Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id SAA25339; Tue, 4 May 1999 18:49:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 18:49:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905042249.SAA25339@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #71 TELECOM Digest Tue, 4 May 99 18:49:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 71 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Area Code For Wireless Urged (Monty Solomon) Telrad Key BX Info Needed - REWARD OFFERED! (Bruce Bergman) South America Question (Paul A. Rosenberg) Companies That Ignore Online Security Are Risking Customers (Monty Solomon) 90# "Feature" on Your Phone? (Jeff Wu) Re: 4+8? (was Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go) (John David Galt) Re: 4+8? (was Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go) (Linc Madison) Re: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call (Linc Madison) Re: A New SPAM Problem (Pete Weiss) Employment Opportunity: Researcher-Broadband Wireless-Greece (J Dermousis) Last Laugh! No Sex, Please, We're Saudi Arabian (Mike Pollock) 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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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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Area Code For Wireless Urged Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 16:30:41 -0400 Mercury News ... PUC: It's seen as an option for cutting `the number crisis.' BY DEBORAH KONG Mercury News Staff Writer Fed up with the constant stream of new area codes, Californians have repeatedly asked why state regulators can't just establish a separate area code for wireless phones and pagers. The answer: The federal government wouldn't allow it. But now, in an effort to gain control of what it calls ``the ongoing number crisis we face,'' the California Public Utilities Commission is asking the Federal Communications Commission to waive its ban on establishing different area codes for different technologies or services. While the request doesn't guarantee the PUC will adopt the wireless-only area code idea, it would give it a chance to at least consider the option, officials said. It's one of several potential solutions being considered to stem the tide of new area codes that have coursed into California in recent years. Area codes were first used here in 1947 -- the initial three were 415, 916 and 213. The number grew to 13 by 1997, when the demand for new phone numbers exploded. That year the number of area codes jumped to 18. Later this year, it will hit 26. Officials predict the state will need another 15 by the end of 2002. As more and more people snap up wireless phones, pagers, fax machines and second phone lines, the supply of numbers dwindles. Competition has also meant that more companies are requesting numbers to serve customers, but those numbers are only parceled out in blocks of 10,000 -- even if the carrier has just a few customers. No one happy So far, the methods of introducing new area codes have pleased almost no one. Splits, which divide an area into two geographic portions and assign one part a new code, have been used for the most part. Recently, the commission has also approved a handful of 'overlays,' including ones in 408, 650, 510 and 415, which assign a new area code to most new numbers and require 11-digit dialing on every call. 'Our staff daily field hundreds of communications via e-mail, telephone and letters from members of the public complaining bitterly about the number and pace of area code changes taking place in California,' state officials said in the petition to the FCC. 'Without additional authority from the FCC, we cannot develop a broad slate of solutions to address the problem.' An area code just for wireless phones or pagers, could 'reduce the rate of demand that wireless carriers have on the existing area code, and you might be able to slow down the rate at which you add new area codes,' said Natalie Billingsley of the commission's Office of Ratepayer Advocates. The PUC request did not specify how such a plan would work. It would probably apply to new numbers only. Wireless carriers have opposed the idea of a wireless-only area code, saying it could confuse customers and put companies at a disadvantage. For example, a business person with a few mobile phones could buy some more after the new code was introduced, and the new phones could be in a different area code, said Tim Ayers of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. 'We don't seen any indication it's going to benefit either our customers or the general public,' said Josh King, general counsel at Cellular One, noting that a wireless-only code would be akin to segregating companies into a 'substandard caste.' Other carriers opposed Officials at GTE Wireless and Pacific Bell Wireless, two other Bay Area carriers, also said they were against the idea. But the concept is one that makes sense to Los Gatos resident Bob Lipp, particularly because of the mobile nature of wireless phones. "The way it's going more and more with cell phones, you don't even have to associate it with an area anymore," said Lipp, whose family has two cellular phones. "Cell phones have nothing to do with geography." Others apparently have the same idea. At public meetings throughout the state, one or more speakers invariably ask why state officials have not created an area code just for faxes or wireless providers. Setting up a separate area code for fax machines is impossible since the telephone network can't tell the difference between a voice call, which carries conversations and a data call, which carries information, Billingsley said. Previous requests If FCC history is any indicator, the state's request may not be granted. The commission has rejected previous requests for waivers to the policy. One wireless-only area code, 917, exists in New York City, but that existed before the ban, an FCC official said. The PUC's Billingsley estimated it could be six to 12 months before state regulators get an answer. A national industry task force report has suggested other solutions, such as mandatory 10-digit dialing everywhere. Another way to reduce the need for new area codes is revise the way blocks of phone numbers are handed out to telecommunications companies. