Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA26206; Tue, 9 Dec 1997 22:01:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 22:01:15 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199712100301.WAA26206@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #345 TELECOM Digest Tue, 9 Dec 97 22:00:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 345 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telemetry and SCADA (Ferdie Lochner) Book Review: "Internet Dreams" by Stefik (Rob Slade) Phone Doubler Now in US (Fergal Purcell) A Couple Tidbits From the Foreign Language Media (Linc Madison) Re: Toll-Fraud Through Call-Forwarding Again! (Danny Burstein) Re: Toll-Fraud Through Call-Forwarding Again! (David Wigglesworth) Questions About TDMA Phones (Dave Rubin) Re: FCC Response to Complaint on Payphone Owner Surcharges (Eli Mantel) Re: Beware Call Answering (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: Radio Modem For WAN and Serial Port Communication (H. Peter Anvin) Re: Cellular Phones to Cease Blocking 911 Calls (Hendrik Rood) Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones (John R. Levine) Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones (Bruce Wilson) 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. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ferdie@paarlmun.co.za (Ferdie Lochner) Subject: Telemetry and SCADA Date: 9 Dec 97 07:11:15 GMT Organization: Deja News Posting Service Hi, I would appreciate it if somebody will help me to understand the following two matters: 1. What is the relation between telemetry, SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) and radio frequencies? 2. Would Win NT be a better operating system than Win 95 for telemetry (and SCADA?) and if so, why? Thanks for your time, Ferdie Lochner ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 13:26:06 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Internet Dreams" by Stefik Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKINTDRM.RVW 971113 "Internet Dreams", Mark Stefik, 1996, 0-262-19373-6, U$30.00 %A Mark Stefik stefik@parc.xerox.com %C 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1399 %D 1996 %G 0-262-19373-6 %I MIT Press %O U$30.00 800-356-0343 fax: 617-625-6660 curtin@mit.edu %O www-mitpress.mit.edu %P 412 %T "Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors" If you don't know where you're going, that's probably where you'll end up. A great many statements, pronouncements and opinions regarding the current "extended" Internet (or, in Quarterman's term, the Matrix) and any future developments from it are based not on reality, but on unconscious assumptions that the net is a library, TV, playground, workshop, meeting place, alternate world, community, market, or some other metaphor. Stefik has collected and excerpted visions from a variety of sources to try and present a range of options, and to promote discussion of these underlying assumptions: are they valid, are they helpful, and what are they missing? The articles come from classics such as Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" (his "memex" is often cited as the seminal idea behind hypertext and the World Wide Web), through the artistry of Julian Dibbell's "A Rape in Cyberspace" (items as compelling as this are seldom found in technical works), to Scott Cook's bad-tempered "Technological Revolutions and the Gutenberg Myth." Part one looks at the metaphor of the library. Hypertext, the move from books to digital media, intelligent agents, currency in literature, intellectual property values, non-informational aspects, and the preservation of culture are included in the topics raised. For those who have looked at the net as a cultural entity, the library is the symbol most frequently used for comparison. Still, these essays do manage to present the classic ideas without being repetitious. Part three looks at the electronic marketplace and commerce. The business approach to the net tends to be the least examined aspect: those interested in the Internet as a sales tool simply want to get on with it and close the deal. "Business on the net" books tend to be simplistic and seldom have a solid grasp on the reality of either the technology or the culture of the net. While brief, this section covers every pertinent topic that I have seen discussed in almost all books on the digital economy, and makes a reasonable introduction to a generally sloppy field. Parts two and four appear, to me, to be very strongly related. Part two looks at email, and does a decent job. Part four looks at other forms of computer mediated communication, but primarily emphasizes real-time social communication. (The particular example used is the MUD - multiple user domain - but IRC - Internet Relay Chat - would be very similar.) On the one hand, therefore, the two parts are simply alternate technologies with the same objective. In correspondence with Stefik, he has noted that he was trying to bring out the image of the sense of place involved in chat "rooms." In hindsight, his objective is accomplished, although not strongly. I may be the wrong person to note this distinction, since long experience with mailing lists has given me a sense of "place" in regard to them as well. The metaphors that might be called passive entertainment (newsgroup lurking and Web browsing) and work get rather short shrift. It is, of course, not possible to examine all the metaphors for the net and would be very difficult to collect all the common ones. Those presented are a good start, and a prompt for further discussion. (While archetypes and myths do get frequent mention, their use does not contribute greatly to the book in its current form.) Hopefully, this work may promote further explorations of other Matrix metaphors - which, in turn, may lead to an expanded second edition. