Date: 19 Oct 2000 06:15:11 -0400 Message-ID: <20001019101511.22473.qmail@xuxa.iecc.com> From: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org (Telecom Digest) To: telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Subject: Telecom Digest V2000 #93 Reply-To: editor@telecom-digest.org Sender: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Errors-To: owner-telecom-digest@telecom-digest.org Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: 35c394af0d280f2408a833f2f77be78e Status: RO X-Status: Telecom Digest Thursday, October 19 2000 Volume 2000 : Number 093 In this issue: used to have postpay in Port Deposit (and Perryville too?) correction re 10/17/00 ICBTollFree.Com HEADS UP HEADLINES Re: Telephone Glitch on West Wing Number similarities (was: misdirected fax) Re: Telephone Glitch on West Wing Re: Ameritech and senior citizens Re: misdirected fax (was Re: Is it Legal When They Say This?) Re: Al Gore And The Internet Re: used to have postpay in Port Deposit (and Perryville too?) Re: Al Gore And The Internet Re: Number similarities (was: misdirected fax) Re: Al Gore And The Internet Re: used to have postpay in Port Deposit (and Perryville too?) California's area code mess from an outsider looking in Wireless local, then cellular ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Oct 2000 09:39:23 -0400 From: Carl Moore Subject: used to have postpay in Port Deposit (and Perryville too?) In Maryland, in what's now 410, Port Deposit (and I believe also Perryville) still had postpay (putting in the money after the call answered) in the early 1980s, and I vaguely recall writing about this to telecom digest long ago. They have probably changed for the sake of uniformity. I recall having to ask for a refund when I tripped up w/r to postpay, probably a not uncommon occurrence, especially for people whose homes and workplaces are outside such exchanges. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:54:05 -0400 From: "Judith Oppenheimer" Subject: correction re 10/17/00 ICBTollFree.Com HEADS UP HEADLINES ************************************************************************ ICBTollFree.Com HEADS UP HEADLINES ************************************************************************* from ICB Toll Free News - Daily News and Intelligence covering the Political, Legal and Marketing Arenas of 800 and Dot Com. ************************************************************************* Below is the correct URL for this article. P - A BUNCH OF HOLIER THAN THOU DESPOTS Other prominent registrars were in discussions or already signed with Regland, but expressed fear of ICANN. CONTINUED HERE: http://WWW.ICBTOLLFREE.COM/article.cfm?articleId=4653 ************************************************************************* ABOUT ICB ICB HeadsUp Headlines Daily Email is sent by request. Subscriptions to Daily Email are free to qualified applicants. Visit http://www.icbtollfree.com/reg.cfm?NextURL=Index.cfm to sign up. Please feel free to pass along a copy to a friend, within reason so long as the message is not modified or used unfavorably. To unsubscribe mailto:editor@icbtollfree.com, subject: unsubscribe. *************************** ADVERTISING INFORMATION *************************** For information on advertising in ICB HeadsUp Headlines emails, see http://www.icbtollfree.com/ArticleId4415.html ************************************************************************* Only subscribers or registered users of ICB Toll Free News web site will be able to access all or some of the full text of URLs provided. ************************************************************************* Copyright © 2000 ICB, Inc. All rights reserved. ************************************************************************* Judith Oppenheimer, 212 684-7210, 1 800 The Expert Publisher, President, Domain Name & 800: Intelligence, Analysis, Leadership ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 10:37:23 -0400 From: Jay Levitt Subject: Re: Telephone Glitch on West Wing In article <8sjj9t$1010$1@news.tht.net>, msb@vex.net says... > > > In the season opener of West Wing, there is a flashback to 3 years > > > ago. One of the characters is in New York City using a payphone. The > > > payphone is very neatly labeled VERIZON. As we all know Verizon did > > > not exist even 1 year ago, much less 3. > I think they're very cleverly, subtly, brilliantly showing us that this show takes place in the near future! - -- Jay Levitt | This is not the start of World War III Fairfax, VA | No political ploys jay@jay.fm | I think both your constitutions are http://jay.fm | terrific, so now you know - be good boys. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 11:31:56 -0400 From: "Ed Ellers" Subject: Number similarities (was: misdirected fax) Carl Moore wrote: "However, my experience with receiving a few wrong-number calls over the years has not prevented me from having some anecdotes available -- like some wrong-number calls intended for a gynecology clinic! (The calls for the gynecology clinic were for the same 4-digit extension I had answered, EXCEPT that 2 digits were transposed.)" We had a neat coincidence in Louisville a while back, when a music academy was one digit away from a store that sold ballet costumes. (Could have been worse -- Reader's Digest once told a story of an auto body shop that got a lot of calls from people who would gasp and hang up as soon as the mechanic answered the phone. Turned out that a local funeral home was one digit off, People calling funeral homes usually don't