HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Subject: Re: Help Required!  Please read on...
Reply-To: rob@sound.demon.co.uk
Distribution: world
X-Mailer: cppnews $Revision: 1.20 $
Organization: Sound & Vision BBS (UK) 0932 252323
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 00:37:22 +0000

>Thank you everyone who has tried to get through to 0223-250034.
tried a couple of times, seemed OK

But are we supposed to be calling using BT or Mercury ? :-)

Are you only on Mercury, not BT, or something ?

-rob-

=----------------------------------.----------------------------------------=
| Nominal  : Rob Barth             | RJB Communications (+44) (0)932 253131 |
| InterNet : rob@sound.demon.co.uk | Sound & Vision BBS (+44) (0)932 252323 |
| FidoNet  : sysop, 2:254/14       |  The best UK BBS with a full UseNet &  |
| Nyx      : rbarth@nyx.cs.du.edu  | Internet Email feed. All hours/speeds. |
=----------------------------------.----------------------------------------=
From: ucjtrjf@ucl.ac.uk (Jonny Farringdon)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Re: Dial phone wanted
Date: 22 Jan 93 15:57:50 GMT
Organization: Bloomsbury Computing Consortium


 
You can get a not*very*old dial phone for 1/2 ukp from car boot sales
&c.  Nice bit*older dial phones for 5-15 ukp and *old* dial phones
(bakerlight with the draw underneeth) for about 50 ukp.
 
2 (seperate) BT eginears told me (a while ago) that they throw away
old phones  :-!
 
j.  ucjtrjf@ucl.ac.uk
From: fisher@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Caller ID
Date: 22 Jan 93 22:14:35 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England


keith@unipalm.co.uk writes (re. caller ID):

> However, it occurs to me that you don't need any of this technology at all -
> all that is required is for a speech synthesiser to pre-announce the number
> to you when you pick the phone up, well within the hardware capabilities of
> System X etc.

This is what the 999 system does.  The (e.g.) police operator hears a msg
saying (e.g.): "This is York BT centre connecting you to York 123456".

At least I *think* the voice is synthesized - it sounded like it.

----
Tony Fisher
Dept. of Computer Science, The University of York, York YO1 5DD, U.K.
Tel. +44 904 432738 or 432722
Internet: fisher@minster.york.ac.uk
Janet:	  fisher@uk.ac.york.minster
UUCP:	  fisher@minster.UUCP (..!uunet!mcsun!reading!minster!fisher)
From: jcs@jcs.ibmpcug.co.uk (Default Account)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Re: Itemised Bills
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 22:27:40 GMT
Organization: CONNECT Mail Feed via ibmpcug.co.uk in the UK [+44 (0)81-863 6646]

In <931325141322@ibm3090.bham.ac.uk> TREHARAJ@ibm3090.bham.ac.uk writes:
>==============================================================================
>Could anybody explain what modifications BT would need to carry out in
>order to supply the residential customer with a fully itemised bill?
>Why is it that Mercury can do so?

I have reporte BT to the Advertising Standards for misleading advertising about
itemised billing. I have also written to them complaining that 30% of my bill is NOT
itemised. The response was that when itemised billing was introduced they conducted
a market survey and there as NO DEMAND for fully itemised billing.

I AM DEMANDING IT!

It is a direct consequence of their billing policy that I now use Mercury for all of 
my non local calls.

-- 
John Steele
From: martin.briscoe@almac.co.uk (Martin Briscoe)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: UN: Answering machine tha
Date: 23 Jan 93 23:38:00 GMT
Reply-To: martin.briscoe@almac.co.uk (Martin Briscoe)
Organization: Almac BBS Ltd. +44 (0)324 665371


A bit slow replying to this query but just seen a new file on a BBS
that I use regularly.  It is  called DIGIPAGE.ZIP.

It is designed for use in the USA, needs registering for full use.  It
calls up a pager service and sends you a message with time stamp after a
message is received by your TAM.

 * 1st 1.02b #405 * Martin Briscoe - Fort William - Inverness-shire - Scotland
From: TREHARAJ@ibm3090.bham.ac.uk
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Itemised Bills
Date: 25 Jan 93 14:13:22 GMT
Organization: The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
NNTP-Posting-Host: ibm3090.bham.ac.uk

==============================================================================
Could anybody explain what modifications BT would need to carry out in
order to supply the residential customer with a fully itemised bill?
Why is it that Mercury can do so?