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here we have a man (Billingsley) saying the telephone network cannot tell the difference between a voice and a data call, yet others such as Sprint claim that the distinction is easy to make, regards prohibitions on using their least expensive rates on weekends for data calls. So which is it? PAT] ------------------------------ From: bbergman@my-dejanews.com (Bruce Bergman) Subject: Telrad Key BX Info Needed - REWARD OFFERED! Date: Mon, 03 May 1999 23:35:12 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion I just recently picked up a Telrad Key BX system. Yes, I know it's old. ;-) I'm looking for any source of installation and programming manuals for this system. I understand it is compatible/the-same-as a Symphony II system, is this true? How available are spare parts (boards, desksets, etc)? If anyone is willing to sell me their manuals, or knows of a place where I can purchase them, or is even willing to photocopy them at my expense, I'd really appreciate a lead. Barring that, I have a couple immediate questions that someone might know the answer to: 1) What is the pinout for the CO/trunk card connectors? 2) What is the pinout for the station card connectors? 3) What does the INIT switch do? It's labeled only in one direction. I presume that it puts the system in programming mode when up, true? 4) How do you get the attention of the programming monitor? I've got a terminal hooked up to the comm board, and I get SMDR output when I reset the unit, but I can't seem to get into the programming mode. What keystrokes are needed? What about comm settings? I'm using 1200/7/1/N right now. Any help is greatly appreciated! If you can answer questions 1, 2 or 4 and your info proves correct, I'll send you a $10 bill for your time. First person with correct info only! Thanks everyone! bruce (here or at bbergman@bridgemedical.com) ------------------------------ From: Paul A Rosenberg Subject: South America Question Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 20:03:11 -0500 Organization: Prodigy Communications Corp I am looking for info on the communication systems of South America for an investor project. Can you point me to sources of information? I am looking for info on the design of current systems, coverage and services, and the regulatory environment. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Paul Rosenberg ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 03:45:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Companies That Ignore Online Security Are Risking Customers By BOB TEDESCHI Companies That Ignore Online Security Are Risking Customers To placate those who worry about how secure it is to shop online, companies typically proffer the idea that buying on the Internet is no more risky than giving a credit card to a waiter in a restaurant. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/05/cyber/commerce/03commerce.html ------------------------------ From: Jeff Wu Subject: 90# "Feature" on Your Phone? Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 17:01:01 GMT I received this from a friend of mine. I didn't even know this 90# "feature" existed. Are there other "features" like this on my phone that I need to know about? On the flip side, how do you go about using this feature in a legitimate setting? Can you use it in an emergency setting somehow? I received a telephone call last evening from an individual identifying himself as an AT&T Service technician who was conducting a test on telephone lines. He stated that to complete the test I should touch nine(9), zero(0), the pound sign (#), and then hang up. Luckily, I was suspicious and refused. Upon contacting the telephone company, I was informed that by pushing 90#, you give the requesting individual full access to your telephone line, which enables them to place long distance calls billed to your home phone number. I was further informed that this scam has been originating from many local jails/prisons. I have also verified this information with UCB telecom, Pacific Bell, MCI, Bell Atlantic, GTE, and NYNEX. Please beware. DO NOT press 90# for ANYONE. The GTE Security Department requested that I share this information with EVERYONE I KNOW PLEASE pass this on to everyone YOU know. If you have mailing lists and/or newsletters from organizations you are connected with I encourage you to pass on this information to them, too. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Noise, Caused by Head Banging Against the Wall: Dear Mr. Wu, thank you, and I know you meant well. For all intents and purposes, the above scam does not exist. *If* you are on a centrex type phone system, such as at a large company, or *if* the PBX at your company is configured to allow 'call transfer' by flashing, dialing a number and disconnecting, then *if* the telecom admin at that place has not corrected the problem, then it is possible, but not probable that *if* the 'prisoner' somehow connected to the extension phone of a dim-witted person who knew no better (probably the only part of my scenario so far with any real likelyhood of occurring -- the presence of a dim-witted person, I mean) that person could be pursuaded to do as told. And very few are the phone systems which sit there listening for tones so that a mere 90# -- without flashing and bringing up new dial tone first -- is going to accomplish anything. So let us assume the above events all happen, then the 'prisoner' will be connected to a local telco operator (the 9 brought an outside line at the company and the 0 raised the local operator, and the carriage return or # at the end told the