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997 BKINTDRM.RVW 971113 ------------------------------ From: Fergal Purcell Subject: Phone Doubler Now in US Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 08:25:32 -0600 Organization: Ericsson Inc. Reading the post on Nortel deploying "Internet Call Waiting" reminded me of an Ericsson Internet product that was released this year, first in Finland and is now in the US. The following is a press Release from Ericsson on the Internet Phone Doubler Product. Any typos are mine. RICHARDSON, TEXAS - DEC. 8, 1997 Ericsson's innovative Phone Doubler, which allows Internet users to make and receive phone calls while logged onto the Internet without a second phone line, has been deployed by Internet Global Services Inc,. a Dallas Internet service provider. Phone Doubler service is available today for Global's business and residential Internet customers in the 214 and 972 area codes, which serve the Dallas area. "Phone Doubler solves a big problem for Internet customers who don't want to be out of touch when they're online, but who don't want the expense of installing a second phone line," siad Michael Gorton, Global president. "This is the beginning of the end for the busy signal." The Phone Doubler establishes a voice gateway that allows voice calls to be sent over Internet protocol (IP) networks. When an Internet subscriber goes online, an IP address is logged into the server. Phone calls to the subscriber are forwarded to the voice gateway, where the Phone Doubler maps them to the previously created IP address and routes them to the subscriber. The subscriber is alerted to the incoming call with an icon on the computer screen, and can take the call using the computer's microphone and speaker while continuing the Internet session. The subscriber also can place a phone call while still online. Phone Doubler hardware and software are installed at the Internet service provider, and Phone Doubler client software installed on the customer's computer allows the customer to use Phone Doubler services. Voice technology originally developed by Ericsson for digital wireless communications makes the sound quality of Phone Doubler calls as clear as ordinary calls. "Global is taking a big step forward in offering voice over IP service with Phone Doubler," said Mark Miller, Director of Internet and Business Development for Ericsson. "Phone Doubler has benefits for telecommuters, small businesses, home offices and cunsumers, and we're looking forward to seeing Global grow its business with Phone Doubler." Phone Doubler can help businesses cut the cost of telecommuting by eliminating the need to have additional phone lines installed in employees' homes. With Phone Doubler, employees can receive and make phone calls while logged into the corporate network orthe Internet. Phone Doubler also can help small businesses make the most efficient use of phone lines by aloowing phone calls and Internet access simultaneously on the same line. Global will offer Phone Doubler service for $9.95 a month plus a $29.95 set-up fee, or for $15.95 a month with no set-up fee for customers with dial-up accounts. Business customers who include Phone Doubler in their package of Internet services from Global will have the capability for phone calls to be placed from any computer on the local area network connected to the Internet. ----------------------- + Fergal Purcell + + Competence and Resource Manager + + Wireless Local Loop and Support Processor + + 1010 E.Arapaho Road, + + Email: Fergal.Purcell@ericsson.com P.O. Box 833875, + + Telephone: + 1 972 583 5503 Richardson, + + Fax: + 1 972 669 0154 Texas, 75083-3875 + ------------------------------ From: Telecom@LincMad.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: A Couple Tidbits From the Foreign Language Media Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 00:04:15 -0800 Organization: LincMad Consulting; change NOSPAM to COM San Francisco is a multi-lingual city, among its many charms, and I sometimes channel-surf some of the foreign-language newscasts. I was watching the Cantonese news the other day and saw several ads for 10XXX long distance services. The ads were not just the English ads with a dubbed-in voiceover, they were top-to-bottom done for the Chinese language market, including some very slick computer animations. On tonight's Univision (Spanish) news, there was an ad for an 800 number for collect calls, 1-800-226-2727, with all the voice prompts in Spanish. They also had a brief news item about pagers and 800 calls from payphones. I didn't catch everything (my Spanish is more than a little rusty) but I did catch a reference to the 28-cent surcharge. They specifically mentioned "toll-free 800 numbers" (I think that's "numeros 800 sin cargo") but not 888, much less 877. In non-telecom-related news, there was a long update on the life of Lorena Bobbitt. ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must change "NOSPAM" to "com" << [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh yes, poor Lorena ... it appears the authorities have now lodged some new charges against her as the result of a recent altercation with someone else; she tried to hurt a man she was with. Fortunatly she did not have any scissors or knives with her when she went postal this time, but the authorities were not amused, nor was the most recent subject of her assault. Her former husband John had no comment for the press. I am reminded of the words of Stephen Foster, American folk song writer of the nineteenth century who penned, "The years move swiftly by, Lorena; the snow is on the ground again ..." I feel certain if some politically incorrect (very incorrect!) but witty soul wanted to do so, they could take Foster's tune and modify the poem just a bit for our modern day Lorena with some remarkable results. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) Subject: Re: Toll-Fraud Through Call-Forwarding Again! Date: 9 Dec 1997 00:15:21 -0500 Organization: mostly unorganized In ctelesca@pagesz.net writes: [a large tale of woe deleted] >> Where have you used the number ? Could the number have been retrieved >> from a telephone's 'redial' button by someone who could translate the >> tones to numbers? > Already thought of that; I always hang-up and enter another number, > then hit LNR to make sure that the RACF PIN is erased. One other possiblity: Have you ever used this from an office, hotel, or a cocot? Many of these have SMDR - station message detail recording, in which _every_ digit you punch in gets recorded. There is a legitimate use for this: for example, your hotel call records get listed, then get compared to a rate chart (either manually or via computer) and you get the bill when you leave. HOWEVER, these records also typically show the _other_ digits you enter, i.e. your telephone calling card number can get lifted this way. danny 'published a letter about this in 2600 years ago' burstein Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 19:39:24 From: David Wigglesworth Subject: Re: Toll-Fraud Through Call-Forwarding Again! Have you considered the possibility that you once accessed the RACF from a PBX somewhere. PBX's often retain all the dialed digits and not just the phone number dialed. So anyone with access to that PBX's billing records can see what numbers were dialed and in what sequence. This method can also be used to obtain calling card numbers. Regards, David Wigglesworth ------------------------------ From: Dave Rubin Subject: Questions About TDMA Phones Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 15:10:09 -0500 Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I just signed up for TDMA service with AT&T in New York with the Nokia 2160 phone. I have found the Nokia to be on the heavy side and it also lacks some important features like a call timer (while you are on a call) and minute warning beep. I also find it annoying that it cannot display names and numbers of stored entries at the same time. Compared to the new Qualcomm phones, or even my old Motorola DCP550 the Nokia is not impressive. Unfortunately it seems my choices with TDMA are limiting. Can anyone recommend a better dual-mode TDMA/AMPS phone for use with the AT&T Digital PCS (IS-136/800Mhz) system? Thanks ... please respond via E-mail. Dave Rubin mailto:daverubin@worldnet.att.net NOTE: to reply to this message remove the "NOSPAM." prefix from the reply address. ------------------------------ From: Eli Mantel Subject: Re: FCC Response to Complaint on Payphone Owner Surcharges Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 09:04:52 PST Adam H. Kerman (ahk@chinet.chinet.com) wrote: > [somebody] wrote: >>> A property owner SHOULD be in the business of attempting to earn >>> the highest posssible revenues from his site. >> A property owner SHOULD NOT be engaged in business practices >> that are predatory. > By definition, all practices of a person who controls a site are > predatory; control of a location is a monopoly. He is under no > obligation to do business with just anyone ... [and on and on ...] IMO, you folks have gone off on a few tangents. The issue at hand is whether public interest should be allowed to supersede private property rights, and if so, what public policy will best serve the public interest. I have heard no objections to mandatory 911 access, and have even heard the obligation not to discriminate mentioned in this discussion, so it appears that everybody concedes that the public interest is relevant in establishing what property owners may do. The public interest is not necessarily best-served by regulating low prices for service. Indeed, the premise of the 1996 