Andy T.
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: Itemised Bills
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:07:11 +0000

:Very probably!  All of the discussion so far has centred around the technical
:issues of BT providing itemised bills.  I suspect that it is the business
:issues that are overriding tho'.  The question their management will ask is
:"What's in it for us?"  In other words, "if we spend all of this money
:providing itemised billing, how much extra revenue will it generate for us -
:or maybe how much business will it stop from going elsewhere?"

Isn't that why we have OFTEL? (hahahaha!)

G
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: jeremym@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Jeremy Maris)
Subject: Re: FAX/MODEM switches
Organization: University of Sussex
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 18:05:10 GMT


I have used the BIT PHAXswitch OK sharing between a BT Merlin and a
1200/2400 dialup line. Works very well - cost was about 180 about two years
ago. It has an auto mode, detecting fax negotiation and switching to
phone/modem if it isn't a fax, or voice switching, where you have to say "fax".
Haven't tried it at speeds above 2400 though.

Unfortunately I have to return it to its owner tomorrow, and I'm now looking
at modern fax machines with built in switches.

Don't know who sells it now - you could try and get info from Wildings
on 081  543 7611.

What switches, or fax machines with switches, *don't* work?


-- 
Jeremy Maris,Experimental Psychology,University of Sussex,Brighton,England.
   jeremym@uk.ac.sussex.syma phone: +44 273 678060 fax: +44 273 678433
                                   ------
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: Itemised Bills
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 16:22:31 +0000

	Could anybody explain what modifications BT would need to carry out in
	order to supply the residential customer with a fully itemised bill?

patch <<EOD
> #define BILL_THRESH 10
---
< #define BILL_THRESH 1
EOD

:-)
From: dhd@exnet.co.uk (Damon)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Re: Itemised Bills
Date: 25 Jan 93 20:17:29 GMT
Organization: ExNet Systems Ltd Public Access News, London, UK

In article <1993Jan25.144543.5802@alex.com> dec@alex.com (Doug Clinton) writes:
>In article <931325141322@ibm3090.bham.ac.uk>, TREHARAJ@ibm3090.bham.ac.uk writes:
>|> ==============================================================================
>|> Could anybody explain what modifications BT would need to carry out in
>|> order to supply the residential customer with a fully itemised bill?
>|> Why is it that Mercury can do so?
>
>BT would almost certainly have to install a very large amount of extra
>mass storage in order to log every all to provide fully itemised
>bills. Mercury can manage it because they have far fewer customers
>(probably one or two orders of magnitude) which means they do not have
>to store as much data.

BT is reputed to keep details of all calls on fast storage for six
months for dubious purposes; I'm sure Mr Parnoid^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Toal
(B^>) will provide some illumination here...

Damon
-- 
Damon Hart-Davis        d@hd.org   London UK   Tel/Fax: +44 81 755 0077  [1.37]

Two separate jobs, two employers: (1) Editor of Parallelogram, (2) Consultant
and seller of uucp news/mail feeds (UK#5 pcm, FIRST MONTH FREE) and cheap Suns.
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Subject: Re: Caller ID
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Distribution: uk
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 12:04:35 GMT

In article <C179BI.np@fulcrum.co.uk>, graeme@fulcrum.co.uk (Graeme Hodgson) writes:
|> In article <1993Jan21.094646.21169@jet.uk> tp@jet.uk (Tarang K Patel) writes:
|> > Have you ever wondered with all the hype about system X and/ or Y what has 
|> > really changed for the private Telephone user since say the 70's ---
|> >
|> >     "Not an iota ....  "
|> >
|> > Stuff the B in T and let NTT, AT&T ad Pacific bell etc... come in and show
|> > B.T and Mercury how its done. :-)
|> 
|> Why do people always assume that because the telco can provide some
|> really interesting feature that 0.6% of the population find really
|> useful it is inherently a better operator?
|> 
|> I suggest all those that believe the American networks to be better
|> than the UK read an article posted last week in comp.dcom.telecom on
|> how a University of California survey found the American operators to
|> be lagging behind, in particular, Japan, Singapore and the UK.
|> 
|> As for NTT, I expect they're pretty good.

It's all down to economics.  If you have a vast telephone population,
it costs you to upgrade it.  If any of NTT, AT&T, PacBell, whatever,
were to arrive here, it would be some time before their service was
sufficient to attract significant subscribers (sorry, customers).  In
the interim, they have to pay through the nose to acquire all this
high-falutin' technology.

Now one would expect NTT (given the Japanese financial system) to be
able to achieve that, but one has to remember the strain the said
system is currently under from the slide in share prices in Tokyo over
the last year or so.

