HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 93 08:13:06 GMT
From: pls@cibecue.az05.bull.com (Paul Schauble)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Anybody Know of LARGE Modem Server Systems?
Organization: Bull HN Information Systems, Inc., Phoenix Product Division
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 2, Message 9 of 12

The request for a modem server for lots of modems brings up something
I've been wondering about for a long time:

Lots of modems means lots of incoming phone lines. 

First question: At what point does it become cheaper to have an incoming T1
or T3 line and a switch on site?

Second question: once you reach this point, the signal path becomes:

    - incoming DIGITAL signal delivered via Tx carrier
    - DIGITAL signal deliver to line card.
    - line card converts signal to ANALOG 
    - ANALOG signal carried via wire pair to modem.
    - modem (usually) converts signal to DIGITAL
    - modem feeds DIGITAL signal to DSP to demodulate.

This multiple conversion seems silly. Doesn't anyone make a modem that
can directly eat the demultiplexed Tx data? Or better, eat the T1
signal directly?


 ++PLS
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 00:27:18 CST
From: mattair@sun44.synercom.hounix.org (Charles Mattair)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Texans Entitled to <=$1500 Damages For Computerized Calls! 
Organization: Synercom Technology, Inc., Houston, TX
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 925, Message 6 of 9

In article <telecom12.918.9@eecs.nwu.edu> gary.w.sanders@att.com writes:

> In article <telecom12.914.5@eecs.nwu.edu> Gregg (G.) Woodcock
> <woodcock@bnr.ca> writes:

>> Under a new law that just passed in Texas, consumers are allowed to
>> collect up to $1500 in fines agains any company who initaites a phone
>> call with a non-human and can be identified (and who does not have

Does anybody have a citation for this claim?  I haven't been able to
find anyone locally who knows anything of this.


Charles Mattair		 		mattair@synercom.hounix.org
Any opinions offered are my own and do not reflect those of my employer.
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 17:52:46 -0800
From: Jeff Sicherman <sichermn@csulb.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: The Future of Wired vs Wireless Services
Organization: Cal State Long Beach
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 914, Message 4 of 14

  In view of PacTel's (or is that Pac Telesis) recent proposal to
split it self up to pursue emerging technologies, especially the
wireless games, it would be interesting to hear about the likely
future of non-mobile but wireless services encroaching upon the
existing installed wireplant and it's virtual monopoly on home and
business service.

   Is there sufficient potential bandwidth (for the system as a whole)
to take over a significant portion of this market?

   What are the likely costs and tradeoffs? Can it be competitive?

   How will Ma's illegitimate children fight back?

   Etc.


Jeff Sicherman
Date: 25 Dec 92 17:46:32 GMT
From: backon@vms.huji.ac.il
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Facilities For Low-Cost, Non-US Access to US BBS's?
Organization: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 918, Message 1 of 9

In article <telecom12.914.7@eecs.nwu.edu>, ds@netcom.com (David
Schachter) writes:

> I run a computer bulletin board system (BBS) for PenPoint developers.
> The BBS is in the United States and folks in Europe and South America
> have expressed interest in accessing it, but not while paying normal
> voice phone rates for international calls!  If y'all have information
> about access methods that provide interactive data transmission (e.g.
> PC Pursuit), please let me know.  Thank you.

Well, anyone with Internet access can pay a $50 one-time fee to MERIT
and obtain a password to their DIALOUT-AA service. Local Ann Arbor MI
calls are free, 800 number modem calls (like to MCI Mail) are billed
$0.25, and if one has a phone card (Sprint, MCI, etc) one can use
DIALOUT-AA to login to American BBS's. I've done this a few times.
Incidentally, one can also login to a local BT Tymnet number in Ann
Arbor as well as to local Ann Arbor SprintNet and Compuserve numbers.
Sure beats overseas phone calls!

For info on DIALOUT-AA:

telnet hermes.merit.edu and type a ?  at the WHICH HOST prompt. Check
the menu for the section on DIALOUT-AA. To obtain an account, send
email to: ITD_Accounts_Office@um.cc.umich.edu

I'm in medicine and the only way I can access the 100 or so medical
BBS's in the States is by MERIT.