expect the phone to be answered, "Body shop!") - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 12:09:12 -0400 From: tweek@eris.io.com (Mike Maxfield) Subject: Re: Telephone Glitch on West Wing msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) writes: >> >> That's OK...Martin Sheen isn't really the president either. > >For that matter, note that in the show's world, this is not a presidential >election year. If they're not following real-world chronology for *that*, >I hardly think they need to do so for telephone company names. Similar as in Clancy's latest paperback where while he takes into account the different timezones between the US and Australia when making phone calls, oddly, Clancy, usually someone who gets the technical details somewhat close to reality, placed the Olympics in the hottest summer days in Australia when the real 2000 Olympics occured at the start of the Australian Spring... artistic license since the hot weather was needed for the story line. - -- tweek@io.com - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 16:10:58 -0400 From: Mousie Subject: Re: Ameritech and senior citizens Re: Ameritech and senior citizens The follow up story...... http://www.freep.com/news/metro/dicker18_20001018.htm COMPLAINTS about local phone service rarely yield dramatic changes in the way Ameritech does business. So it's a pleasure to note the exceptional case brought to my attention by Ralph and Janis Poole of Lansing. Last month, I wrote of the Pooles' indignation upon discovering that it would cost almost exactly as much to suspend local phone service during their annual winter sojourn to Florida as it costs them to maintain service when they're at home in Michigan. This week, Janis Poole called to tell me that shortly after that column appeared, Ameritech offered her a new, no-frills "vacation service" for snowbirds heading south -- one that costs less than half as much per month as the most inexpensive vacation option Ameritech offered previously. Ameritech spokesman Dave Pacholczyk said he knew of no recent additions to the service options available to vacationing customers, but acknowledged that "individual customers may be negotiating with our customer service representatives to work more inexpensive options." After paying two $13.03 fees to suspend and resume normal service, the new option will allow the Pooles to maintain their Michigan phone line (and their Ameritech phone number) for less than $10 a month, a fraction of their normal monthly service charge of $30. This was the original story..... http://www.freep.com/news/metro/dicker20_20000920.htm - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 16:20:22 -0400 From: heywood@gloucester.com (Heywood Jaiblomi) Subject: Re: misdirected fax (was Re: Is it Legal When They Say This?) cmoore@ARL.ARMY.MIL (Carl Moore) wrote >like some wrong-number calls in- >tended for a gynecology clinic! ( Could have been worse, it could have been HQ for the Bush campaign. One of my favourites involved a travel agency that fired my friend's wife because she spoke of "eventually" opening her own shop. A few months later, my friend and his wife moved, and their new home phone number was...surprise...one digit different from the travel agency that fired his wife! So he would answer the phone "hello" and if it were someone calling the travel agency, they would ask, "Is this the --- agency?" He would reply, "Yes, and we're extremely busy so why don't you take your f@*king business elsewhere." He figures that judging by the gasps on the other end he probably cost them tens of thousands of dollars. - -- Life at work is like a tree full of monkeys, all on different limbs at different levels. Some monkeys are climbing up, some down. The monkeys on top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces. The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but assholes. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 17:25:31 -0400 From: rfranklin@altavista.net (Wm. Randolph Franklin) Subject: Re: Al Gore And The Internet In article <39E85278.7BFD2AFF@yahoo.com> on 14 Oct 2000 08:35:44 -0400, iprospernow@yahoo.com writes: > Al Gore And The Internet > > By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf I`m directing a program in a federal agency, actively funding about 150 Principal Investigators (PIs). I guess that, according to Cerf, I can claim credit for all my PI`s inventions and discoveries. My resume is soon going to look pretty good, until my PI`s lynch me. - - ---- (Wm. Randolph Franklin) - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 17:46:37 -0400 From: "Brian F. G. Bidulock" Subject: Re: used to have postpay in Port Deposit (and Perryville too?) Carl, Putting in money after answer was called semi-postpay, I believe. We used to have a bunch up in Alberta where I worked for the phone company. As I recall, they used to cause a lot of havoc with payphone fraud and we had to have lots of coin operators to handle the load. On 18 Oct 2000, Carl Moore wrote: > > In Maryland, in what's now 410, Port Deposit (and I believe also Perryville) > still had postpay (putting in the money after the call answered) in the > early 1980s, and I vaguely recall writing about this to telecom digest > long ago. They have probably changed for the sake of uniformity. > I recall having to ask for a refund when I tripped up w/r to postpay, > probably a not uncommon occurrence, especially for people whose homes > and workplaces are outside such exchanges. > -- > The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail > messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. > - -- Brian F. G. Bidulock bidulock@openswitch.org http://www.openss7.org/ - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 18:28:39 -0400 From: Kenneth Becker Subject: Re: Al Gore And The Internet "Wm. Randolph Franklin" wrote: > > In article <39E85278.7BFD2AFF@yahoo.com> on 14 Oct 2000 08:35:44 -0400, > iprospernow@yahoo.com writes: > > > Al Gore And The Internet > > > > By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf > > I`m directing a program in a federal agency, actively funding > about 150 Principal Investigators (PIs). I guess that, according > to Cerf, I can claim credit for all my PI`s inventions and > discoveries. My resume is soon going to look pretty good, until > my PI`s lynch me. > Hmm. Al Gore was a Senator to whom, I presume, some person(s) made a pitch to fund the nascent internet. Mr. Gore didn't >>have<< to run around, roust up support, write the bill, lobby it through Congress, and get it voted on in the Senate. He >>could<< have just punted them off to somebody else. That's not what happened, however. What would happen if >>you<< didn't direct your PI's and throw money at them effectivly? Do you have a supervisor who might have something to say about that, say at performance review time? Admittedly Senators have their performance reviews - once every six years at election time. However, what constituent of Gore's would have even recognized what that missed opportunity was about? Gore, back before there >>was<< an effective internet, recognized at least something of its potential and pushed funding (remember - that's what the legislative branch does for a living, >>funding<<) to help grow the nascent internet. He didn't have to work on it, but he did. So, this writer at least feels he deserves something of a break from those who misconstrued his words in the first place. Ken Becker - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 18:58:37 -0400 From: sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net (Steve Sobol) Subject: Re: Number similarities (was: misdirected fax) >>From 'Ed Ellers': >Carl Moore wrote: > >"However, my experience with receiving a few wrong-number calls over the >years has not prevented me from having some anecdotes available -- like some >wrong-number calls intended for a gynecology clinic! (The calls for the >gynecology clinic were for the same 4-digit extension I had answered, EXCEPT >that 2 digits were transposed.)" > >We had a neat coincidence in Louisville a while back, when a music academy >was one digit away from a store that sold ballet costumes. (Could have been >worse -- Reader's Digest once told a story of an auto body shop that got a >lot of calls from people who would gasp and hang up as soon as the mechanic >answered the phone. Turned out that a local funeral home was one digit off, >People calling funeral homes usually don't expect the phone to be answered, >"Body shop!") My old phone number, 216 381-1231, was not only one digit away from that of the South Euclid, Ohio police department (216 381-1234), but of course the 4 key is directly below the 1 key. We were relieved when 911 was finally set up in Cuyahoga County. At least I was. If I wanted to take police calls, I'd have taken the career course two of my friends took (they're both dispatchers). - -- A beautiful Chow puppy was rescued a couple months ago from the Geauga County, Ohio animal shelter and has been fostered in a home in Montville, OH. After receiving medical care and much love, he's ready for a permanent home. http://www.WrinkleDogs.com/rescue/fall2000/ - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 20:16:50 -0400 From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley) Subject: Re: Al Gore And The Internet In article <39EE23AF.BE0ED7E5@lucent.com>, Kenneth Becker wrote: >Hmm. Al Gore was a Senator to whom, I presume, some person(s) made a pitch to >fund the nascent internet. ] >>From http://www.algore.com/algore/index.html, "It was his determination to serve the families of Tennessee that first led him to run for Congress in 1976 --..." >>From http://www.isoc.org/internet-history/brief.html, "All this came together in September 1969 when BBN installed the first IMP at UCLA...". If he won when he first ran, he'd enter Congress in 1977. That's eight years AFTER the "nascent internet" was funded and first turned on. Presume all you want, but the internet was funded long before Gore got to the House. >Mr. Gore didn't >>have<< to run around, roust up >support, write the bill, lobby it through Congress, and get it voted on in the >Senate. That's right, he didn't have to. Someone else did. By the way, DARPA funding existed even before 1969. By the way, he wasn't in the Senate until 1984. How did he have a bill in the Senate before he was even elected to the House? >Gore, back before there >>was<< an >effective internet, recognized at least something of its potential and pushed >funding (remember - that's what the legislative branch does for a living, >>>funding<<) to help grow the nascent internet. I'm fascinated by this belief in political circles that funding the continuation of a project is the same as creating the results of the project. In the real world, people don't get creative credit just because they pony up money, and in Gore's case, the money was pony'd up before he got there and it wasn't his money. >He didn't have to work on it, but he did. Which part of the Internet did Gore work on? Now, you've used an active