I'm slightly surprised to learn that California is less well served
than the UK.  Not at all than Japan, and as for Singapore - what do
you expect?  Given even my minuscule resources (remainder of a
redundancy payoff), I could provide a full digital service around my
house.  Given the success of the Singapore economy, is it surprising
that their paternalistic guvmint feels able to provide digital service
all round their rather small island?

Having said which, all power to Singapore's elbow...
--
Robin (Keep Radio 3 != Classic FM) Fairbairns       rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK
From: swssauby@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Michael Saunby)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Re: At Last An End To Double Glazing Salesman (was: Caller ID)
Date: 25 Jan 93 17:11:49 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: University of Reading

ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson) writes:


>In article <1993Jan22.092325.22409@gssec.bt.co.uk>
>fbowles@gssec.bt.co.uk (Frank K Bowles) writes:


>#  The features offered by Caller Display (the name CLID services will be
>#  marketed under) are expected to be:
>#  
>#  [...]
>#  
>#  - selective call forwarding (diverts incoming calls from specified
>#    numbers)

>Heh. 

>From the day they introduce this feature, all double glazing companies
>ringing me at home can expect to be routed to Abdul's Goat Barbecue in
>Thailand. 

Can you really afford that????    Forward calls are charged to your
number with the present system!





>-- 
>Son, all the pretty, intelligent, healthy     #    I have discovered of this
>young women are taken. It's a basic rule of   #    basic rule of the universe
>the universe, and if you don't like it, go    #    a most remarkable proof,
>somewhere else.        -- my dad  1906-1992   #    which this .signature is too
-- 
	Michael Saunby (M.Saunby@reading.ac.uk) 
	Meteorology Dept, Reading University, UK
From: alan.barclay@almac.co.uk (Alan Barclay)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Caller ID
Date: 23 Jan 93 10:29:00 GMT
Reply-To: alan.barclay@almac.co.uk (Alan Barclay)
Organization: Almac BBS Ltd. +44 (0)324 665371

JL> phone.  Just for something slightly different, why an 'ordinary' (i.e.
JL> domestic) subscriber would refuse to accept a call knowing the caller's
JL> number ? To me this is equivalent to refusing to open any letter which

My girlfriend has caller ID, she's canadian. And she often
doesn't answer based on the caller ID. She sometimes doesn't want
to talk to people, eg her mother, so knowledge of who is calling
can help. She originally got it because of a nuissince (I can't
spell it either) caller, phoning her at 2am. Another good use is
to know who called when she was out, she has an answering
machine, but most people don't bother leaving a message.

JL> I'm not sure what sort of additional protection the knowledge of caller I
JL> offers in such a situation.

Why do you get phonecalls, but no-one going door to door heavy
breathing? It's because the anominty of phone calls. Remove than
anominity, and you can help reduce the occurance.
  
---
 . ATP/Unix1.40a . Cat + unattended keyboard = garbage all over screen
                                                                                                                           
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: Alastair@gilly.demon.co.uk (Alastair James Gilchrist)
Subject: Re: Teleworking support 
Distribution: world
Organization: DIS(organised)
Reply-To: Alastair@gilly.demon.co.uk
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.19)
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 23:10:05 +0000

In article <727742028snx@brite.demon.co.uk> simon@brite.demon.co.uk writes:

> Does anyone have the addresses of organisations providing advice and support
>for someone wishing to start teleworking? Thanks..
>
>                                                        Simon
>--
>Simon Molloy                   BRITE VOICE SYSTEMS        Tel +44 61-976 4550
>Brite Voice Systems Ltd.    Voice Mail for the masses     Fax +44 61-976 4744
>Crossford Court, Dane Rd,   
>Sale, Cheshire M33 1BZ 
>

Much as I hate to recommend the opposition, BT have done alot of work in this
area, mainly out of their reserch arm in Martlesham Heath.

If you have problems finding a number or a name mail or call me and I should
be able to help.

-- 
Alastair James Gilchrist
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk (Richard Cox)
Subject: Itemised Bills                          
Cc: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk
Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 23:21:00 +0000

Andy T asked:

>>  Could anybody explain what modifications BT would need to carry out in
>>  order to supply the residential customer with a fully itemised bill?

It's simply a matter of a small tweak to the exchange software - and putting
in an order for delivery of an extra rainforest.

Mercury don't need quite such a large rainforest.