Dr. Josh Backon   Cardiology   backon@VMS.HUJI.AC.IL
Date: 26 Dec 92 04:23:05 GMT
From: birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Practical Peripherals V42bis Modem
Organization: Screaming in Digital, the Queensryche Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 920, Message 7 of 11

roy@cybrspc.UUCP (Roy M. Silvernail) writes:

> A friend has one of these, bought on the sysop deal.  He says it does
> everything but make coffee and take out the trash. :-)
> Anyone know if it does CNID?  If so, what's the magic invocation?

No Caller-ID, but I've heard very few complaints of people with them,
and those were blatantly dysfunctional units.  I believe the only
modems with Caller-ID (in the sub-$500 range) are the Supra and ZyXel.
The Supras I have encountered tend to be a tad bit antisocial toward
other 14.4's, and nobody in my area has a ZyXel yet that I know of.

I'd like to see Caller-ID on my PPI V.*bis toy ... or perhaps an
improved daughterboard to support higher speeds (V.fast), but
responses to a question I asked on c.d.modems indicated that few
manufacturers -- if any -- would have daughterboard upgrades from
V.*bis to V.fast.

Oh well, maybe the nice folks at Bell-Atl.Com will write back and tell
me when I'll be able to get residential ISDN, and I can forget about
V.fast. :)


Shag                    | Operator, ShagNET | Editor of "Screaming in Digital" 
birchall@pilot.njin.net |  Rutgers / NJIN   |  The Queensryche E-mail Digest 
birchall@njin.bitnet    | dialup access for | queensryche-owner@pilot.njin.net
shag@most.other.places  | Burlington County | Anything Queensryche, every week
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 93 13:40:12 PST
From: Anthony E. Siegman <siegman@sierra.stanford.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: New Call Feature (was Sad to Say, Telemarketing Works)
Organization: Stanford University
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 4, Message 10 of 12

rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) writes:

> Sorry, but telemarketeers are a virus that require radical steps to
> rid ourselves of them.

That may be putting it a bit harshly (in a free country, even
telemarketers have some rights), but yes, telemarketing requires some
legal and social controls; and we (the targets of telemarketing) will
just have to keep pushing until we get them.

> My proposal is that all telemarketeers are required by law to identify
> their intent to the called party's CO which would determine if the
> called party wishes to receive solicitation.  

YES! YES! YES!  This would be technically easy and inexpensive to do
(just require that any telemarketing call come from a special
designated prefix, like 600 or 700, or whatever); it's _all_ that's
needed; it's a trivial restraint on the telemarketer's freedom; it
gives the recipient full choice, to block or not.

We have got to work to get this basic idea recognized and implemented.
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1993 21:26:52 GMT
From: yazz@locus.com (Bob Yazz)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: SS7 Links Fron CA to NY via AT&T?
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 3, Message 9 of 12

John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com> writes:

> But what people do not understand is that those preciously private
> telephone numbers will soon be displayed out of state on a wide scale.
> It is only other CALIFORNIANS that will not see the number displayed.

You don't seriously believe such a state of affairs will stand, do you
John?  The PUC will order that numbers not be delivered, period.  I
can even see the potential for lawsuits against Pac Bell over this.

Sounds like an incentive to switch to a long distance company that
does not use SS7.  How do you think AT&T might feel about this?


Bob Yazz
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 13:53:28 EST
From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: The Recent East Coast Storm
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 928, Message 2 of 13

I was just cleaning my desk (a yearly event) and I found the long
detailed TELECOM Digest reports of the Chicago flood.

Am I correct that I haven't seen even a peep in the TELECOM Digest
about the large storm that NY/NJ suffered a few weeks ago?  Although
the stock exchanges and major switching equipment is not near the
shore, in Manhattan "Water Street" lived up to its name with flooding
reaching four feet at the South Street Seaport.  Several bank
buildings (such as Chemical Bank) were severely flooded and mobile
banks of phones were in the streets a few days later.  Most of the
underground train service was out of service that day (the PATH trains
that cross from NY-NJ under the Hudson were hartest hit, losing the
Hoboken terminal for about a week).  LaGuardia Airport was shut down
for several days.  All trains were severely delayed.  And there's
nobody to blame!

