Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA12794; Sun, 2 May 1999 18:00:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 18:00:06 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905022200.SAA12794@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #69 TELECOM Digest Sun, 2 May 99 18:00:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 69 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Pay Scheme Seen Fueling Mexico Cellphone Growth (Tad Cook) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Danny Bateman) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Alan Pugh) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Robert Eden) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Ron Bean) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Billy Harvey) Re: Cordless Phone Help Wanted (James Gifford) Re: Cordless Phone Help Wanted (support@sellcom.com) Re: Canadian Credit Card Phones (John R. Levine) Re: Forcing MCI to Change Advertising (L. Winson) Re: 4+8 ? (was Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go) (Leonard Erickson) Star TAC 3000 Loses !!!!! (Jon Solomon) 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 networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: New Pay Scheme Seen Fueling Mexico Cellphone Growth Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 20:56:26 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) By Fiona Ortiz MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Beginning on Saturday, Mexican mobile telephone users will no longer have to pay for calls they receive, a change that analysts and industry leaders say will throw fuel on an already explosive market. "This will definitely detonate the mobile telephone business," said Roberta Lopez, spokeswoman for tiny northern Mexico mobile phone company Pegaso. "People can control their costs now and more people will get cellular phones." Mexico's three largest mobile telephone providers -- Telcel, a subsidiary of phone group Telmex ; Iusacell and a group of four northern Mexico cellular firms -- all saw 90 percent growth in 1998. Growth this year of 50 percent to 90 percent or even more is possible with the "calling party pays" system, industry leaders say. Pegaso, for one, hopes the new system will be one factor helping to increase clients from some 2,000 people to as many as 100,000 this year in the border city of Tijuana. Mexico is one of the last Latin American countries to abandon a system under which phone clients had to pay for every call they receive. The new system was approved on April 16 by the Federal Telecommunications Commission (Cofetel). All cellphones will be switched to the new system automatically. Local calls to mobile phones -- long distance dialing and charges will not change -- will take a new 044 prefix and will cost 2.50 pesos (about $0.27) per minute, a rate close to the Latin American average. Analysts said the new scheme would boost cellular subscriber growth because it will be cheaper to own a cellular phone and because providers would be able to market mobile phones to lower-income groups without running the risk that people would receive a lot of calls they could not pay for. "It changes the credit risk profile for cellular companies, improves it substantially," said Patrick Grenham, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney in New York. Telmex, which has almost all the land lines in the country and about 65 percent of the cellular market, fought the new pay scheme with a court injunction, arguing that the traffic of calls to cellphones would diminish. But analysts do not see telephone traffic going down. "Local traffic is generally inelastic. People will absorb a higher cost," said Brad Radulovacki, an analyst with Flemings Research. Traffic will go up because the new rates, "encourage people to keep their cellphones on all the time." Grenham said tht, when people do not have to pay for incoming calls they start to see their cellphones differently and give out their number to more people, generating more traffic. Radulovacki said calling party pays has generated subscriber growth in Chile, just in the two months since it was introduced. But analysts said benefits for phone companies would not be seen for several months here because Mexicans are confused about the new system. "It's not clear," cellphone user and businessman Melvyn Trejo said. Like many other cellphone clients here, Trejo thought that the option to stay with the old system meant that callers to cellular phones could use or not use the new 044 prefix depending on whether they wanted to pay for the call. He did not know that he would have to ask his provider for a new phone number if he wanted to stay with the old system. Few will make that choice, analysts and industry leaders said. Enrique Chavero, marketing director for a group of four cellphone providers in Northern Mexico, said only about three to five percent of users will opt to retain the old system. "Nobody is going to stay with the old system. Why decide to keep your bill higher?" said Grenham. ------------------------------ From: Danny Bateman Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: Sun, 02 May 1999 05:17:41 GMT Organization: Telrad Ltd. When I was studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel we were on two networks, csnet and bitnet. This was back in 85-86. I used to send an email to myself using either the csnet or bitnet address. It would arrive as much as a few hours later, after it had gone though a number of gateways, reached somewhere in Wisconsin and came all the way back here. Danny Bateman (Danny.Bateman@telrad.co.il) ETAS Team Leader, M1 Software, Telrad Telecommunications ------------------------------ From: amp@pobox.com (Alan Pugh) Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 23:42:58 -0500 Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > And remember the email to FTP gateways? Long before the web, when a > file transfer meant FTP'ing to a site -- if you could get through the > congestion, and if you were allowed to use FTP at your location -- > many people were unable to obtain the files they wanted. This