Richard D G Cox

Mandarin Technology, Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, CARDIFF, Wales CF4 5WF
Voice: +44 222 747111      Fax: +44 222 711111      VoiceMail: +44 399 870101
E-mail: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk     Not diallable on 511 in mainland USA
From: ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: At Last An End To Double Glazing Salesman (was: Caller ID)
Date: 25 Jan 93 14:55:58 GMT
Followup-To: uk.telecom
Distribution: uk
Organization: William's Wonderful Wonky Widget Warehouse


In article <1993Jan22.092325.22409@gssec.bt.co.uk>
fbowles@gssec.bt.co.uk (Frank K Bowles) writes:


#  The features offered by Caller Display (the name CLID services will be
#  marketed under) are expected to be:
#  
#  [...]
#  
#  - selective call forwarding (diverts incoming calls from specified
#    numbers)

Heh. 

From the day they introduce this feature, all double glazing companies
ringing me at home can expect to be routed to Abdul's Goat Barbecue in
Thailand. 






-- 
Son, all the pretty, intelligent, healthy     #    I have discovered of this
young women are taken. It's a basic rule of   #    basic rule of the universe
the universe, and if you don't like it, go    #    a most remarkable proof,
somewhere else.        -- my dad  1906-1992   #    which this .signature is too
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: woolleym@uhura.aston.ac.uk (M WOOLLEY)
Subject: Re: Dial phone wanted
Organization: Aston University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL241235]
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 13:17:16 GMT

Stephen Le Pla (slepla@acorn.co.uk) wrote:
: 
: I have one of these old type dial-phones. Does anybody know how to connect a
: modern telephone jack to on of these? Which colour wire goes to which terminal
: on the jack?
: 
: Steve

In the house I'm renting this year, there is an very old black dial phone,
even with the letters around the edge (wouldnt suprise me if it was made of
backerlite). Investigating whether we could fit a new type socket (not that
I would as it is illegal to do it your self isnt it?) I noted down the 
following wires.

OLD PHONE           NEW WIRING           PIN NUMBER

RED                 BLUE/white               2          major colour in
GREEN  and also     WHITE/blue               5             capitals
WHITE

Pin numbers refer to the new phone sockets. NOTE both Green and 
White wires were attached to the same terminal on the old phone side.

I hope this helps.

Mark

***********************************************************************
* E-mail : WoolleyM@spock.aston.ac.uk * 69 Arden Road                 *
* Mark Woolley  Elec. Eng. Dept.      * Aston Birmingham B6 6AP  U.K. *
* Aston Uni. Birmingham England       * Tel :++ 44 21 515 2962        *
From: TREHARAJ@ibm3090.bham.ac.uk
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: VAT
Date: 26 Jan 93 13:47:59 GMT
Organization: The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
NNTP-Posting-Host: ibm3090.bham.ac.uk

==============================================================================
I've just got round to taking over the phone in my flat, I've lived there
for some months. I got a bill for the rental for the rest of the current
quarter and a final bill for the previous user for the phone calls made
up to the takeover date less a refund for the rental. BT have refunded the
net cost of the rental and not the cost including VAT, in other words VAT
has been paid twice for the same service. When I get a refund from a shop
I get my VAT back as well. Also, how does this get sorted in their accounts?


Andy T.
From: ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Re: Caller ID
Date: 25 Jan 93 17:50:35 GMT
Followup-To: uk.telecom
Distribution: uk
Organization: William's Wonderful Wonky Widget Warehouse


In article <1993Jan21.091543.25465@edscom.demon.co.uk>
ian@edscom.demon.co.uk (Ian Green) writes:

#  Secondly - you cannot (on most if not all exchanges now) leave an
#  unanswered call ringing for very long (3 mins??) to stop the tie-up of
#  international lines

Brilliant.  It is now completely impossible to get through to British
Rail travel enquiries.  You hang on for three minutes and dear ole BT
then aborts the attempt. 




-- 
Son, all the pretty, intelligent, healthy     #    I have discovered of this
young women are taken. It's a basic rule of   #    basic rule of the universe
the universe, and if you don't like it, go    #    a most remarkable proof,
somewhere else.        -- my dad  1906-1992   #    which this .signature is too
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: maj@cl.cam.ac.uk (Martyn Johnson)
Subject: Re: Itemised Bills
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 10:16:41 GMT

In article <C1GDGD.Dxo@fulcrum.co.uk>, davidw@fulcrum.co.uk (David Wilkinson) writes:
...
|> I suspect that one problem is the size of the disk that comes with
|> exchanges such as System X. All the billing data is dumped to that,
|> and then downloaded to a remote site periodically (every hour, I
|> think) over X.25. BT insist, however, that they musn't lose any
|> billing data, even if their comms links go down for a long period (>
|> 1day?) - this effectively limits the amount of data that can
|> physically be stored, and hence the 10 unit restriction. 

