HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Date: 18 Aug 1992 10:21 MST  
From: jms@misvax.mis.arizona.edu
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Who Administers the 800 Numberspace?
Reply-To: jms@arizona.edu
Organization: University of Arizona MIS Department
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 643, Message 11 of 13

In article <telecom12.634.10@eecs.nwu.edu>, jpk@Ingres.COM writes:

> You can get an 800 number from MCI, Sprint, others.  Who administers
> the numberspace?  

> [Moderator's Note: Bellcore allocates the space. The prefix, or first
> three digits following the area code detirmine the carrier. 

Not true starting either in November/December or early Spring, 1993.
As part of the Justice Department involvement in the phone
company(ies), this will be phased out in favor of a seven-digit
800-number database.  The argument, which has some merit, is that if
you have 1-800-HOLIDAY, this is something of value, and you shouldn't
be kept from changing LD carrier just because AT&T (for example) owns
the 800-HOL exchange.

Naturally, there is substantial opposition to this from a variety of
interested parties, including parts of the phone company who don't
want to do seven-digit database lookup for every 800-number call (can
you say "increased rates?"  I knew you could.) and some of the large
businesses who don't want to see call set-up times increase during the
high volume Christmas season.

Nevertheless, if it doesn't happen this winter, it'll happen shortly
thereafter.  Not just a mediocre idea, it's the law.


Joel M Snyder, 1103 E Spring Street, Tucson, AZ, 85719 
Phone: 602.882.4094 (voice) .4095 (FAX) .4093 (data)
BITNET: jms@Arizona  Internet: jms@arizona.edu  SPAN: 47541::telcom::jms
From: sbrack@jupiter.cse.UTOLEDO.edu (Steven S. Brack)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Switching Systems
Date: 16 Aug 92 03:21:42 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 633, Message 2 of 10

I have, over the year I've read the Digest, become fairly telecom
literate.  Recently, people have talked about a type of swiotch called
a "panel" switch.  Could someone tell me what panel is, and how it
differs from crossbar or SxS switches?


Steve Brack
Date: 12 Aug 1992 00:28:35 -0500
From: mar6019@tamsun.tamu.edu (Marc Randolph)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Answering Machine Ringbacks
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 624, Message 4 of 12

In article <telecom12.567.4@eecs.nwu.edu> glowacki@calshp.cals.wisc.edu writes:

> Two stories came to me tonight about answering machines and strange
> hehavior on the network. Both involved puzzling ringing either on
[...First story deleted]

> The second story involves a Centrex system at the university. My
> friend from the airport reported that in his office, he or his office
> mate would call someone and get their answering machine. If they hung
> up before the OGM was finished, the phone would ring soon to give them
> the answering machine and the last of the outgoing message. He offered
> this as a clue to the last mystery. It seemed to me to be unrelated,
> but it might be.

> I think that's plausible, but I want to know what the readers of
> TELECOM Digest think about this mystery. What could or should explain
> the things we've observed?

   I've seen this type of thing before.  I think it is caused by call
waiting.  Here on campus, I've called an answering machine before, and
then hung up.  The phone rings and the answering machine is still on
the other end.  I think I narrowed it down to the way that I hung up
the phone.  If I flashed hook (my hook is in the handset) and then
hung up the phone, it would call me back.  Otherwise it hung up just
fine.  Flashing the hook before hanging it up makes the switch think
I'm placing the answer machine on hold and making a second call.

   Anybody else have weird ringing stories?
Date: 15 Aug 92 19:09:33 GMT
From: gs26@prism.gatech.edu (Glenn R. Stone)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Solicitation Slime
Reply-To: glenns@eas.gatech.edu
Organization: The Group W Bench
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 631, Message 1 of 13

In <telecom12.621.5@eecs.nwu.edu> john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
writes concerning obnoxious {Chronicle} <unprintable>, and
telemarketers in general:

> Needless to say, I have notified the {Chronicle} concerning this. And I
> have now been convinced that telemarketing is a practice that needs to
> be eliminated -- by whatever means.

Sue'em for harrassment.  I have CLID (thank you, Georgia; no per-call
block, but at least we got it), Call*Block, Call*Trace, and
Call*Return ... anyone who thinks he can ring my line twice without
permission and not catch legal hell for it is sorely mistaken.
Granted, John suffers from a benighted local telco and can't use the
electronic remedies, but after about the third one-ringer, I would
have been on the phone to telco's Annoyance Center to have a tap and
counter put on the line ...

I'm of the firm opinion that ringing my phone line is like knocking on
my door, and the complex I live in is posted "No Solicitation" ...
so's my OGM, which plays to anything I don't recognize CLID-wise ...
'course, after a move and a switch to a dead non-pub number, I've had
exactly one wrong number in a month ... I used to get two or three a
week.

Silence is golden.

