HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Mission Impossible: IBT Getting My Order Correct
Date: 3 Jan 93 17:55:00 GMT
Reply-To: John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 7, Message 1 of 13

On Jan 3 at  2:13, TELECOM Moderator writes:

> A few minutes later, another call comes from a woman named 'Debbie'
> who states she is a repair supervisor in the Irving CO. Her complaint
> is thus:  someone has 'been calling' repair on 'unauthorized numbers'
> and it had better stop. If I want Repair Service, the number to call
> is 611 and none other.  

Interesting difference in approach. Virtually everytime I call in
trouble to Pac*Bell for my service or for others, a call back comes
from someone who, upon getting my machine, leaves his/her name and
direct telephone number, usually 973-something. When calling this
number either the person leaving the message answers or someone else
does who promptly puts the repair tech on the line.

And then, it is only necessary to give my name, not the number
reported for the repair person to immediately pinpoint the repair
ticket.

All in all, I find Pac*Bell very open about its "internal" numbers. On
only one occasion was I invited to call 611 rather than the number
that I did. It was explained that it was necessary to do that to open
a ticket that could be followed up on by the person to whom I was
speaking at the time.

Sounds as though IBT may still have a touch of the old Ma Bell left in
her.


John Higdon  |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 264 4115     |       FAX:
john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 09:47:24 -0500
From: jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Sad to Say, Telemarketing Works 
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 2, Message 7 of 12

In article <telecom12.920.8@eecs.nwu.edu> burgoyne@access.digex.com
writes:

> Simple mechanisms exist to prevent autodialers from reaching you.
 ...

> I assume, therefore, that there is another device out there which
> *DOES* identify whether the calling party is human or machine, and can
> block all calls from one or the other.  I also assume that this is
> available for a price that the average person can afford, and is not a
> hassle to them to use (i.e., you don't force the caller to go through
> a menu or anything just to get to you -- it all happens behind the
> scenes).

Yes, what _are_ the simple mechanisms? 

One I can think of is: answer the phone silently. Outbound message
gadgets probably wait for the called party to say something ("Hello ")
before beginning their spiel. At the expense of confusing some of your
human callers, have a box at your end pick up the incoming call, wait
silently for voice energy, and then ring you.


Jon Sreekanth

Assabet Valley Microsystems, Inc.      Fax and PC products
5 Walden St #3, Cambridge, MA 02140    (617) 876-8019
jon_sree@world.std.com
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 15:20:44 -0500 (EST)
From: splee@pd.org (Seng-Poh Lee, Speedy)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: SNET Rate Request
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 4, Message 9 of 12

> Needless to say, overall rates are up.  To take my home town of
> Stamford (in exchange class II) as an example, current residence rates
> are: Flat $11.19, Message $7.59, and Select-a-Call $6.00.  New rates
> (now exchange class III) will be: HCA $15.00, ECA $25.65, and Per Call
> $10.00.

> It's unclear how the current Flat Rate area (which generally includes
> your own town and physically adjacent ones) compares to the new HCA's
> and ECA's, though SNET claims that for "most customers" the new ECA is
> larger than the current Flat Rate area.

Based on the flyer SNET sent me with my bill, it appears that people
who need Flat Rate Calling to adjoining exchanges are going to have
their bills doubled. HCA appears to only cover your own local
exchange, in my case, Cheshire. That means you have to subscribe to
ECA to get at least the Flat Calling area you used to have. This means
my Flat rate would go from $11.19 to $25.65, just so I can maintain
Flat Rate to the adjoining town. Thats more than DOUBLE! While its
true that ECA is supposed to give you a wider Flat Rate calling area,
SNET has not been to public about just how far an ECA each exchange
will get.


Seng-Poh Lee    <splee@pd.org>
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 92 19:58:02 GMT
From: mrosen@nyx.cs.du.edu (Michael Rosen)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Is it Possible to Avoid Phone Line Hookup Service Charge?
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 923, Message 5 of 9

I've seen talk on a WWIVNet telecom sub saying that one can avoid the
service fee (approx. $40) by attaching the line yourself and then
calling up and asking for a line to be activated.  We currently have
two lines in this house.  Is it possible for me to run a new line and
then just have it activated?  Is my house likely already set up for
more than two lines?



