Help With Mobile Email (Drew Stephens) Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. (John Hewitt) Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. (Leonard Erickson) Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. (Henrik B|hle) Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. (Earle Robinson) Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. (Christian Weisgerber) Re: OLS (Originating Line Screening) via PRI (Q.931 Message) (C Weisgerber) Re: OLS (Originating Line Screening) via PRI (Q.931 Message) (Thor Simon) Re: Video Conferencing to a GSM (Al Varney) Re: Bulletproof 888 Number? (Bob Keller) Re: AT&T Hike Dims Deregulation Promises (Steve Bagdon) Re: TWX/Telex, Realtime vs Store/Forward (Henry Baker) Re: The Internet Will Swallow the Phone System (Henry Baker) Re: 900 Number Help (Gail M. Hall) 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. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Drew Stephens Subject: Help With Mobile Email Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 17:26:47 -0700 Organization: AllPoints GIS Friends, I'm trying to get on the net while on the road -- working from an RV "on tour"... I would really appreciate tips, or pointers to other newsgroups and web pages that might have practical advice/experience in cellular mobile communications. Here is the configuration I'm working with: Nokia 2160 w/extended NiMH battery; USRobotics/Megahertz Nok3 cable (the right one); Megahertz XJ4336 36.6 cellular-ready modem; Dell Latitude PC 133 ... Win95; My TDMA cellular provider (ATT Wireless) uses modem pools. I can dial-up with no problem on a land line. Modem speed 19200. Extra modem settings in the "Configure Modem" window of the Dial-up properties are: AT&F5M1X4Q0V1S0=0&C1&D2F10 per AT&T Wireless help document. Problem: When I dial-up (in analog mode), I do actually hit the provider. I get my Post-dial terminal screen, yet the login prompt and other messages from the provider scroll VERY slowly, then stop. I am disconnected after 120 seconds, as set in the dial-up configuration. Also have fairly poor voice quality on this phone -- AT&T is FedEx'ing a replacement phone under warranty -- should I be looking into CDMA? Thanks for the help in advance. Drew Stephens, AllPoints GIS ------------------------------ From: jhewitt@ctv.es (John Hewitt) Subject: Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 19:46:20 GMT Organization: Unisource Espana NEWS SERVER Here in Spain the caller pays the cost of the call to the mobile. I suspect that the mobile user kinda like this, and it's good marketing for the mobile service provider. The mobile user doesn't "see" the extra cost that is incurred by the calling party: to the mobile user it's just another call he didn't miss -- at no charge, very acceptable. The service providers like it, because the users like it. Here, the callers cost, to call a mobile, is at least 400% more than a 'local' call to a fixed subscriber. As a result, I'd be charged, usually, about $1 each time I call a mobile user. If I see a tel number that starts with 9XX, ie. a mobile, I don't call. Someday soon everyone's going to learn this, and calls *to* mobiles are going to "dry up". John Hewitt, Malaga Spain jhewitt@ctv.es ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 20:27:39 PST Organization: Shadownet jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) writes: > I've heard, although not recently, arguments for both caller-pays and > callee-pays approaches to cellular billing. I've never, however, heard > anyone mention what _I_ consider to be the obvious reason why it ought > to be the cellular sub who pays for the airtime part of the call: > They're the one getting the convenience of the wireless service, why > oughtn't _they_ be the one to pay for it? If I see fit to give out my > cellular number to unsuspecting people, why should it be either that > they should pay for my convenience, or even more importantly from a > personal privacy standpoint, that I should even have to tell them it's > a cellphone at _all_? And when telemarketers and survey takers call the cellular owner, should he have to pay for those *unwanted* calls? And what about wrong numbers? There's a reason why the standard rule (before cellular) was that the *caller* always paid any charges unless the callee had consented to pay them (Enterprise & Zenith numbers, 800 numbers, etc). It wasn't carried over to cellular in the US because they thought that it'd make cellular phones less popular if people had to pay to call them. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But I don't think it applied on mobile radio phone calls prior to cellular either did it? In the old service called AMPS, weren't the charges always paid by the radiotelephone owner and not the caller? Likewise, the old 'ship to shore' radio service to vessels on the Great Lakes and in rivers, etc. The (landline or wired) caller never paid extra for those. PAT] ------------------------------ From: henrik.bohle@usit.uio.no (Henrik Bohle) Subject: Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. Date: 22 Nov 1997 17:02:32 GMT Organization: University of Oslo, Norway In article jra@scfn.thpl.lib. fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) writes: > They're the one getting the convenience of the wireless service, why > oughtn't _they_ be the one to pay for it? If I see fit to give out my > cellular number to unsuspecting people, why should it be either that > they should pay for my convenience, or even more importantly from a > personal privacy standpoint, that I should even have to tell them it's > a cellphone at _all_? Unsuspecting? At least here in Norway, there are dedicated number-series for cellular phones. And no charges on the receiving end. The dialer knows he is dialing a cellular number, and expects to pay for it. For the privacy part, you can use call forwarding, or hunting in the PSTN. hbrx. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 13:33:10 GMT From: Earle Robinson Subject: Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux Here in France, the caller to a cellular phone pays, 30 cents daytime and half that in the evening and weekends. The advantage to this system is that you need not hide your cellular phone number, and the result is the cellular operators have much higher billing per customer than in the USA. Since a cellular number has a different area code, the same throughout the country by the way, any caller knows in advance that he is calling a cellular user if he dials such a number. I should add the caller pays the same whether the cellular owner is sitting anywhere within France, or he is on a beach in Spain. In the latter case, the cellular owner will pay a roaming charge to receive a call while outside his home country. All this is just like landline calls: You don't pay to receive a call at home or at your office -- unless you have an incoming 800 number. One big reason you see many Americans with both a pager and cell phone is because of the ridiculous method used for call charges in the states. No one with a cell phone here would bother having a pager, too. er ------------------------------ From: naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de (Christian Weisgerber) Subject: Re: The Old Who Pays Cellular Argument, redux. Date: 23 Nov 1997 15:53:43 +0100 In article , Jay R. Ashworth wrote: > I've heard, although not recently, arguments for both caller-pays and > callee-pays approaches to cellular billing. I've never, however, heard > anyone mention what _I_ consider to be the obvious reason why it ought > to be the cellular sub who pays for the airtime part of the call: > They're the one getting the convenience of the wireless service, why > oughtn't _they_ be the one to pay for it? This is really the first argument that comes to mind for the callee-pays scheme, isn't it? Of course the same logic readily applies to regular phone service, too. They're the one getting the convenience of being reachable by phone, so they should pay part of the call, too. Just because we are conditioned that taking a phone call doesn't cost anything does not automatically make the traditional arrangement particular logical. Interestingly enough we already have a well-established "callee pays everything" arrangement, think 0800. The most natural way to handle all this would be to let the market decide. Offer caller pays, callee pays, and split charge service, and see how it develops from there. Assuming that people are egoistical, I would expect this to converge quickly into a general acceptance of "caller pays" with only few exceptions along the lines of current 0800 numbers. > even more importantly from a personal privacy standpoint, that I should > even have to tell them it's a cellphone at _all_? From a privacy standpoint, every call to a cellphone should start out with a message "important notice: this is a call to a wireless service, remember that anybody can listen in". Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de See another pointless homepage at . ------------------------------ From: naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de (Christian Weisgerber) Subject: Re: OLS (Originating Line Screening) via PRI (Q.931 Message) Date: 23 Nov 1997 16:22:10 +0100 In article , Robert M. Gutierrez wrote: > There are usually 2 OLS digits that are usually prefixed on the ANI. > OLS digits can define the type of originating service, like public > coin, hotel, hospital, prison (!), and also flag ANI failures > and customer provided ANI digits. > Unfortunately, I have not looked at the Q.931 document from the ITU > to see if there is a digit length in the called number field. No, the number length is not explicitly limited. However, your suggestion doesn't go along very well with Q.931. The Calling Party information element provides for these indicators: - type of number (national, international, ...) - numbering plan (E.164 ISDN/telephone, X.121 packet-switched data, F.69 telex, ...) - presentation (allowed, restricted, number not available) - screening (user provided, not screened; user provided, verified and passed user provided, verified and failed; network provided) and of course the number itself. As you can see, information in addition to the plain number is handled by separate indicators. Part of what OLS provides is handled by the screening indicator, but there is no provision for the rest. Piggybacking this by adding special digits to the number would be very much against the spirit of Q.931 signaling. (IMHO it would be a whopping violation of the standard.) Of course, the above may be somewhat moot since Q.931 is just a template for a signaling protocol and actual implementations like NI-1 (-2, -3) or E-DSS1 are more or less different. The above comments still hold true for E-DSS1 -- I've actually worked from ETS 300 102-1, which explicitly marks differences versus Q.931, in writing this -- but I don't dare to speculate what modifications may have been introduced in the country that came up with SPIDs. Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de See another pointless homepage at . ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: OLS (Originating Line Screening) via PRI (Q.931 Message) Date: 23 Nov 1997 06:39:37 -0500 Organization: Panix Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Robert M. Gutierrez wrote: > Has anybody been able to provision a PRI with a LEC, CLEC or IXC that > will or can pass OLS digits from their switch? > There are usually 2 OLS digits that are usually prefixed on the ANI. > So for FGB or FGB inband signalling, you would get 12 digits, the first > 2 being the OLS digits, and the other 10 being the ANI of the call. > OLS digits can define the type of originating service, like public > coin, hotel, hospital, prison (!), and also flag ANI failures > and customer provided ANI digits. I've never looked at this in detail, but don't you get what AIN calls the "ChargePartyStationType" and ISUP calls the "Calling party's category" parameter over Q.931? Within the PSTN, all kinds of stuff Just Wouldn't Work if this information didn't follow a call around. Hm. I'm looking at my copy of Q.931, and I can't seem to find it anywhere. It looks like a deliberate omission. I wonder why? Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com ------------------------------ From: varney@ihgp2.ih.lucent.com (Al Varney) Subject: Re: Video Conferencing to a GSM Date: 21 Nov 1997 20:08:50 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies, Naperville, IL Reply-To: varney@lucent.com In article , Koos van den Hout wrote: > According to my GSM, it is capable of receiving video conferencing > calls. Quite.. interesting :) > The following happened : I was trying to get our videoconferencing set > in working order (which still needs a lot of voodoo to work) and as one > of the tests I called my GSM number. It rang, so I answered, and got > funny noises on my GSM and a videoconferencing telling me the connection > was established and trying to set up a remote image. > When I call a normal voice number (either POTS or ISDN) the set will > tell me this can't be done. Video conferencing on a wireless phone? No problem. According to several articles in the November 1997 issue of {IEEE Communications Magazine}, wireless can handle ATM, and ATM can handle videoconferencing, therefore wireless can handle videoconferencing. :) Al Varney - just my opinion ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1997 09:27:06 -0500 From: Bob Keller Subject: Re: Bulletproof 888 Number? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All he is trying to say is that they > receive ANI (Automatic Number Identification) on all incoming calls > and that they (at least claim to) research this listing carefully to > see who has been making a nuisance of themselves or otherwise making > mischief. ANI is nothing new; I doubt that he is getting it in real- > time (that is, the number shown as each call is recieved) but he > might be. I think he *is* getting real time ANI. I called out of curiosity and the recording stated that if I was calling to complain because I received an email I should hang up else they would capture my number and feature it at the top of one of their ads as a contact for the company. (Cute.) A Robo-voice then proceeded to read back to me the number from which I had called. I hung up at this point. I presume the calling number was obtained via real-time ANI. It should not have been Caller-ID insofar as I star-sixty-sevened the call. Bob Keller (KY3R) rjk@telcomlaw.com www.his.com/~rjk/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 05:57:53 -0400 From: bagdon@rust.net (Steve Bagdon) Subject: Re: AT&T Hike Dims Deregulation Promises > In any price change, "we look at the growth parameters of each service, > and we have strong demand for our services," he said. "That's one of the > factors that goes into how we price the service." Interesting wording, but the message is the same -- charge what the market will bear. > That explanation angered business customers, even though most said they > comprehend the company's decision to price its services at the highest > level the market will bear. > "I understand it, but I don't like it," said one AT&T customer who > requested anonymity. "I have a problem with anybody that prices anything > for as much as they think they can get for it." So this AT&T customer gives away their product/service? As if I'm going to go to my supervisor and say 'my hourly rate is too high, I think you should cut my rate'? Steve B. ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Re: TWX/Telex, Realtime vs Store/Forward Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 15:14:59 GMT In article , Mark J. Cuccia wrote: > In "Re: The Internet Will Swallow the Phone System", Craig Milo Rogers > wrote: >> Lee Winson wrote: >>> IMHO, the Internet can be described in terms of "store and forward", >>> not direct connect. That is, your message is stored by your ISP, >>> then packaged and routed. This can appear to be instantaneous, or as >>> Dave Barry said, at the speed of the Division of Motor Vehicles. >>> That won't work in voice communication. >> The term "store-and-forward" carries baggage. > TWX and Telex were actually _realtime_ _circuit-switched_ _terminal-to- > terminal_ services. A Glenayre (paging radio company) salesman told me the following (apparently true) story about the early days of paging. In the 'good ol days', the paging systems were real-time -- i.e., your (voice) message went out onto the air as you spoke. Apparently, crooks used this to tell the drivers of cars dropping off money or goods exactly where to drop, as in 'ok, drop it NOW'. The FBI was watching one of these dropoffs just after the paging system went to store-and-forward, and watched as the crooks dropped off the money or goods about two blocks further than they were supposed to, due to the delay of getting onto the air. It was apparently quite hilarious. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The first pager I had was from Motorola in 1967-68 and it was about the size of a brick, with a clip to hang it on your belt. The person calling you dialed the common number for all pagers and then punched in the number of your particular unit. After a beep tone which followed anywhere from immediatly to five or ten seconds later (which meant someone else was being paged right before you) then the caller would speak a message into the phone which went out as he was speaking. A tone signal turned my beeper's 'squelch' off so I would hear the message. I then had to restore the squelch with a little button on the side of the pager, otherwise it stayed 'open' and all subsequent pages (to whoever) would also be heard. When it got to the point that so many pages were being made that there would always be three or four ahead of you (and by that point in maybe 1970-71 traffic was heavy enough that if you left your unit unsquelched there was constantly one page after another -- one would end, there would be a 'beep' and the next one would start -- from early morning to late evening, and perhaps 'only a couple hundred or so during the night') the system in Chicago changed to store and forward. The caller dialed in on the common number, entered your pager unit number and left his message. Sooner or later, within a minute or two the message would be played over the air to your unit. Suspecting one day that my unit was not working correctly, I put in a test message, just one of those 'testing, testing, one two three four' type things, and sat back to wait for it to come over the air to me. I waited fifteen minutes and was convinced I had some sort of problem. I unsquelched the unit and heard this message, "... the number you have dialed is not in service, please check the number and dial again, this is a recording ...' and that message played over and over, maybe a dozen more times until suddenly it stopped in mid-sentence and a woman's voice came on saying 'Annex Answering Service, are you finished? ... (pause a couple seconds) ... Chicago is clear, this is [call letters] Annex Answering in Chicago' ... and after maybe three seconds the 'busy light' on the switchboards of answering services all over the downtown area went out and the operators at the services started jumping on the air one after another as fast as they could seize the circuit to the transmitter and send out their pages which had been accumulating. People with rotary dial phones had to dial into the answering service (they could not reach the individual pager direct) and recite their message to an operator who then sent it out, as often as not in the abbreviated form 'unit XXX, call your office' which meant call the answering service to get a message. Once the answering service operators started slowing down then the store and forward device kicked in and *it* started passing the stuff it had accumulated for thirty minutes or so, and the dozens of pages which had gotten caught in the logjam all came spilling out one after another. I reported this to the supervisor of the answering service I was with (which also maintained my pager) and her answer was that there were 'just one or two' mobile radio customers who were also assigned on that frequency and 'probably' an operator at Annex Answering had tried to put through a 'patch-call' for one of them, had dialed incorrectly (thus the recorded intercept) and after closing the key had gotten very busy on other calls (or perhaps walked away from the switchboard) and failed to notice that the mobile customer had eventually abandoned the call and left the recording to play for however long. She said that most mobile customers had been 'moved off that frequency to other frequencies' but there were still a couple left. :( "We have told them however they have to limit their calls to five minutes or less on this frequency since it is now used for paging sub- scribers" was the way she put it ... :). It appears though the mobile subscriber was not at fault; the answering service operator had failed to supervise the call and left an intercept message to play over and over for about ten or fifteen minutes. Sure enough, at about thirty minutes after I had