But I think we have been told on this group that if you dispute the metered
unit on a bill, BT sometimes send you a full list of all the calls. If
true, this implies that they must store the data somewhere, even if it is
not online to the billing system. 

Is it true or not?  Can anybody say with certainty that BT have
retrospectively produced a fully itemised bill?

-- 
Martyn Johnson      maj@cl.cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge Computer Lab
Cambridge UK
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: Itemised Bills
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:22:29 +0000

:I suspect that one problem is the size of the disk that comes with
:exchanges such as System X. All the billing data is dumped to that,
:and then downloaded to a remote site periodically (every hour, I
:think) over X.25. BT insist, however, that they musn't lose any
:billing data, even if their comms links go down for a long period (>
:1day?) - this effectively limits the amount of data that can
:physically be stored, and hence the 10 unit restriction. 

This is interesting!  How weird to think that BT could lose their
comms to the central record office whilst keeping the exchange
running - you'd think they'd have several backup routes.  If the
phones are still up enough for there to be anything worth billing,
the link should be too.

You seem to actually know something about this.  Can you then say from
your own personal knowledge that BT really don't record the details of
calls of < 10 units?

G
btw, how big *are* the disks, and what's the daily traffic through
an exchange, if you know?
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: rpt@edscom.demon.co.uk (Richard Tomlinson)
Subject: Re: Phone lines from cable operators
Organization: EDS-Scicon, Milton Keynes, UK
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 09:14:59 GMT

In article <1jp3jmINNan2@frigate.doc.ic.ac.uk> s.brown@lon.ac.uk writes:
>In article <C13Mun.2F6@micromuse.co.uk> peter@micromuse.co.uk writes:
>>
>>Well, there goes the idea of competition. How many other Cable TV co's
>>are owned by BT (or at least a percentage) ?
>
>It appears that Westminster Cable may be the sole one.  Aberdeen
>Cable Services, Coventry Cable and Swindon Cable were previously
>part-owned by BT.

Milton Keynes TV is owned by BT.
-- 
Richard Tomlinson, EDS Scicon Ltd, Wavendon Tower, Milton Keynes, UK MK17 8LX
rpt@edscom.demon.co.uk   Tel:  +44 908 284539          Amateur radio: G4TGJ
All opinions expressed are mine, and are not necessarily those of my employer.
From: malcolmr@sun.pcl.ac.uk (Malcolm Ray)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Re: caller ID (blocking, additional services)
Date: 22 Jan 93 20:47:54 GMT
Organization: University of Westminster

In article <1993Jan22.124829.6744@its.bt.co.uk> tjo@its.bt.co.uk (Tim Oldham) writes:
>In article <6521@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk> zzatsjl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Janusz Lukasiak) writes:
>> - straighforward lies (ringing in sick from a departure lounge at Heathrow)
>
>I don't think this will be possible. As I understand it, you won't have
>the option of blocking CLID from payphones. They're anonymous enough as
>it is, and a persistent malicious caller who moved round payphones could
>avoid any kind of detection if you could block payphone CLID; at least,
>it would require a good deal more work on BT's behalf to track them.
>It would also be inconvenient if there's someone you regularly need to
>speak to who has CLID permanently blocked; you wouldn't answer the phone
>on no-ID. 

Hmmm... so would-be-anonymous callers will have to beware of payphones near
`traffic' cameras...
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
From: keith@unipalm.co.uk (Keith Mitchell)
Subject: Re: At Last An End To Double Glazing Salesman (was: Caller ID)
Organization: Unipalm Ltd., 216 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4WA, UK
Distribution: uk
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 17:43:45 GMT

simon@cs.city.ac.uk (Simon Brock-Gunn) writes:

>>> ringing me at home can expect to be routed to Abdul's Goat Barbecue in
>>> Thailand. 
>>
>>Who do you think PAYS for the forwarding?

>But not if you forward them to their own company's 0800 number!

I seem to recall it says in my Star Services manual that forwarding of calls
to BT operator and LinkLine (presumably also 0500 and 0645 now) numbers
is not permitted for ordinary Call Diversion. I doubt it would be for
Caller-ID based diversion either.

Keith Mitchell                 Network Manager

Public IP Exchange             keith@pipex.net
216 The Science Park           keith@unipalm.co.uk
Cambridge, UK                  keith@uk.co.pipex	(non-IP JANET sites)
Phone: +44 223-424616
Fax:   +44 223-426868
Newsgroups: uk.telecom