Michael Rosen	 Tau Epsilon Phi - George Washington University
mrosen@nyx.cs.du.edu   Michael.Rosen@bbs.oit.unc.edu or @lambada.oit.unc.edu


[Moderator's Note:  There are two types of installation charges. One
deals with the paperwork and central office technical work. This is
sometimes described as the 'service ordering fee' or similar, and it
cannot be avoided. That work has to be done regardless. The second
charge deals with work done at your premises -- post-demarc -- and it
can be avoided by hooking up the line at your end once the work at the
CO and the billing/accounting office has been done. This second
charge is the one you primarily want to avoid if possible; the rates
are much higher and might easily run $75-100 if the work becomes at
all complicated.  But try it yourself in an older highrise with a real
messy demarc and hundreds or thousands of house pairs to deal with and
you'll wish you'd spent the $75, believe me you.  It is impossible to
say what your house is wired for. My suggestion is if you do not know
at this point, you'd be better off letting telco do it for additional
expense.  PAT]
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 17:48:31 EST
From: andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Other Bitnet Servers
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 917, Message 16 of 17

On 16 Dec 92 23:25:01 GMT, jeremy@cs.swarthmore.edu (Jeremy Brest)
said:

> If for whatever reason your host doesn't cope with
> user@system.binet, tr`y user%system.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu.

To which Pat, our Moderator replied:

> [Moderator's Note: Ah yes, what a fine net-neighborly act! Let's
> dump our traffic on the City University of New York. If they want
> to run an open Bitnet gate, that's fine; but more than one
> institution has fixed things so the local Bitnet gate is limited
> to their own users; local traffic only, they do not run an email
> expressway through campus.  PAT]

Actually, the City University of New York, *does* seem to have agreed
to be the "official" gateway from the Internet to Bitnet.  I've seen
countless numbers of documents on the net in the comp.mail.*
newsgroups pointing at them.  Also, checking a few nameservers around
the net, cunyvm.cuny.edu appears in everybody's list of MX records for
host.bitnet, even if as the gateway of last resort.  Something tells
me they volunteered.

But I agree with your sentiment of not dumping on a friendly site just
because they're friendly.


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."
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 08:13:09 GMT
From: dannyb@panix.com (Daniel Burstein)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: All Circuits Are Busy Now ...
Organization: Panix, NYC
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 7, Message 5 of 13

Some posters have asked what it meant when they tried making a long
distance call and got back the recording "all circuits are busy,
418-25T" (or similar stuff).
  
Well, in the OLD days, your LD call would get pushed along the route
until it hit a switch or trunk "somewhere out there" which was busy.

BUT, in the new modern age, your call is "held" at the local central
office (or, perhaps, a centralized toll/long distance interface) until
the entire rest of the path can be set up.  Accordingly, if -anything-
is wrong -amnywhere- from the office (either one) to your final
destination, you will get a LOCALLY GENERATED recording. (Again, this
might be at a somewhat distant toll switching station, but it'll be a
LOT closer than it used to be).

I've had this experience far too many times when calling from my area
to places that, for some reason or another, had a partial disruption
in trunk service, or had a sudden increase in traffic.  For example,
after the Florida hurricane, I tried to call some of my co-workers who
had been sent down there, and kept getting "all circuits are busy ...
212-XT" with "212" being the area code UP HERE (NYC).

As others have pointed out, certain long distance carriers are less
likely to be jammed than others, but I'll refer back to them for the
details.

HOWEVER, that does remind me of some trouble I had fifteen or twenty
years ago.  From 11:00 pm till about 11:30, it was almost impossible
tomake outgoing long distance phone calls from my neighborhood.  After
a LOT of arguing with NYTel, and finally tracking down some techies
who understood their network, we figured out what was happening.

The area I lived in was next to a university with lots of residential
students.  Many of whom would either call home, or other distant
locations.  Accordingly, the time vs. number of calls equation in this
area was very different from that in more traditional localities.

College age students, for example, are more likely to be awake at
11:00 pm, are more likely to hold off on making their calls until
then, will tend to talk longer (????), etc., etc., etc.  I'm sure
anyone reading this can easily come up with many other reasons the
standard phone queing formulas didn't work.

Anyway, once they actually looked at blocked calls, they added a few
more outgoing trunk line connections to the toll centers (i.e., they
set it up to allow for more LD calls).


Take care,

dannyb@panix.com
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 19:37:01 CST
From: roy@cybrspc.UUCP (Roy M. Silvernail)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Public Phone 2000: The Bill
Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 928, Message 5 of 13

I finally got my bill for those Public Phone 2000 data calls I made
back in September.  As many people pointed out, the bill came from
AT&T Services.  It was mailed on a Jacksonville, FL permit, but I'm
supposed to send my payment to an Atlanta, GA address.