verb that implies much more than just voting on funding. It implies actual development effort. What part is Gore's? Why is his name not on an RFC for that work? Where is his creation? >So, this writer at least feels he deserves something of a break from those who >misconstrued his words in the first place. This writer thinks that Gore tried claiming credit where he didn't deserve it and all the appologists are now trying to spin the claim into something it clearly was not. Or should I get a patent on hot dogs because I gave a guy $1.50 today for a hot dog, and thus I created them! - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 2000 23:07:10 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: used to have postpay in Port Deposit (and Perryville too?) > In Maryland, in what's now 410, Port Deposit (and I believe also > Perryville) still had postpay (putting in the money after the call > answered) in the early 1980s, ... Here in beautiful Trumansburg NY, the telco payphones are still postpay. They're the old GTE style phones with the shallow metal buttons. For local calls, you pick up the phone, dial the number, and deposit your dime (yes, dime) when the called party answers. You can hear the other end all the way through, but they can't hear you until you pay. For anything other than a local call, you dial 0-NXX-NXX-XXXX. You even have to dial toll free calls as 0-800-NXX-XXXX. They know it's kind of a crock, but they have so few pay phones, not much more than a dozen in the three exchanges that they serve, that it's not worth fixing. I expect that most of the calls from the pay phones are ten cent local calls from people calling home, since the phones are at the three public schools, the laundromat, the two grocery stores, etc. There are now at least as many COCOTs as real pay phones. The COCOTs all charge a quarter for a local call, but many offer reasonable coin rates for long distance, as opposed to AT&T ripoff toll rates for coin calls at the telco phones. - -- 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 - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 2000 01:01:35 -0400 From: Joseph Singer Subject: California's area code mess from an outsider looking in First a little background. These last few weeks I have been doing some data entry for a local company here in Seattle. Among the things I enter all day are area codes. I was entering area codes for all over southern California and mainly the Los Angeles area and noticed at least six codes in the Los Angeles area alone. I know that the California has had further area code expansion put on hold for reasons that I don't recall at this moment. At any rate it occured to me that a lot of the constantly changing area codes in California would not be necessary if they just "bit the bullet" and accepted overlays whenever they were needed instead of constantly splitting and splitting areas sometimes with no apparent logic. With overlays if you use up capacity in an area code you just pancake another new area code on top of it and of course you don't need to Pancake a new area code on top of each current area code. You can just take an area code and use it wherever you need to use it and when it's at capacity you just add another one. I know that there will come a time when we've completely exhausted the possible three digit area codes and we'll have to fix the area codes and/or subscriber number length, but that's for another time. As far as the "one area code" overlay I'm thinking in particular for what's in store for Washington state. I believe it's February of 2001 we're supposed to get a new overlay area code 564 in Washington state, but the difference from the way it's been done in a lot of other places is that 564 will be for all of western Washington the same as 206 was originally. The thing about a one area code overlay for a whole region is that you don't waste codes as they are doing in eastern Massachusetts. As far as the mandated 10 or 11 digit dialing the truth is that in most of these areas (such as southern California) many calls have to be dialed with that many digits any way so mandating it on all calls should not I think be that onerous. It will also save people from having yet another area code change to adjust to. Now here's my question in this why is it necessary in California, New York, Chicago (among the places that I know) is it necessary to dial 11 digits (1+area code+number) to make a "local" call. Why is it not just area code plus 7 digits? Does it have something to do with the local "toll" thing/message unit thing or combination of both? TIA Joseph - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joseph Singer Seattle, Washington USA [ICQ pgr] +1 206 405 2052 [voice mail] +1 206 493 0706 [FAX] - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 2000 05:05:51 -0400 From: David Clayton Subject: Wireless local, then cellular In Australia we have a company offering a GSM handset which is charged as a "local" service in your own area, but becomes a normal GSM service when you leave that area. They are marketing it as a cheaper home phone, (well, cheaper than a second land line), while you use your land line for the Internet etc. Is anything similar being offered in North America? - - - Regards, David. David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. - -- The Telecom Digest is currently mostly robomoderated. Please mail messages to editor@telecom-digest.org. ------------------------------ End of Telecom Digest V2000 #93 *******************************