I guess the most major telecom aspest of the storm was people like me
getting cabin fever after staying indoors for three days and starting
to call friends and relatives to relieve the boredom.

I wonder if John Higdon tried calling anybody in NY/NJ during the
storm emergency just to gripe about the AT&T call choking.


Jeffrey Jonas    jeffj@panix.com


[Moderator's Note: You are correct. Not a word was mentioned here. I
did not see it personally, and no one bothered to write about it. :(
Thanks for bringing it up.   PAT]
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 19:11:33 GMT
From: rdg@world.std.com (R. Goldstein)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: New England Telephone Ringback Numbers?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 917, Message 2 of 17

As the subject says, I am looking for any "specialty" numbers which
might be good for New England Telephone in the Newton "332" exchange,
especially the number to ring my own phone.  I would also like to
learn of any loop numbers (one port is OK), since what I am trying to
do is to send a fax from my fax machine to my pc/modem/fax board in
order to use my fax machine as a scanner.  This means that I need a
live pair with talk battery but without the usual reversal of
polarity, etc. (Also, if anyone has any other tricks to accomplish
this, I am all ears!).


Thanks in advance!

rdg@world.std.com     Richard D. Goldstein
Schiller & Kusmer   Patent Attorneys At Law  (617) 227-5454 Telephone


[Moderator's Note: I'll let people in your area write you direct with
any ringback numbers they know, etc.  Regards your request for
loopback, I'm sure telco would gladly sell you a dedicated live pair
(what used to be(?) called a private circuit or private line) with
both ends terminating on your premises. But why not make your own
instead: it is simple and easy to do. 

Place a 24 volt power supply with clean DC in the middle, with the two
devices wired in series through it. Take your two devices off hook and
instruct each of them to start their operation.  You could probably
get by with a 13.8 VDC supply from Radio Shack.  PAT]
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 06:28:25 GMT
From: news@cbnews.att.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Texans Entitled to <=$1500 Damages For Computerized Calls! 
Organization: AT&T
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 925, Message 7 of 9

In article <telecom12.918.9@eecs.nwu.edu> gary.w.sanders@att.com
writes:

> In article <telecom12.914.5@eecs.nwu.edu> Gregg (G.) Woodcock
> <woodcock@bnr.ca> writes:

>> Under a new law that just passed in Texas, consumers are allowed to
>> collect up to $1500 in fines agains any company who initaites a phone
>> call with a non-human and can be identified (and who does not have

> [Moderator's Note: Publishing your number in a BBS listing then
> 'waiting for the calls to come in' would not benefit you anything
> other than a lot of grief. The intent is there must be *no basis* for
> the calls; your number appearing in such a list would provide the

My concern was that someone could publish a phone number as a prank.
A simple post to Usenet that some wisbang bbs is now in operation for
only the call can generate a lot of phone calls ... I had my voice
phone published in a magazine as a BBS line; I had calls at all hours
of the day and night.

> would refuse to make such corrections?  If someone as a sick joke
> published your number in a BBS list, your recourse would be against
> the submitter and possibly the editor/publisher of the list; but not
> against the caller, and not under the law being discussed.   PAT]

Why not under the law? Its suppose to be assocated with non-human
callers?  My computer calls all day long with no humans around. About
the only part that doesnt fit is company, what consistues a company.
If I get a junk mail caller and have it randomly dialing from my home
phone I get around the law.

No arguing with the law, just that the TX as many other computer laws
are being made by people with no idea how the real world works.