The bill is split into items for keyboard rental and the actual call.
I guess I misunderstood the instructions, as I expected a single item
for each call.  That'll teach me to read ... :-)

One really unusual point: The 'Location' entry for the keyboard usage
charge is given as Los Angeles, but the location for the phone call
charge is given as Inglewood, CA.  Both entries carry the same phone
number for the originating phone.

BTW, I've found the Minneapolis installations.  One is in a corner of
MSP airport that I'd never visited.  The other is downtown, in the
Hyatt Hotel.  That one is usually out of order, and when it isn't, it
tells me my card number is invalid when I punch it in.  As far as I
can tell, none of these phones will take a regional calling card in
the swipe reader, except for Southwestern Bell cards.


Roy M. Silvernail |+|  roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 23:49:10 PST
From: zygot!john@apple.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: All Circuits Are Busy Now ...
Reply-To: John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 925, Message 2 of 9

On Dec 31 at 00:09, Andy Sherman writes:

> I'm quite surprised to hear my ex-employer take it on the chin for
> their response to a disaster.  Time after time, when disaster strikes,
> they send out portable COs and portable phone banks to help put the
> victims in touch with relatives and with help.  So where are the OCCs
> at those times?

All I can remember was arriving in SoCal at around 7PM and turning on
the TV and seeing scene after scene of Bay Area destruction. And when
I found out the those scenes were 50 miles from the epicenter (and my
own home was ten miles out) I got very worried. Not being able to get
through to neighbors was the most distressing thing to happen to me
all that week :-) And I also remember that getting through to a
neighbor (using Sprint) was a great relief.

BTW, some AT&T tech called yesterday to tell me that the blocking that
I experienced on Christmas Day was the result of my local telco, not
AT&T. Yeah, right. And just whose recording is "408-2T"?


John Higdon  |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 264 4115     |       FAX:
john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 93 18:16:14 EST
From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: The Ultimate Call Screener
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 1, Message 10 of 13

I recall a story about an author who devised a doorbell that worked as
follows: you inserted a $10 bill to ring the bell.  If the person home
thought it was worth answering the door, you got your money back.
 
How about having only a 900 number?  If it's someone to whom you
wanted to speak, there would be no charge.  All other calls were
charged something like $10 for bothering you.  (This is assuming that
there's such a thing as a variable rate 900 number).
 

Jeffrey Jonas   jeffj@panix.com


[Moderator's Note: There are carriers like MCI who will deliver 900
service to you without doing the billing on it. They deliver the ANI
with the call and you figure out who/how to bill. Even if all you
charged was 25-50 cents per call, it would cut down on many of your
wrong numbers, sales calls, etc.  PAT]
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 14:30:28 -0500 (EST)
From: splee@pd.org (Seng-Poh Lee, Speedy)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: How Does Caller ID Work if Phone is Forwarded?
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 917, Message 9 of 17

I have a question about Caller ID. It is not yet available here in
Connecticut, but will start service sometime in 1993.

What happens when you call a phone that has been forwarded to another
phone?  Does the ringing phone display the original calling number, or
the number from which the call has been forwarded from?


Seng-Poh Lee    <splee@pd.org>


[Moderator's Note: The number of the ORIGINAL caller is displayed; and
the number of the FORWARDING caller is charged for the cost if any.  PAT]
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 19:01:10 GMT
From: vances@xenitec.on.ca (Vance Shipley)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Anybody Know of LARGE Modem Server Systems?
Organization: XeniTec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 919, Message 3 of 14

In article <telecom12.912.13@eecs.nwu.edu> mtndew!friedl@uunet.UU.NET
writes:

> I have a customer who may need to set up a huge number of modem
> lines to service incoming calls to his UNIX system, and he wants to
> find a system that already does this rather than roll his own.  While
> we could probably do it ourselves for small numbers of lines (say, up
> to 32), these may just not scale up very well to handling several
> hundred modems and serial lines and phone lines.

An interesting approach is offered by a company named Primary Access.
With their hardware/firmware/software solution you would have several
T-1 (digital) lines carry the telephone lines into the Primary Access
box.  Digital Signal Proccessors in the box would do V.32 or whatever
and you would connect the box to your host over T-1, RS-232 or whatever.

Apparently this is used extensively by Compuserve.

I don't know anything more about these guys than what their brochures
say.