network to time out and not wait for further digits, meaning instead of the zero serving as a flag that some alternative billing method was being passed next, it was a signal to raise the operator instead, you see) and this local telco operator will proceed to run interference with whatever diabolical plans the 'prisoner' has to commit toll fraud. The likelyhood of this happening is only slightly greater for the receptionist or telephone operator for a company, since they will see the call first most of the time and most of the time the 'prisoner' will speak to the first person answering. This will not happen on your home telephone, Mr. Wu, since residence lines rarely are equipped with the feature allowing one to flash, dial something and disconnect, transferring the caller elsewhere. There *was* a few years ago a sort of hybrid centrex -- a special 'flavor' offered to residential subscribers marketed under various names. I do not think any telcos offer it any longer at all, not so much because they were worried about the crafty prisoners, but because few people bought it, and I think they ran into tariff problems in a couple places; whatever ... hanging up your receiver will just disconnect your caller as well, so not to worry that you will get in trouble for doing what the nice man on the phone asks you to do. There is one other small problem with the scenario, Mr. Wu. In almost all cases now, the only phones prisoners can use -- with the exception of the few who run the prison's administrative functions, i.e. work in the warden's office or the records department, etc (and they know full well the consequences if *they* get caught screwing around, believe me) are 'coinless payphones'. Mostly now from the local telco, instead of a private company as they were until recently, the only dialing option the prisoner has to dial zero plus ten digits. Period. An robot asks his name, splits the connection so the inmate cannot hear or speak, and annouces to the called party, "This is a collect call from (recorded name), an inmate at the (name of prison or jail) in (town)" ... pause ... (recorded name), an inmate at (prison name) is calling you collect. Will you accept the charges? Press one to accept, hang up now to refuse, or hold for operator assistance." If the called party accepts the call, the robot resumes the connection and annouces to all, "go ahead with your call please". If the party refuses, the robot breaks the connection and returns to tell the prisoner it was refused. Aside from being humiliating to the inmate, which may or may not be a good idea, the robot warns the called party of what is happening. So effectively in fact, that even the dumbest of the dum-dums who sit reading {Modern Romance Magazine} and painting their finger nails or toe nails while waiting for a phone call to pass on to their boss or co-workers isn't likely to misunderstand what is happening. Given all those stumbling blocks, can 'prisoners' or others play this little game? Yeah, I suppose so. I suspect it happened once, and some frantic person circulated the original memo to the net of which you passed along the umpteenth copy, Mr. Wu. Really, it all comes down to social engineering as we like to call it, and the fact that from the beginning, the telephone has always been an easy way to hide (even telephones attached to computers!) while the caller says things and acts out in ways he would not have the courage to do if all transactions had to be handled in person where you were required to look at the other person in his face, announce your intentions, and shake his hand. A better memo to circulate is one saying, 'Always be in control of your phone calls. Take control when the phone rings, and stay that way. Do not let someone on the phone frighten you or influence you into obeying them.' Thanks for writing, Mr. Wu, and please don't be offended. I am like this to everyone. So!! How come no one has sent me a copy of that memo warning employees to never respond to messages on their pager from 212-540 numbers for a couple years now. I used to see that one every week or so also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: 4+8? (was Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go) Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 18:11:17 GMT You wrote: > There's *already* an expansion plan, and has been for some time. The > N9X codes are reserved for this expansion. That's partly true. The N9X codes are reserved for expansion. However, to my knowledge that is the ONLY decision about expansion that has been made so far. Even the new length (and whether it will be a fixed total length) are not yet known. > 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). Linc Madison proposed that plan and has been talking it up on his areacode-info.com site to try to get people behind it. That does not make it official. To my knowledge he has no connection with Lockheed-Martin NANPA, which (or its successor) will make the actual decisions. The point of this is not to denigrate Mr. Madison or his plan, but to open up a reasoned debate of how to minimize the confusion and inconvenience to end-users that will result from any expansion. Telling people that this debate is closed, when it's not, is counterproductive to that end. John David Galt ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 02:50:58 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: 4+8? (was Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go) Organization: LincMad Consulting In article , shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote: > 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). No, there is not already an expansion plan that has been decided upon. The only thing that has been decided upon is that the N9X range is reserved for future expansion. The specifics of how that expansion will proceed have not been finalized. In particular, I would certainly hope that we will not be foolish enough to go from 3+7 to 4+7. Why? Think "Los Angeles County." Already has almost all of six area codes and good-sized chunks of two more, not counting codes that haven't yet come into effect. I think it would be much more sensible to "freeze" Los Angeles for a while with the 20 or 30 or 40 area codes it will have by the time the NANP runs out of 3-digit NPAs, rather than watch its NPA tally climb into triple digits. (Hey, how about a separate country code just for Los Angeles??) In short, when we get down to lengthening numbers in the NANP, I believe we have no reasonable choice but to go to 4+8 instead of 4+7. We can use whatever padding digit we please on the CSOD; I use 3 for the mnemonic "add 9 and 3 to make 12!" but that's an arbitrary selection. Thus, ABC-DEF-GHIJ becomes A9BC-3DEF-GHIJ. Of course, I also believe that we should all do whatever we can to encourage the appropriate federal and state officials to do something *NOW* about number pooling, so that the 2006 - 2012 date for longer numbers slips out a decade or several (depending on which estimate you believe). ** 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 delete the "NOSPAM" << ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY Organization: Excelsior Computer Services From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman) Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 12:27:17 GMT On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:42:46 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom wdag@my-dejanews.com (W.D.A. Geary)wrote: > I also think that we will _soon_ have to go to either 8-digit > local numbers or _variable length_ numbers (terminating dialing Here in Cambridge, Mediaone has 8-digit customer support phone numbers. Dialing the 8th digit is the same as dialing the first seven digits, and then dialing the last one in response to the phone menu. (E.g., 800/123-45678 is the same as dialing 800/123-4567 and then dialing "8" in response to the first phone menu.) I don't know how it works. Joel Hoffman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 02:18:27 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! Organization: LincMad Consulting In article , Arthur Ross wrote: > (Moderator's Note describing a method of using 'international' codes > for various sections of the USA deleted). > Pat - > If I'm not mistaken, this is quite similar to the way France works now. > Local calls are 8 digits, first nonzero. Leading zero indicates "not > local". Country is divided into zones (6, I think). To get another zone > internally is "0N"(zone) + eight digits. Outgoing international is > something like "00"+country code+local number. Incoming international is > your own international access code+33(France)+N(zone)+eight digits. You are indeed mistaken. Local calls in France are 10 digits. Calls within any one of the five geographic zones in France are 10 digits. Calls to other parts of France are 10 digits. The leading '0' indicates "place this call using France Telecom," but says nothing about local or non-local. It is analogous to a 101XXXX code in the U.S., except that you must dial one for every call. ** 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 delete the "NOSPAM" << [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Linc, what is your feeling about my suggestion that we start using two or three different 'country codes' instead, which would double or triple the supply of area codes while causing no major programming headaches, and allowing people to continue dialing their local or 'semi-local' calls in the way they have become accustomed? PAT] ------------------------------ From: pete-weiss@psu.edu (Pete Weiss) Subject: Re: A New SPAM Problem Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 11:39:39 -0400 Organization: Penn State University -- Office of Administrative Systems On Mon, 03 May 1999 11:13:21 -0400, Tara D. Mahon wrote: The subject of SPAM (actually anti-SPAM) is the domain of the email list SPAM-L FAQ -- http://WWW.CLAWS-AND-PAWS.COM/spam-l/ mailto:SPAM-L-SUBSCRIBE-REQUEST@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM Pete ------------------------------ From: John Dermousis Subject: Employment Opportunity: Researcher 'Broadband Wireless' in Greece Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 15:13:39 +0300 Organization: NCSR "Demokritos" The Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications of the National Center for Scientific Research 'Demokritos' has an opening for a position of Researcher B' (Senior) in the area of 'Broadband Wireless Telecommunication Networks. For more information: English: http://www.iit.demokritos.gr/announce/Thesis99en.htm Greek: http://www.iit.demokritos.gr/announce/Thesis99el.htm ------------------------------ From: Mike Pollock Subject: Last Laugh! No Sex, Please, We're Saudi Arabian Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 14:43:48 -0400 RIYADH - (Reuters) Saudi Arabia has restricted dialling to more than 50 phone-sex services and was using a new technology to identify and disconnect pornographic calls, a Saudi official said. "We have implemented a new technology which makes it possible to prevent and disconnect calls to these numbers," al-Eqtisadiah Arabic-language daily quoted Saudi PTT Minister Ali bin Talal al-Jehani as saying. "We started monitoring these numbers six months ago and will continue fighting this phenomena," Jehani, who is also Saudi Telecommunications Co (STC) chairman, said. Jehani said tracing the numbers of phone-sex services was a time- consuming and complicated task, but added that it was worth it to protect Saudi youth. The newspaper said Arab and Western satellite television channels often advertise telephone numbers of phone pornography services as "friendship lines." It quoted a PTT official as saying that telephone bills of some Saudi youths have skyrocketed since television channels started running these commercials. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #71 *****************************