Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA22743; Thu, 11 Dec 1997 21:37:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 21:37:02 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199712120237.VAA22743@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #346 TELECOM Digest Thu, 11 Dec 97 21:36:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 346 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Using International Callback as Toll Free Number (Collin Thomas) Re: MCI Cancels Toll-Free Service in California (Julia Fan) Re: MCI Cancels Toll-Free Service in California (John Stahl) Out of the Mouths of ... (73115.1041@compuserve.com) Reimbursements to COCOTs For "Free" Calls (Tom Watson) Re: FCC Response to Complaint on Payphone Owner Surcharges (Bill Ranck) Re: Misdialing 911 From Hotels? (Jan Ceuleers) Re: Misdialing 911 From Hotels? (James Bellaire) Re: Misdialing 911 From Hotels? (Eric Kammerer) Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones (Michelle Durbin) Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones (Ed Ellers) Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones (Mike Fox) Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones (Steven Michelson) Multi-Line Digital Phone Systems - and a Modem (Jerome R. Kalisz) 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Using International Callback as Toll Free Number From: Collin Thomas Date: 9 Dec 1997 19:46:16 GMT Organization: ntr.net Corporation We would like to provide a toll free number for our company to people in Japan. The current international toll free company we have found is almost $2.00/min. We obviously would like to find something less expensive. One idea that I have is to use a modified international call back service. The service would provide a number that anyone in Japan could call. They would then enter their phone number and hang up. The service would call them back and rather than provide them with dial tone, it would dial us directly. The person calling would then hear our line ringing and would be connected to us when we answered the line. All charges would be directed to us, therefore providing a toll free number to Japanese callers. Does this sound plausible? What services might we call to try and set this up? Anyone have a better solution? Thanks in advance for any answers/ideas. I can be reached via e-mail at collin@rightsolution.com . ------------------------------ From: julia_fan@bigfoot.com (Julia Fan) Subject: Re: MCI Cancels Toll-Free Service in California Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 05:09:15 GMT Organization: CampusMCI Reply-To: julia_fan@nospam.bigfoot.com On 9 Dec 1997 01:49:11 GMT, lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (Lee Winson) wrote: > This event annoys me greatly in ways beyond the obvious "bait and switch" > false advertising MCI has done here to attract customers. It does not sound like bait and switch to me. MCI offered a product in good faith that did not take off, so they are discontinuing it. More of a marketing decision than anything else. According to the numbers from the article only 25,000 folks signed up ... out of how many hundreds of thousands in the target market? It sounds like a business decision that had to be made on a product that obviously was not selling. Julia Hayes Fan julia_fan@bigfoot.com http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/5353 (When replying remove the 'nospam' in the address) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Generally -- but there is no firm rule; no iron clad decision set in stone -- when a telco decides to stop making some service available, they at least 'grandfather' the existing customers, either until the customer moves, discontinues service or chooses to use some other plan. MCI would probably get a bit more sympathy had they at least offered to allow existing subscribers to continue on the plan, even for something like several months to a year while at the same time making it known the plan was no longer being offered to new customers, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: aljon@worldnet.att.net Subject: Re: MCI Cancels Toll-Free Service in California Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 22:30:26 +0000 Everybody seems to be forgetting that MCI isn't plain old MCI any more. Didn't they just get 'eaten-up' by a much smaller company? Now the new company is most probably very much in debt, what with the investment they made (printing paper must cost something!); the justification begins. Will we now see a slow raise in long distance charges throughout the country -- and the world -- by the new Worldcom-MCI? (After all, most things, good and bad for the consumer, start on one of the coast's -- left or right.) I'd say its pretty much a good bet! Be prepared for the price increases from everyone in the business. John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecommunications, Data and Internet Consultants email: aljon@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ From: 73115.1041@NOSPAMcompuserve.com Subject: Out of the Mouths of ... Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 16:33:33 GMT Organization: Zippo News Service [http://www.zippo.com] One would not expect the average 11 year old to be cognizant of the more subtle aspects of modern telecommunication ... Recently, my 11 year old daughter described something a classmate asked her to do with the phone. My daughter didn't understand what she was being asked to do and asked me to explain. A classmate called her up after school one day and asked her to press the hangup button on the phone, dial a certain number and the press the button again. Telecom literate readers will recognize that she was being asked to create a three-way call. With all due respects to Paul Harvey, "And now, the REST of the story ..." A few months back, US West had enabled the use of three-way calling on all residential lines in New Mexico. The user interface for activating this feature is the switchhook flash. A charge of .75 per use is levied. It seems the classmate had been calling another party to the point that the recipient of the calls had used another CLASS feature, banning all calls from the classmate's number. The classmate was getting the recording stating that calls from the classmate's number were not accepted. The classmate wanted my daughter to call the third party (avoiding the ban) and bridge her into the call so she could continue to bother the recipient. Oh ... the attempt failed. As soon as I had received the notice that US West was enabling this feature months prior, I called and had them remove it from my lines. It was just too easy to accidentally activate it. Ken 73115.1041@NOSPAMPLEASEcompuserve.com ------------------------------ From: tsw@cagent.com (Tom Watson) Subject: Reimbursements to COCOTs For "Free" Calls Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 11:43:04 -0800 Organization: CagEnt, Inc. Given all the hype about the $.25 (or whatever it is) charge that the pay phone operators get for "toll free" calls, I'm surprised that the pay phone operators don't complain about not being paid for '911' calls. Aren't these both in the same catagory as far as the pay phone operators are concerned? They are providing "free" calls for the public at large for whatever reason (good or bad). Why shouldn't they get reimbursed for the calls? I'm just pointing out the absurdity of the whole scheme. Things were MUCH better when the price of a local phone call on a pay phone was simply a dime!! Boy are those days gone! Given the wonders of prepaid phone cards and 800 numbers, why even have coin slots in the phones at all. Just sell the "prepaids" that have magentic stripes on them (to dial the provider and register the card number) and go from there. In variable length number Europe, they have stored value cards, which seem to work quite well. Of course, they don't have money grubbing COCOTs (that I saw) either. Leave it to our wonderful government to really foul things up!! tsw@cagent.com (Home: tsw@johana.com) Please forward spam to: annagram@hr.house.gov (my Congressman), I do. ------------------------------ From: ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu (Bill Ranck) Subject: Re: FCC Response to Complaint on Payphone Owner Surcharges Date: 10 Dec 1997 13:53:09 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia Eli Mantel (mantel@hotmail.com) wrote: > 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. > 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 > 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. This situation appears to me to be directly analogous to the soft-drink vending machine trade (with the exception of the mandatory 911 access and like considerations). If you see a business place that has both Coke and Pepsi machines on premise, the price of the drinks in almost invariable lower than if the premise only has one brand. The drink vendors pay the property owner extra for exclusivity. In my area, one of the local grocery stores has both brands' machines out front, and the cost per drink is 35 cents. At other stores, with only one brand vending machine, the cost is usually 55 cents. Clearly the consumer is paying extra for less choice. Obviously pay phones, in places that allow multiple operators to place them, will cost less if there is direct competition. But, in reality, the business model is clearly foretold by the soda vendors ... Bill Ranck +1-540-231-3951 ranck@vt.edu Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Computing Center [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is exactly the reason I insisted that the COCOTS I had installed for the guy here be priced at 25 cents; because the nearby Ameritech phones are 35 cents. Regards Pepsi and Coke, you'll never see both brands (or any of the brands 'underneath' each) in the same vending machine. You will see a Coke machine and its various brands one place, and a Pepsi machine elsewhere. When served from a fountain, likewise never will the two be together, nor will the plastic/paper cups used to serve the beverage mention the name of the other. There is at least one exception to this however, and probably a couple more. The 7/Eleven chain sells enough of each to have a major say-so in how it is done. And they say there will be one fountain, one cup. Everyone's logo goes on the cup and that includes both Coke and Pepsi. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jan Ceuleers Subject: Re: Misdialing 911 From Hotels? Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 14:15:06 -0800 Organization: Alcatel > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If police are that concerned, > How about this: the > 911 person answering the call *can* keep the connection up the same > way a telephone operator can do; why don't the police start holding > on to those connections, ringing back, etc ... or does the switchboard > release the line to the room even if the trunk is held up? I don't know about PBXs in North America, but in this part of the world an ermergency operator cannot hold a PBX trunk line: the connection between the subscriber line and the trunk is severed immediately. Depending on the particular type of trunk, the PBX will place the trunk out of service due to signalling timing violations if the CO does not acknowledge the release request in time. > And if the > room extension is released but the trunk is held (by 911) what happens > to the ring back? Does the hotel operator get the call? Why don't > the police specifically ask to speak with the guest in question at > that time? If the guest had misdialed, then redialed, surely they > would still be on the phone thirty seconds later. PAT] The operator of the PBX may not know which of the guests has dialed the emergency number (or even that the number has been dialed at all). There may be many guests on the phone when the emergency operator calls back thirty seconds after the original call. > ... on the other hand I see an incredible number of > foreign people in Skokie (mainly from Russia and middle east areas) > who -- it is true -- do not know how to operate a telephone correctly > and get wrong numbers or no connection at all. This is quite an offensive statement to make. Those people may not know their way around the NANP, but that certainly can't be equated to not knowing how to operate a telephone correctly! I'm sure that's not what you meant to say. ________ \ / Jan Ceuleers Network and Business Consulting \ / Alcatel Bell, Switching Systems Division \ / Francis Wellesplein 1 B-2018 Antwerpen, Belgium \/ Tel. +32 3 240 8027 Fax +32 3 240 9917 ceuleerj@btmaa.bel.alcatel.be X400: C=BE,A=RTT,P=ALCANET,OU1=BELA1,O=ALCATEL,S="Jan",G="Ceuleers" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 10:16:24 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: Re: Misdialing 911 From Hotels? In TELECOM Digest v343, Eric Bohlman quoted an article from the December 7, 1997 edition of the _St. Petersburg[FL] Times_ about problems with 911 from hotel phones: > Clearwater police are suspicious about the number of 911 calls that > come from rooms at the Fort Harrison Hotel. Police respond to each > call only to be told most of the time by Scientology security guards > that the call was a mistake. Police are not allowed to check > individual rooms where the calls originated. > In the past 11 months, 161 calls to 911 were made from > rooms in the hotel, but each time Scientology security guards said > there was no emergency. Evidently the hotel must know the rooms where the call originated, otherwise the 'police are not allowed to check' complaint is erroneous. A city I once lived in fined its citizens $50 for multiple false alarms from a single address. This was intended to encourage businesses with malfunctioning alarm systems to get them fixed. Billing started with the third false alarm each month. (The hotel would owe nearly $7,000 by now!) If hotel security is that good they may just want to intecept all 911 calls at the security desk. Of course they would have to be staffed 24hrs a day and check with their lawyers. On another international note -- what does the hotel to with '112' calls, the number a traveler who needs emergency aid may pound first? James E. Bellaire (JEB6) bellaire@tk.com Telecom Indiana Webpage http://members.iquest.net/~bellaire/telecom/ * Note new server - old URL should still work * ------------------------------ From: Eric.Kammerer@zool.AirTouch.COM (Eric Kammerer) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 08:26:59 -0800 Subject: Re: Misdialing 911 From Hotels? > Is this considered a common problem at hotels that have large numbers > of non-US visitors? What percentage of 911 calls in general turn out > to be the result of misdialing? Do PBX/Centrex systems for hotel > applications make some attempt to detect dialing that *might* be an > attempt to reach 911 and reroute it on the assumption that someone in > an emergency might be misdialing out of panic? When I ran the PBX at a Nortel training center, I had the same problem. We had 911 dispatches all the time, only one of them was ever valid. People would misdial, realize their mistake, and hangup. Of course, 911 dispatches with lights and sirens on a hang-up! To make it more interesting, the only ANI that was delivered was the BTN for the DDD trunks, not the extension number making the call. Most calls were made from some phones provided for student use which had phantom DN's not in the DID range. The easiest way to deal with the problem is to block 911, but that's not legal for hotels, and leaves you highly susceptible to lawsuits. I ended up routing 9-911, 9-11, and 6-911 (9 was the local access code, 6 was for long distance). I didn't want to get sued because someone couldn't reach 911, and I didn't want to feel guilty if someone died while waiting for help. ------------------------------ From: Michelle Durbin Subject: Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones Date: 9 Dec 1997 16:35:34 GMT Organization: Verio Northern California's Usenet News Service > 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. "For emergencies" may not necessarily mean dialing 911. People who have cell phones for "emergencies" may want to have the ability to call for a tow when their car breaks down. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 00:07:45 -0500 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. John R. Levine (johnl@iecc.com) wrote: > 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?" Probably not, but the carriers don't want to lose that $20/month from their "just in case" customers. "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?" How true. I bought a good used bag phone at a hamfest a while back, hoping that my mother might be able to get a decent deal without a long service commitment. Silly me. The best I could get locally without a yearly agreement was $40/month and 40/minute, with no bundled air time. (The Frontier deal that Pat has mentioned here sounds good, but she'd have to switch to Frontier for long distance to get it. I haven't checked to see if it's even available in Louisville yet.) So the phone is sitting in my closet, to be pulled out for long trips in case a call to 911 is needed. I can also make "non-emergency" calls at $2/minute, so if I did have to call a friend or relative rather than 911 it isn't unattainable. One interesting offer I saw was for "emergency" cellular phones for $99; these are used (allegedly "remanufactured") handheld phones from Motorola and at least one other manufacturer, and come with a car lighter adapter instead of a battery and charger. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Louisville is served by Ameritech Cellular I think, and if it is, then Frontier could help you, since they resell Ameritech. Your mother would not necessarily have to default a line to Frontier. I forgot to mention that having an 800 'Call Home' number from them also counts as having an account for the purposes of getting cellular service. So your mother can get an 800 number for three or four dollars per month plus tolls and then sign up for cellular. Or, you could sign up for 800, get cellular and then give the phone to your mother with you paying the bill on it. If you do it that way then get your own cellular service as well. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:20:04 -0500 From: Mike Fox Reply-To: mikefox@ibm.net Subject: Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones Bruce Wilson wrote: > 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. I think the industry will have a problem, as this regulation will hasten the exodus from traditional cellular to PCS services. PCS services are generally superior, but have little to no coverage in rural areas and poor nationwide coverage. If I'm a subscriber to regular cellular considering moving to PCS, I might be dissuaded by the knowledge that I can't use my PCS phone to dial 911 while I'm travelling. But if I know that I can keep my old cellular phone in the car for 911 while travelling, and I don't have to keep service activated, I think I'd be more likely to drop my analog services and sign up for PCS, knowing that I have the security blanket of the unactivated analog phone in case I'm in an emergency in a non-PCS area. This isn't just speculative. I've already had some friends switch to PCS and drop their analog cellular after verifying they can still use their analog phones for 911. I still think the regulation is a good, common-sense idea, though. Mike ------------------------------ From: Steven Michelson Subject: Re: Free 911 Service for Cellular Phones Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:25:40 -0500 Organization: AT&T I wouldn't be surprised, however, if people who became aware of this free 911 service started using 911 for things that aren't really life-threatening emergencies. For example, is a flat tire an emergency? Not really (IMHO), but those who only have 911 service might consider it one, since it's the only number they can dial on their phones. How about a fender-bender accident where nobody is hurt, but there is some small damage to a vehicle? Different people will have different views of what constitutes an emergency worthy of calling 911. This could, unfortunately, burden the 911 service. I hope that ubiquitous 311 service (i.e., non-emergency police line) also finds its way to cellular. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 14:07:33 -0500 From: Jerome R. Kalisz Reply-To: kalisz@ctinet.net Organization: KaliszArt Subject: Multi-Line Digital Phone Systems - and a Modem Hi! I just started browsing your archives. A lot of good info there. Maybe you could help me in my search. I'm a member of a non profit organization (toastmasters) that needs to hook a modem up to the phone system in our meeting room. However, there are no fax/data ports available; only multi-line phones on a digital key system. I don't know of any way to tap into such a system inexpesnviely to bring out a single jack into which I might plug the modem. There might be a handset amplifier, but mail order ones are expensive, and not guaranteed to work (plus take a while to get here). I wonder if I could build one? In any case, do you know which of your articles might have some good info on this? It would be much appreciated! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think it has been discussed in the Archives, but I decided to put this out for general responses by readers. IMO (notice, no 'H'; that's because I don't give humble opinions) the easiest way out might be to go to wherever the punch down block is serving the multi-line phones (or the jack, or whatever), get in there and camp on one of the pairs you want to use for data purposes. Bring it off to the side in a modular jack of its own ** on the (new) red/green wires ** . Get one of those line exclusion devices from Radio Shack which prevent a phone user from disrupting a data call and vice versa. Plug it into the new jack in such a way that all the phones behind it are dead (on that line appearance) when the modem is off hook. Now plug the modem in, in series behind that excluder thing. I have a terminal and modem hooked up that way now in one place I use a lot. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #346 ******************************