Vance Shipley     vances@xenitec.on.ca
vances@switchview.com  vances@ltg.uucp
Date: 31 Dec 1992 03:41:41 GMT
From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Suggestions Wanted For Phone Device to Restrict Toll Charges
Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 926, Message 1 of 10

The Moderator noted:

> A few years ago, a naive fellow with a little toy store in Chicago set
> up a 'Hot Line to Santa Claus'. This was a phone with an automatic
> dialer on it which dialed a preset number when the phone went off
> hook. It was intended for children 3-5 years old as a way to listen to
> stories from Santa and his wife Mrs. Claus, but some nasty phreaker
> discovered that in the two or three seconds the phone was off hook
> (with dial tone) before the autodialer started doing its thing, his
> pocket tone dialer could cut that dial tone and let him call anywhere
> on the store's nickle.  Provided he got his digits dialed before the
> autodialer cut in, telco accepted his digits and ignored those from
> the device. 

There are auto-dialers available that prevent this.  I tried this
trick with the elevator phone in our building.  When you take the
phone off-hook, you hear dialtone, then hear it dial the answering
service for the elevator company.  As soon as the dialer hears a
touchtone generated from the headset, it hangs up the line.  Boy, they
won't let anybody have any phun these days!


Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com


[Moderator's Note: Now that is interesting! I wonder how they do it? 
Apparently if the autodialer hears a tone, and *it* did not make the
tone, it disconnects. Is that how it works?  PAT]
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 02:06:58 -0800
From: Jeff Sicherman <sichermn@csulb.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: No Caller-ID in California
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 921, Message 6 of 10

Responding to John Higdon's negative comments about the CPUC after
PacTel decided to not provide CNID, the Moderator noted:

> [Moderator's Note: If PacBell wants to make an end-run around the PUC,
> all they need to do is implement Blocked Number Call Blocking, and
> educate their caller ID subscribers on how to automatically reject
> calls from unidentified parties. When that forty percent with non-pub
> numbers found out that fifty percent of the other subsribers were
> refusing their calls, they'd soon ask for their number to start being
> displayed by default also.  PAT]

  Without rehashing the endless discussions of Caller ID, its merits,
its deficiencies, the civil liberties issues on BOTH sides, which have
all been covered ad nauseum ...

  Though well intentioned, I don't think that your proposal is a very
viable solution, PAT. Remember, you're dealing with a population at
large that still has trouble with their VCR's and get lost and
frustrated with automated attendent systems. The most likely
consequence of multiple layers of blocking is a confused user base,
complaints of bad phones and bad service, most of which will turn out
to be misunderstanding by the populace, and probably even lawsuits by
ambitious lawyers when some important and/or live-saving call fails to
get through because of some call blocking scenario and the phone
company is accused of not adequately educating the public to its use
and considering the consequences. With the phone companies deep
pockets, it's too inviting a target for the sharks.


Jeff Sicherman
From: armhold@dimacs.rutgers.edu (George Armhold)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: It's Not a Bug, it's a Feature ...
Date: 3 Jan 93 23:08:10 GMT
Organization: DIMACS @ Rutgers University
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 7, Message 11 of 13

martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu writes:

> Hear's the fix.  Take a portable AM or FM radio and place it
> near the computer.  Tune around until you find a whine or buzz that
> suits your ears.  It should be possible to find a signal which varies
> when the computer is doing something and stays relatively monotonous
> when it is hung up or idling.

I've often been able to "hear" a computer transfer data.  While logged
in from home I like to listen to a particular FM radio station that
comes in very weakly.  When I transfer a screenfull of data (eg ^L in
emacs) I can hear a very noticable disturbance in the already weak FM
signal.  Sounds kind of like driving under a bridge w/ AM radio.  This
is with an (old) Amiga 1000 and ZyXEL 14.4 modem.  Strangely, I never
noticed this before with my old Avatex 1200 bps modem (same serial
cable.)  Hmm, I wonder if the baud rate is the variable here, or if
the ZyXEL is not up to spec ...

At RU, I worked with Sun 4/110s.  They were networked via thin-net
coax.  I have pretty sensitive ears, and could always hear a
high-pitched whine when lots of data went through the wire (opening an
xterm, for example.)  One thing that was neat about this is that
whenever someone logged in to the workstation I was working on I could
actually *hear* them log in.  Nobody believed me of course.  Whenever
I tried to show it to someone they thought I was nuts. :-)


George

		 Internet: armhold@dimacs.rutgers.edu
	       UUCP: {backbone}!rutgers!dimacs!armhold
		    BITNET: armhold@PISCES.BITNET