Glenn R. Stone (glenns@eas.gatech.edu)
From: neumann@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Christof A. Neumann)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Brief Summary of Service From German Telekom
Date: 15 Aug 92 08:56:18 GMT
Organization: Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 633, Message 6 of 10

In article <telecom12.604.1@eecs.nwu.edu> Christopher Lott AGSE
<lott@informatik.uni-kl.de> writes:

> There doesn't seem to be an operator here!  I had trouble calling 
> Koblenz one day (bad connection) and wanted help dialing, but there
> did not seem to be any way of getting help.  I even called the
> damage-report people and they weren't too helpful.

If you want to have assistance in placing a call you may call the
"Fernamt": 010 (national) or 0010 (international).


Christof A. Neumann   Munich University of Technology
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 09:56:16 -0600
From: rickie@trickie.uucp (Richard Nash)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Solve Three Problems (was Telecom Fraud)
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 624, Message 8 of 12

> In article <telecom12.606.2@eecs.nwu.edu> phaedrus@cs.washington.edu
> (Mark Phaedrus) writes:

>  Secondly, I had a question about how local phone company cards are
> supposed to work around the country. I have a Pacific Bell calling
> card, and while traveling last week I couldn't find a phone that would
> accept the card by simply using the mag stripe reader. The phones,
> owned by AT&T and Illinois Bell, would tell me that the card was not
> valid, but worked fine if I manually punched in the digits. Am I wrong
> in assuming that the stripe reader should have worked? It seemed to
> defeat the whole purpose of the only possibly secure way of using the
> card.

The mag stripe reader uses a different method of validating the card
number than the manual punch-in method.  In one system, the mag-stripe
phone will automatically place a call to a calling card database
validation centre from where your call is then completed (if card
validates ok).  As this system is telco dependant, surprisingly, it
may not have access to the almost completely North-American wide, SS7
accessed, telco interworking Calling Card Service! Therefore, this may
explain why your card did not work.  The mag stripe system does not
know about your card!


Richard Nash      Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8
UUCP:          trickie!rickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1992 04:17:10 GMT
From: jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Telecom Observations From my Trip to England
Organization: The World
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 622, Message 3 of 4

In article <telecom12.615.1@eecs.nwu.edu> weave@bach.udel.edu (Ken
Weaverling) writes:

> I found out later that you can enable the touch-tone pad on BT pay
> phones after call completion by pressing the * button. I tried this at
> the airport while I was waiting for my return flight, and it worked!
> However, the tones were too short to grab the attention of my
> answering machine.  This "feature" is not documented on any of the pay
> phones I used.

It seems to be a sort of "feature" even on phones here. My Panasonic
KX T3155 speakerphone has a slide switch between pulse and DTMF mode.
With the switch in pulse mode, pressing the * key changes over into
DTMF mode. I'm not sure if the * itself is transmitted or not.


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: Tue, 18 Aug 92 01:13:16 MST
From: ddodell@stjhmc.fidonet.org (David Dodell)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Looking For Bell Labs Writeup on Cellular
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 641, Message 12 of 13

Last year, someone sent me email telling me about the Bell Lab
monograph that explained the workings of cellular.  I actually think
it was a publication in the format of a book about 150 pages long.

I was also given the number of Bell Labs to order this monograph.

If anyone is familiar with this, I would like to order a copy again
and would appreciate the help in tracking this down.


David

Internet: ddodell@stjhmc.fidonet.org    FAX: +1 (602) 451-1165
Bitnet: ATW1H @ ASUACAD                     FidoNet=> 1:114/15
           Amateur Packet ax25: wb7tpy@wb7tpy.az.usa.na
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 15:07:30 GMT
From: "eddf12::roberts"@frais.enet.dec.com (Nigel Roberts)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Bryan King's Address
Organization: IC Software AG (on contract at DEC)
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 645, Message 11 of 17

> From: bxbmts::bxbmts::mrgate::bxb::msbcs::am_msbcs::king@msbcs.enet.dec.com
> Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 09:51:36 EDT
> Subject: Peculiar Event During Phone Call

> [Moderator's Note: I hope responses to Mr. King get through okay. The
> address on his email is one of the strangest I have ever seen.   PAT]

This sort of address may be generated when a user on an ALL-IN-1 or
other Message Router based mail system sends mail out to a
VMSmail-style Internet address.

You may be able to reply to it, by putting double-quotes around everything
to the left of the @-sign,; e.g.

 "bxbmts::bxbmts::mrgate::bxb::msbcs::am_msbcs::king"@msbcs.enet.dec.com

This may or may not work, depending on the vagaries of various mailers
between you and him.

Looking closer at the address, it looks like Bryan King is on node
MSBCS at the Boxboro (BXB) MTS site.