Gary W. Sanders (N8EMR)   gary.w.sanders@att.com   
AT&T Bell Labs  614-860-5965 


[Moderator's Note: Why it would not apply to the human making the call
in the case of an innocent BBS user calling your number is because he
had some basis for making the call; namely a list of numbers which he
accepted in good faith and tried to use.  He is not in the habit of
making **random** calls with his computer to just any number.  He
makes calls to numbers that he believes he has been invited to call.
He anticipates that he is calling another modem/computer -- not that a
human being will answer.  What telemarketer begins with that premise?
Now where this new law would probably involve guys with modems calling
computers would be in the case of the crackers/phreaks who scan an
entire exchange looking for modems. *They* use non-human equipment to
scan entire prefixes, causing all the phones on the exchange to ring
as their computer dials them one after another. I'd like to see that
breed get slapped with the full force of this law.   PAT]
Date: 20 Dec 92 19:54 -0800
From: Jim Thornton <thornton@cs.ubc.ca>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Ethernetted Office Phone Systems?
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 913, Message 3 of 10

goldstein@carafe.dnet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) writes:

> In article <telecom12.887.2@eecs.nwu.edu>, gtoal@cursci.co.uk (Graham
> Toal) writes ...

>> However, we were wondering ... has anyone ever built actual
>> *telephones* for use in a building with local ethernet that used
>> tcp/ip?  If not, there's a tremendous market there: You can program
>> your phone with your extension, and take it with you when you move
>> office without reprogramming the exchange (a trivial point but one
>> that would be useful in *our* office where we're always bloody moving
>> :-( ) but more importantly you only need to run one ether trunk round
>> the whole building to cover all possible present and future phone
>> *and* network needs.

> It's not practical.  Ethernet has too much latency plus variable
> bandwidth.  Ethernet telephone's a classical hack of computer
> scientists with no telephony background who think the whole world's IP
> and wonder why anybody does anything else.

It has been done.  Xerox PARC developed a system called Etherphone(tm)
which integrates live and recorded voice into an office workstation
environment.  Applications of interest included things like voice
annotation and editing, narrated hypermedia documents, etc.

Here is a list of papers:

Polle T. Zellweger, Douglas B. Terry, and Daniel C. Swinehart, "An
Overview of the Etherphone System and its Applications", in
Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE Conference on Computer Workstations (Santa
Clara, CA, March 1988), pp. 160-168.

Daniel C. Swinehart, "Telephone Management in the Etherphone System",
in Proceedings of the IEEE/IEICE Global Telecommunications Conference
(Tokyo, November 1987) pp. 1176-1180.

Douglas B. Terry and Daniel C. Swinehart, "Managing Stored Voice in
the Etherphone System", in ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 6(1),
February 1988, pp. 3-27.

Daniel C. Swinehart, "System Support Requirements for Multi-media
Workstations", in Proceedings of the SpeechTech '88 Conference (New
York; April 1988); Media Dimensions, Inc., New York, April 1988, pp.
82-83.

Polle T. Zellweger, "Active Paths through Multimedia Documents", in
Document Manipulation and Typography, J. C. van Vliet (ed.) Cambridge
University Press, 1988.  Proceedings of the EP'88 Conference on
Electronic Publishing, Document Manipulation and Typography, (Nice,
France; April 1988).

This information comes from the Computer Science Laboratory Technical
Report Digest: 1973-1990.  The papers listed are collected in techni-
cal report CSL-89-2 May 1989.


Jim Thornton, thornton@cs.ubc.ca   University of British Columbia
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 93 02:28:28 -0500
From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Sad to Say, Telemarketing Works
Organization: UMass, Amherst MA + Temporal Sys & Computer Networks Bombay India
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 6, Message 9 of 10

In article <telecom13.2.6@eecs.nwu.edu> siegman@sierra.stanford.edu
writes:

> proposal: Enact legislation requiring that all telemarketing calls
> come with Caller-ID from a uniquely designated area code prefix, like
> 600, 700, whatever.  No freedom of speech issues are involved; the

  Oh yes. That is a good idea. Placing the onus on a business to
identify themselves to the law is very implmentable as well.

  Also with just a tiny modification to the CNID concept (no
additional cost) instead of a number, the company name would be
delivered.

   In most cases an LCD with alphanumeric display with say only the
ITA2 or Baudot char set should not be any more expensive that
currently used digit displays. The modems part etc could remain the
same, and the phone companies can make some money out of delivering a
12 letter alphanumeric ... enough perhaps (is it?) to have them do the
software changes needed to their COs.