was > especially true when the earliest BBS's started networking with us > through Fidonet gateways. So we had scripts that would accept incoming > mail and parse it looking for the requested files, gather up the files > and send them back by email. It was a workaround when FTP was not > available between networks, etc. The person got the requested files > a couple days later, but that was better than not getting them at all. > The Telecom Archives Email to FTP script used to get a hundred calls > a day right after I put it up several years ago, now it gets maybe one > or two inquiries weekly while the web site got two thousand hits today. Email to FTP is a precursor to the web IMO. It was a rather useful bit of automation that I recall using several times to get E-Texts from Project Gutenberg. I guess it's little used these days because people aren't really aware of it and the whole internet thing is a little more immediate than it used to be when even dedicated circuits were dog slow compared to the average dialups today. Your idea of "Internet Pioneers" is an interesting concept. I'm interested in early history of the net. I suppose I have a general interest in technological history as the articles about early telephony are a subject I look forward to in the Digest. I'm not exactly someone who could be called an "internet pioneer", but I'm one of the few folx I know these days with a working email address that's over 11 years old. Perhaps that would qualify me as an early carpet bagger? :) alan pugh E-mail: amp@pobox.com The easiest way to maximize the amount of information over a communication line (in the theory's terms) is to hook up a random noise generator to it. ------------------------------ From: Robert Eden Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: Sun, 02 May 1999 04:40:28 GMT All this reminiscing of Bitnet and UUCP made me think of the Bitnet NetZine (before it was called such) NUTWORKS, published by "Brent@Maine" (.bitnet of course). A quick search engine search reveals a complete archive at http://www.ccl.kuleuven.ac.be/~luc/nutworks/ (I was missing 1-15,27,28!) And for the where are they now set, Brent became a lawyer.. who would have thought ... http://www.brittonlaw.com/main/people/people.html To further discussions ... How many networks made up the "Internet" in the 80's? UUCP - (anyone update the maps lately?) BITNET - IBM RSCS (?) based (btw Pat, I think @ originated here... IIRC, the syntax for RSCS messages was "tell user at host message" ) TEXNET - DECNET based network in Texas (ahhh VAX Phone from aTm to SW Texas State...) ARPA - TCP/IP FIDONET - BBS network... AX.25 - Ham Radio.. (a better name escapes me) and many more ... ------------------------------ Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 22:36:33 CDT From: Ron Bean >[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note:... >Now-days, you sign up with an ISP and ask him for a shell >account and you get the strangest look from him, almost a sort of >'what are you trying to pull, anyway' attitude. Most will flatly >refuse to give a shell account. For the record, my ISP still gives *every* customer a shell account, and encourages people to use it to fix certain kinds of problems (it's not hard if you're willing to do a little homework). > Perhaps you also recall the old 'bang address' style where we said > something like 'ucbvax!username@mit' ... with those you read the > address from the @ sign to the left. A few years ago I thought I must be one of the last people to have one of those addresses (it was on a PC running unix in a guy's basement, with UUCP to his employer and an extra phone line where people like me dialed in). About four years ago I signed up with a commercial ISP like everyone else. One thing almost nobody remembers is that in those days, the purpose of a .signature file was to provide a couple of alternate bang-paths, in case some machine in the middle of your usual path went down for some reason. Many people started their suggested path with "[harvard|rutgers|ucbvax]!...", since those were well-connected, and most people knew a path to at least one of them. I remember one summer when rutgers went down and didn't come back up until school started in the fall. But UUCP was not the internet; it was for those of us (actually a majority) who didn't have access to the internet. > And remember the email to FTP gateways? Yep, used them occasionally. Being at a UUCP site meant no FTP (and being very envious of those who had it). That was also the reason for having ".binaries." newsgroups. Now that anyone can get FTP access, they really should be obsolete. UUCP could take days to get a usenet article across the country. I remember my amazement the first time I got an email reply from California to something I had posted to usenet the previous day! And later I got an overnight reply to another posting from someone in England. By then most of usenet was moving via the internet, and distance didn't matter anymore. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 02 May 1999 09:49:23 EDT Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" From: Billy Harvey >> You were the only one to respond David. That tells me where the inter- >> est is in that idea of mine. PAT] > I was intrigued by the idea but wasn't sure what the organization would > achieve, short of stuffing feathers in the caps of the folks who had > email back then > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I think about it now, one achievement > might be to permanently capture the memories people have of those days > so that they will be preserved. One of the several lists that I mostly lurk on is called "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of Cyberspace". I have learned man things from some of the pioneers that post. Anyone interested can take a peek at http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/cyhist.html . Billy ------------------------------ From: James Gifford Reply-To: gifford@nitrosyncretic.com Organization: Nitrosyncretic Press Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Help Wanted Date: Sun, 02 May 1999 06:00:11 GMT dlore@iname.com wrote: > Please suggest a cordless phone that does not allow other cordless > phones by accident or on purpose, to listen in to my conversation, > or to bill their call to my phonebill (by their phone getting a dial > tone or connecting to/from my cordless' base) Most newer cordless use a security feature to lock out "roamers," by giving both the handset and the base unit a random security code that's changed each time the handset is replaced in the base. As for overhearing, I think the 900 MHz cordless digitals are as immune to snooping as any consumer-grade gadget gets. > ASAP ... 