Telecom Act was that the public interest could be better served by letting competition set prices for as many services as possible, including payphones, in spite of the common sense argument that the ability of consumers to choose among competing payphones is likely to be very limited in many circumstances. In reality, competition occurs by providers of payphone services offering maximum revenue to the property owner, largely by charging higher prices to the actual payphone users. Thus, the real problem in using the competitive model as the one that best serves the public interest is that the choice is made by somebody other than the one who pays for the service. While some argue that customers upset with unreasonable payphone prices at one merchant are free to take their business elsewhere, this is really a red herring. People are not going out shopping for the best payphone deal! Payphones are an ancillary service that merchants provide, one that has very little to do with how people decide where to shop. If you think this is a bona fide argument, ask yourself how often you have chosen not to go to a particular restaruant, store, or gas station because they didn't have a convenient payphone available. Whether you think it's good or bad, we already have unregulated pricing of other products and services that have limited competition, including hotel room phones, ATMs, cable tv, and movie theatre popcorn. Whatever rationale is used to determine the public policy for one of these areas should also be applicable to the others. Eli Mantel [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ah, but Eli ... where would I be without my tangents every day? I'd feel naked without them. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: Beware Call Answering Date: 9 Dec 1997 04:47:36 GMT Organization: Ashworth & Associates On Mon, 8 Dec 1997 16:11:40 EST, Dan Pearl wrote: > "Call Answering" is Bell Atlantic's name for the answering machine > that they have in their switch. Today, after about one month of not > hearing any stuttering dial tone (which indicates a waiting message), > I get the stutter. They call it "Personal Secretary" down here in GTE land. Or at least, they _did_; I suddenly head radio spots for "GTE Voicemail". But anyway ... > When I dial in for messages, I am astonished to hear 16 previously > unheard messages going back to early November. Oops. > The Call Answering specialist at Bell Atlantic says that there is a > problem if I don't have the latest central office hardware. (I have > 5ESS, the same as she does at her home.) She recommends that if a few > days go by, and I don't hear any stutters, then I should call repair > service, and the programmer will restore the stutter. She claimed > that the service is reliable "95% of the time". Oh, neat. I think that's a tarriffed service; the PSC might be interested. > She informed me that the Call Answering for Eastern MA was down this > morning (10am) and that there was no estimate for its return. I told > her that it was up, that I got the stutter, and called in. I conclude > that they needed to reboot the Call Answering server, and rebooting > reinitialized the stutter. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That same service as offered by Ameritech > has a provision in the Options Menu to 'turn call notification on or > off ...' which I think means turning on or off the stutter dial tone. > Have you looked at the user options available on your end? PAT] More than likely, Pat, that's a switch for _pager_ notification; I've never heard of a telco voicemail system where the stutter was switchable. It's worthwhile to note that the stutter is generated by the _switch_, but that's not where the calls go. Typically, the line is provisioned with call forward busy/no answer (indeed, in GTEFL land, you can only _order_ that feature if you're an 'Enhanced Service Provider'; the sub cannot order it themselves) to a trunk that feeds the voicemail server; it uses the Original Called Number information to decide which mailbox to hit. The voice mail server, once it has a message for you, sends a message to the switch over a SMDI (Simple Message Desk Interface) link, a 9600-56K digital circuit between the two sites -- which may not be collocated. I'd say the SMDI link is bouncing and they don't realize it, myself. I'd be interested to know what more you can shake out of them armed with this info ... Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet "Two words: Darth Doogie." -- Jason Colby, Tampa Bay, Florida on alt.fan.heinlein +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: hpa@transmeta.com (H. Peter Anvin) Subject: Re: Radio Modem For WAN and Serial Port Communication Date: 6 Dec 1997 09:55:37 GMT Organization: Transmeta Corporation, Santa Clara CA Reply-To: hpa@transmeta.com (H. Peter Anvin) Followup to: By author: millerk@akamail.com (Kurt Miller) In newsgroup: comp.dcom.telecom > 2. I am looking for a low to medium speed radio link for a WAN > application. I am looking at speeds of 19.2K or slightly faster. I > need something that is relatively affordable on a per/port basis and > operates in either S-band or L-band. Does anyone have recomendations > as to products they have used in the past that are reliable / easy to > set up? Range? Line of sight? Lucent WaveLan are 2Mbit/s and *supposedly* can go four to five miles line of sight with directional antennae. hpa PGP: 2047/2A960705 BA 03 D3 2C 14 A8 A8 BD 1E DF FE 69 EE 35 BD 74 See http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/ for web page and full PGP public key I am Bahai -- ask me about it or see http://www.bahai.org/ "To love another person is to see the face of God." -- Les Miserables ------------------------------ From: hrood@xs4all.nl (Hendrik Rood) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones to Cease Blocking 911 Calls Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 22:36:44 GMT Organization: XS4ALL, networking for the masses Reply-To: hrood@xs4all.nl lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (Lee Winson) enlightened me about: > A brief article appeared in {USA Today} (Tue 12/2/97) saying that the > FCC will issue regulations requiring cellular carriers to not block > 911 calls from cell phones of competiting companies, and to improve > the service quality of 911 responsiveness to wireless customers. For > example, the caller's telephone number and approximate location is to > be passed to the 911 center. > Given the complexity of this issue, it will require close watching and > interpretation to laymen's terms. > Whether this will include phones not registered to _any_ carrier > was not explained. This is a very interesting message. In the European GSM-system it is possible (and even some measures are taken in the standard for mobile handsets) to dial 112 (European variant of 911) on every handset. Even without a SIM-card for billing in it (the calls to 112 are free of charge). It surprises me that a comparative USA 911 service on cellular is not available yet and that this FCC-ruling might be challenged by lawyers. > Another issue is what happens if you're near a state border and get > a 911 center in a different state -- how will you get transferred to > the right location? (Living and working near the Penna-NJ border > my cell calls are often shown originating in the state opposite > of where I actually am.) This is a problem reported several times on the borders of my country (the Netherlands). It happens that users of a GSM-cellular at the border are dialling 112 and end up in a German or French speaking 112-office in the neighbouring country. In the GSM-system you can avoid this problem to look closely at the display of your phone and see the cellular network it is trying to make contact with before placing the call. When you are not able to choose the cellular network (typical on older analog phones) this can become a major problem. Hendrik Rood ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 1997 05:23:09 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > My comment: I wonder if industry concerns were really addressed. As > was noted previously on this newsgroup, cellular carriers worry that > the users who now have $19.95 per month service "for emergencies" > could potentially disconnect that service and use their disarmed cell > phones to make 911 calls forever, for free. I suspect the answer to that particular worry is "tough noogies." Are there really enough 911 calls to tie up a significant part of the cellular network? If cellular companies can't figure out how to persuade people that it's worth turning on their cell phones, that says more about the cell companies oligopolistic pricing than it says about the users who are presumably making rational decisions within the parameters that the cell companies provide. In particular, what did they expect with expensive service and free phones? John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 09:56:05 -0500 From: blw1540@aol.com (Bruce Wilson) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones In article , Greg Monti writes: > My comment: I wonder if industry concerns were really addressed. As was > noted previously on this newsgroup, cellular carriers worry that the users > who now have $19.95 per month service "for emergencies" could potentially > disconnect that service and use their disarmed cell phones to make 911 calls > forever, for free. Yeah, but you can't dial 911 to call Aunt Millie. I don't think 911 traffic's going to suddenly mushroom; and there won't be any need to assign numbers to those phones which had "emergency" service but now don't have it. However, I don't see any impending mass exodus of "emergency" service subscribers because such "emergency" service isn't limited to 911 calls, which is to say a subscriber can use those minutes for anything. Thus there might be some incentive to retain the service to be able to make and receive other calls even if the infrequent 911 calls could be made without it. For example, my fiance could use such a "disarmed" phone to call 911 in a real emergency but not to call me if she'd merely run out of gas or to tell me she was running late, either of which might constitute a family "emergency." Bruce Wilson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #345 ******************************