 A couple of days back, I caught the tail end of Bob Beckel (sp?)
sitting in for Larry King on CNN. On the show was the small-biz owner
who (guess its her) had filed that suit, and one Ray Kolker introduced
as a Dialler manufacturer. He was pretty forceful in suggesting that
there are better way available in technology today "such as of the
type of Caller-ID", which can deal better.

  I have time and again thought up ideas on similar lines, but each
time I am reminded that all these are going to be a "little difficult"
to do till SS7 reaches all COs and is nationwide.

  Is it not the case that a lion's share of telemarketing is across
state lines to benefit from the lower IXC rates?

  Of course, then telemarketeers would simply call from that small
state near the Bahamas where the tarot readers used to live :-) Might
even be cheaper. (Freely allowing cross talk of ideas between various
threads I read in the past year..) their neutral-accented sale-droids
could be in the safe vicinity of the Air Command, with all calls piped
to the bahamas, and coming in from there right at dinner time, and
your CNID box says "International Call". The Phone Company might even
encourage this with a discount, like apparently they did in when .. Oh
well ...  :-)


shrikumar ( shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in )
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 92 00:07:05 EST
From: Tony Harminc <TONY@VM1.MCGILL.CA>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Pennsylvania Judge Bashing
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 921, Message 10 of 10

> [Moderator's Note: We seem to be getting some out of LATA Caller ID
> messages here now also. Not many yet, but more than this time last
> year. Remember the judge in Pennsylvania, who in his wisdom declared
> Caller ID was an 'illegal trap and trace device'? I wonder if he'll be
> getting after us here in Chicago once SS-7 makes delivery of caller
> numbers from Pennsylvania to us a reality?  :)   PAT]

> [Moderator's Note: Caller-ID is considered an Evil and Bad Thing in
> PA. A judge there ruled that Socially Responsible people would not use
> it since it is 'an illegal tap and trace' device. There are devices to
> do what you want and various software programs as well, but if you are
> in PA, you can forget it.  What do PA and CA have in common? I'll let
> John H. respond to that.

Come off it, PAT.  Judge Schnierle looked at the Pennsylvania law and
wrote a decision based on it.  The law is clear as day: Caller*ID is
not legal in PA.  Bell of PA proposed an ingenious misreading of the
wording that the judge had to point out.  Two PUC commissioners wished
it were not so, and overrode his decision.  Higher courts, in *their*
wisdom, decided that the law, rather than the wishes of the
commissioners, is what counts.

Whatever you or I or anyone else thinks of the state law, it is a
matter for the appropriate legislature to change the law, not for a
PUC to pretend it doesn't say what it says.  Leave the messenger
alone!


Tony H.


[Moderator's Note: Well, I think his role was a wee bit more than just
that of a messenger ... but that is obviously a subjetive decision on
my part.  Happy holidays to one and all from TELECOM Digest!    PAT]
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 16:32:06 EST
From: andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Strange Operator Chatter (was 510-613 vs 613-NNX)
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 914, Message 2 of 14

On 16 Dec 92 03:05:43 GMT, our esteemed Moderator noted:

> Even though oddly enough, on an international call I made today
> through AT&T when I dialed the operator she answered like this:
> [listen!] '.... Illinois Bell, may I ... I mean, AT&T, may I help
> you please? ...' ... yes, I thought it was strange also.

Actually, it's not as strange as you think.

AT&T still contracts to do local operator service for a lot of LECs.
But operators are not earmarked for particular calls.  Any call, AT&T
or LEC, coming into the Operator Services Center goes to the first
available position.  One of the things that comes up on the OSPS
console is the company carrying the call.  I suspect that your
operator was new and had just handled a few IBT calls and forgot to
check the screen before uttering the (branded) greeting.


Andy Sherman

Salomon Inc  -  Unix Systems Support  -  Rutherford, NJ
(201) 896-7018  -  andys@sbi.com or asherman@sbi.com
"These opinions are mine, all *MINE*.  My employer can't have them."