220v would be greatly appreciated. Most cordless units use a plug-in power transformer, and finding or making a 220V replacement should be trivial. | James Gifford | | Associate Editor, Computer Telephony Magazine | | = Speaking only for myself in this case = | ------------------------------ From: support@sellcom.com Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Help Wanted Date: Sun, 02 May 1999 17:20:31 GMT Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com dlore@iname.com spake thusly and wrote: > Please suggest a cordless phone that does not allow other cordless > phones by accident or on purpose, to listen in to my conversation, > or to bill their call to my phonebill (by their phone getting a dial > tone or connecting to/from my cordless' base) > ASAP ... 220v would be greatly appreciated. You might want to look at the Siemens 2420 at http://www.sellcom.com however there are many (if not most all) of the modern cordless phones on the market with the features that you require. Steve http://www.sellcom.com (Opinions expressed, though generally wise and accurate are not officially positions of SELLCOM) Telecom and internet networking hardware / Security products Cyclades / Siemens (May REBATE) / Y2K ODIU support / Zoom / Palmer Safes (Tech assistance provided without warranty express or implied) ------------------------------ Date: 2 May 1999 02:41:14 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Canadian Credit Card Phones Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > All of a sudden, a "few" years ago, *every* payphone was replaced with > the new "Millenium Phone" model, which includes a card reader which > not only will read/accept prepaid "phonecards", but which will also > accept the "generally more expensive (i.e. *very* more expensive)" > credit cards. More expensive for you, perhaps, not for use US-ians. The last time I was in Toronto, I called home a few times and used a variety of pieces of plastic in those phones. I used my LEC calling card, my Sprint foncard, and my Visa card, each to make a call home of about three minutes. The LEC card was billed by AT&T on my local phone bill as a calling card call for about four bucks. The Sprint call showed up on my Sprint bill (printed specially for the occasion since I don't otherwise make any Sprint calls these days) for three and change. The Visa card showed up on my statement for about 81 cents. Quite a difference, eh? John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) Subject: Re: Forcing MCI to Change Advertising Date: 2 May 1999 16:34:11 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS Thanks for posting that bit of MCI History. Very interesting and informative. In recent years, I read in the newspaper (buried in the back of the business page) about how MCI was cited by the FCC or FTC for unfair business practices. Their ads and billboards often are deceptive, not fully quoting the price of service, or including minimum charges buried in fine print. I think even their current TV campaign still does that. I also know that MCI got a lot of business through lawsuits. They would demand to be included in a service arrangement with govt agencies or threaten to sue for unfairness. It was easier for the Telecom coordinators to give in and avoid the aggravation. ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: 4+8? (was Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go) Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 12:51:16 PST Organization: Shadownet John David Galt writes: > Quoth John R. Levine: >>> http://www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf >>> VERY informative ... they now project total exhaustion between 2006 >>> and 2012, with their best guess being 2007... 8 1/2 years to go! NO >>> FCC action recommended regarding 10-D or 11-D dialing yet. No timetable >>> for expansion yet. No FCC mandate for implementing expanding dialing >>> patterns from 3+7 to 4+8 with a deadline for launch. How about >>> deciding IF 4+8 will be the solution? >> Of course it won't be the solution. There are plenty of unused ten >> digit phone numbers. > I like the idea of a 12 digit total length, but it seems to me it > would make sense to make each of the parts variable-length. If we > allow (for example) either 2+10, 3+9, or 4+8, then major cities can go > 2+10, allowing everyone to keep their existing 10-digit numbers (while > still having all _kinds_ of room for expansion). There's *already* an expansion plan, and has been for some time. The N9X codes are reserved for this expansion. All NXX codes will be converted to 4 digits by adding a 9 as the second digit. That is ABC will become A9BC. This will provide almost 8000 new area codes (A[0-8]BC). Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 16:47:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Jon Solomon Subject: Star TAC 3000 Loses!!!!! This is about the third time I have had to have my Star TAC fixed for pixel problems. What goes on is that the "8" appears without the top pixel ... "on" appears the same way ... SNET tells me that Motorola should give me a new phone, but I haven't seen that ... At the least, Motorola pays the FEDEX bill both ways ... I remember someone else having problems with Motorola cellular phones ... Just thought I would add that to the fire ... The good side to this is that SNET has offered to temporarily suspend my phone service during the time that the phone is in Motorola's hands. Way to go SNET. --jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #69 *****************************