You should be able to reach him by using either of the following
more 'normal'-looking Internet addresses:

	Bryan.King@bxb.mts.dec.com
	king@msbcs.enet.dec.com


Hope this is of use,

Nigel Roberts	   | roberts@frais.enet.dec.com      | Tel. +44 206 396610 
European Engineer  | P O Box 49,Manningtree,CO11 2SZ |  &   +49 6103 383 489 
G4IJF		   | "Life is but a tale . . . "     | FAX  +44 206 393148
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 00:23:39 PDT
From: system@coldbox.cojones.com (Bryan Lockwood)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Solicitation Slime
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 631, Message 3 of 13

During my dark and penniless college days (dark because my college was
in Fairbanks, Alaska, where the sun stays down for an inordinate
amount of time each winter day), I accepted a job as a telemarketer,
selling tickets to benefit concerts arranged by some charitable
organization. While my tuition and room were prepaid, I still had to
work to eat. Sometimes I didn't eat much.

The telemarketing operation probably reaped about 70% of the the
concert proceeds, BTW.

Now the operation I worked at was pretty simple. You got to work, were
issued a page torn from the phonebook, the script, and an ashtray. You
sat down at a desk and began making phone calls. The script was sacred
and NOT to be deviated from. And we were paid to work the dinner hours
(this always annoyed me).

However, I soon tired of reading the same script, over and over, for
four hours each night. I decided that the folks at the other end of
the phone were just as tired of hearing such an obviously prepared
spiel. So I began deviating from the script. Soon I began to enjoy the
highest sales rate in the room.

My formula? Simple. When Mr. or Ms. Phoneperson answered the phone, I
would simply tell them that I was about to try and sell them
something, then tell them that they could either continue listening or
hang up now. Simple courtesy, and it worked very well indeed. I
usually doubled the next-highest sales rate in the room.

Another observation: many of the people I called seemed lonely and
eager to talk. So I stayed often stayed on the line a bit longer than
I should have.  I get the impression that many people bought tickets
to the show as a way of repaying me for chatting with them for awhile.

I soon moved to commission sales ... at which point I quit and got an
honest job as a freelance snow relocation expert (translation: have
shovel, will work).  While telemarketing did put food in my belly, I
am still of the opinion that it was the least honorable job I have
ever had (and I've also been a trash collector and sewage treatment
plant operator)!


Author: Bryan Lockwood (system@coldbox.cojones.com)
Coldbox=  Usenet: system@coldbox.cojones.com | WWIVnet: system#coldbox@501
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 01:34:57 GMT
From: rees@dabo.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Call Return vs. Call Forward
Reply-To: Jim.Rees@umich.edu
Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 634, Message 2 of 12

How does Call Return interact with Call Forwarding?  If I forward my
phone to an innocent third party, then make a nuisance call, and the
victim of the nuisance call does a Call Return, will the victim ring
me or the innocent third party?
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 20:55:19 GMT
From: mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us (Nick Sayer)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Our Moderator and Monopolies
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 650, Message 8 of 10

Our Moderator Notes:

> I've no complaints about it at all. I have NOTHING against
> competition. But I have NOTHING against legal, lawfully maintained
> monopolies either.

Once again, we have the perpetual warfare between theory and practice.
In theory, the RBOCs should all be setting rates that allow a
reasonable return, should be kept from cross-subsidizing competing and
regulated subdivisions, should provide services that people want ...
everything should be sweetness and light and everyone can live happily
ever after.

It doesn't happen.

Government has proved time, and time, and time, and time again that it
cannot hope to be as clever at regulating RBOCs as the RBOCs are at
evading regulation, bribing regulatory officials and ripping off the
public. The answer is not government.  The answer is free markets.


Nick Sayer <mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us>   N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NA       
37 19 49 N / 121 57 36 W      +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'


[Moderator's Note: By 'legal, lawfully maintained monopolies', I did
NOT mean monopolies started by or protected by the government. I meant
those monopolies which got that way through the hard work, effort and
brains of the company founder, and which continue to remain a monopoly
despite *completely obeying the law*. In other words, I supported AT&T
intact before the breakup and Standard Oil before it was divested at
the turn of the century. I do not support gangsters who maintain a
'monopoly' by force, threats and violence.  I agree, the free market
should be the only consideration.  PAT]
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 03:53:13 GMT
From: jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Yet Another Reason to Hate MCI F&F
Organization: Bradley University
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 636, Message 5 of 9

I know I can be hard to catch on the telephone.  I'm in and out of my office
a lot at work, and I don't spent a lot of waking hours at home.  However,
unanswered calls at work go to a voice mail system, and I have an answering
machine at home.  Both are smart enough to discard short, empty messages, even 
if the caller does hang on for a few seconds after the beep.  Both call my
pager when they think they really have a message for me.