stored it, the test message was forwarded over the air, in due course behind the ones ahead of it. Eventually it got ridiculous; ten to fifteen minute delays were the norm before your message got transmitted because the network was so busy; that is when the entire system was changed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Re: The Internet Will Swallow the Phone System Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 15:25:02 GMT In article , wollman@khavrinen.lcs. mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) wrote: > Or consider the question from another angle ... say you're in Europe, > calling someone who uses a mobile phone. Chances are, the guy at the > other end has a crappy 13-kbit/s GSM codec. Why should you pay for a > 64-kbit/s A-law path between you and his MTSO when 13 would give you > all the voice quality his phone is capable of delivering? (Of course, > the telephone company can make this optimization too, provided it has > enough information about the endpoints AND a flexible- or old-enough > network.) Re 'crappy ... GSM codec': The newer 'Enhanced Full Rate' GSM vocoders are noticeably superior to the standard 'Full Rate' GSM vocoders, even though they use the same bit rate. These 'EFR' GSM vocoders are now standard on PacBell's GSM systems on the west coast. The newest Nokia phones come with all three codecs: the seriously crappy 'half rate' vocoder, the standard full rate vocoder, and the enhanced full rate vocoder. Re end-to-end quality negotiation: You have a very good point, particularly when you make a cellphone international call to another cellphone. You can possibly go through the transcodings: GSM vocoder -> 64k Alaw -> 16k adpcm -> 64k ulaw -> IS95 codec. Aside from the loss of quality is the end-to-end latency and the inability of some systems to properly handle echos of this latency. Perhaps one of the best results of 'internet telephony' will be the end-to-end negotiation of vocoders so that quality can be maximized and latency minimized, by putting in a single translation to the lowest bit rate, with one translation back to voice. ------------------------------ From: gmhall@apk.net (Gail M. Hall) Subject: Re: 900 Number Help Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 07:15:42 GMT Organization: APK Net, Ltd. On Thu, 06 Nov 1997 22:45:33 PST, Eli Mantel wrote: > Steven Gaunt wrote: >> I called BellSouth and they essentially said too bad! I needed to >> call the carrier of that call. So I finally got through to ATT's >> 900 complaint line and the end result with them was tough. I had >> to pay the charge. > In our moderator's zeal to assert the righteousness of your position, > he failed to mention that on top of everything else, your local phone > service cannot be terminated for failure to pay such unregulated > charges. > I believe the proper protocol is to notify the local phone company > that you dispute the charge. As an unregulated charge, it will be > removed immediately and the information provider will be so notified. > If you assert to the local phone company that you refuse to pay for > 900/976 charges under any circumstances, they may be obliged to block > such calls. (Of course, you can say "Thank you very much. That's > what I already asked for.") I agree with this if this pertains to paying the local phone company which is an agent for the other companies listed on the bill. On the phone bill it says that pages from other companies, such as long-distance companies, are billed as a convenience to the customer. A few years ago, actually quite a few years ago, we sent a telegram via Western Union and asked for a particular type of message which was a lower cost than another kind. When we got the bill, we were billed for another type of telegram, which was more expensive. I called the phone company, and they said to just make a note on the bill that this part is disputed and they would send it back to Western Union to rebill us. Then we would deal with Western Union to get that straightened out. It was straightened out without any problems. The point is, we just marked our phone bill and subtracted that amount from the amount we sent in. > The information provider has the right to pursue legal remedies > through other channels, such as small claims court. There is the > potential for reporting your non-payment to a credit bureau, but I > believe there are special rules that apply to reporting non-payment of > 900/976 calls. Once you have told your primary phone company you are disputing the bill, they won't mess with that bill any more. Your dealings will be with the company that originally charged for the service. If AT&T owns that company, then they may be able to force you to pay the bill, but they may be cutting their own head off if their attitude causes them to lose all your other business and maybe even other business because of getting a bad reputation. Personally, I wouldn't want to take the word of a clerk or whatever they call the first level of phone answerer you get for knowing all the company policy about these billing questions. I would want to talk to someone higher up if they gave me a hard time and the bill was wrongly charged in the first place. Gail M. Hall gmhall@apk.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #326 ******************************