For a couple of weeks recently, I got lots of "messages", both at home
and at work, which consisted of nothing but around 15 seconds of
office background noise.  I try to check my messages promptly and it
was getting really annoying to be paged so frequently for these
non-messages.  Then, early last week, I got a call at work from MCI.
It seems that the woman I'm dating (who lives in a different LATA) had
given MCI my home and work telephone numbers when adding me to her
Friends and Family list.  I tried talking to the MCI person for a
while, but it was a waste of time.  She didn't understand why I didn't
consider it fair or meaningful to compare MCI's pre-paid plan to
AT&T's normal rates.  She tried to convince me that MCI's calling card
would soon be more convenient because AT&T was about to completely
discontinue 0+ dialing and start forcing their customers to use some
800 number.  When I refused to believe this, she got a supervisor who
assured me of the same thing.

It has since occurred to me that level of background noise when
talking to her was about the same as in these annoying "messages", and
that the empty messages stopped right after she caught me in the
office.  Perhaps this is a coincidence, but I doubt it.


Jeff Hibbard, Bradley University, Peoria IL


[Moderator's Note: It's too bad you did not get the supervisor's name,
office address and telephone number along with a tape recording of her
claiming that AT&T was going to discontinue zero-plus. Then you could
have made copies of the tape and sent it to a few departments at AT&T
including Security, Public Relations, Legal, and maybe the Chairman.
They'd have enjoyed listening to the tape just as much as you did
preparing it for them!  :) PAT]
From: mc/G=James/S=Arconati/OU=0105390@mhs.attmail.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Pounding on an Octothorp
Date: 17 Aug 92 14:44:56 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 640, Message 7 of 8

In Telecomm Digest V12 #632, Spencer talks about the pronounciation of
the # symbol used on DTMF pads.
 
When I worked for Mother, some 'official' publications said that it
was called an "octothorp."
 
Seems to me that "pound sign" is readily understood by most North
Americans.
 

[Moderator's Note: We covered this in excruciating detail in a special
edition of the TELECOM Digest back in 1989. "Octothorpe" (with an \e\
on the end) seems to be the designated name.  In another message in
this issue, a reader asks if pounding off at the end of certain
dialing sequences is a normal, acceptable thing to do.  PAT]
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 9:43:35 CDT
From: Will Martin <wmartin@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Mag-Stripe Reader Phones
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 641, Message 10 of 13

I noticed a magstripe-reader SW Bell phone on a St. Louis city bus the
other day -- they have a few of these on some of the special
Greyhound-bus-like busses used for highway-travel express service and
which are used during non-rush hours for a shuttle service between
downtown and a fancy new shooping mall -- The Galleria -- in a suburb.

It charged a $1 per/call fee plus 50 cents per minute. It said it
would accept MC, Visa, American Express, Diners Club, or a telco
calling card.  I didn't have any need to use it, so I didn't try it,
but it got me to wondering.  I have an AT&T Universal Card, which I
use instead of a "Calling Card" in order to get the 10% discount on
calls, when I call LD while away from home.  I wondered what the phone
would read if I swiped my AT&T Univeral Card thru it -- the regular MC
number, and bill it as an MC charge, or the AT&T calling card number,
and bill it on the separate phone-bill portion of my Universal Card
bill with the 10% discount?

I just called the Universal Card people, asked them, and gathered that
it would read it as an ordinary MC card and bill it as a regular MC
charge. So it wouldn't be wise to use it in this circumstance. But how
would I get that phone to take the calling card number imprinted on my
Universal Card? It is set up to just read the number off the
swiped-through card, not to take it from the keypad (unless it *will*
take keypad input and I am misinterpreting the instructions and
appearance). But since it isn't an AT&T phone, but SW Bell instead,
would that Universal Card number be invalid to the SW Bell database?

Will AT&T issue me an AT&T Calling Card with the Universal Card
calling-card number imprinted on it and encoded in the magstripe, so
that I can use the magstripe reader phones and still get the benefit
of the 10% discount on Universal Card phone calls? (I already had one
with my home phone number on it, as opposed to the artificial
Universal Card number.) Or can AT&T magstripe phones read that
particular special calling card number off the Universal Card
magstripe, even though other brands of phones will see only the MC
card number?


Regards, 

Will    wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil OR wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 06:45:07 GMT
From: hhallika@zeus.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: How to Trigger a Pager From a Modem
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 632, Message 6 of 13

	I remember seeing an ad for a TSR program for PCs for driving
pagers.  It was called Pop Page.  It costs $19.95 from:

Statistical Control Systems
3430 27th Parkway
Sarasota, FL 34235
+1 813 954 8816


Harold Hallikainen              ap621@Cleveland.Freenet.edu
Hallikainen & Friends, Inc.     hhallika@pan.calpoly.edu
141 Suburban Road, Bldg E4      phone 805 541 0200 fax 544 6715
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-7590  telex 4932775 HFI UI