SPGDCM@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP (04/10/87)
MSG:FROM: SPGDCM --UCBCMSA TO: NETWORK --NETWORK 04/09/87 22:49:33 To: NETWORK --NETWORK Network Address From: Doug Mosher <SPGDCM at UCBCMSA> Title: MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823 Office: Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Subject: ringer equiv's; orlando ESS features; fcc reg's To: Telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu Can anyone explain why REN's (Ringer Equivalent No's, which you add up to see if you are over, for example, 5, and risk getting unreliable ringing) come in "A" and "B" flavors? On my many instruments I see old-fashioned phones are usually 1.0A, and flimsy electronic jobs are 0.5B or 1.5B. I have dreamed up something about whether it uses the real AC to drive a bell (A?) or runs an electronic tweeter (B?). Do you add them all together anyway, and why do they bother telling you which flavor? In issues of telecom digest in past years (perhaps 2-3 years ago) I read a lot about the orlando telco offering advanced ess features. They included, roughly, the following: You could get a service to tell you the number calling; you could get selective ringing (never described to my satisfaction; can you both INCLUDE and EXCLUDE? can you give partial pattern profiles? Could you dream of GREP descriptors?); you could, as a caller, request anonymity, in which case the receiver would see something like "private" for the calling no. The privilege of getting the caller's no. was special somehow (available only to, say, businesses or computer centers, perhaps, who would love it for the security tracing aspect). But selective ringing was available to all. And you had "call the last b*tard back" which did that even if they were secret. Supposedly for returning calls you missed, barely, while running in the door. The thing was layered rather marvelously. For example, you could with the proper arrangements "freeze and report" a calling no. to the telco, without its being disclosed to you, to enable the grabbing of obscene callers while preserving others' privacy. This reporting feature reported all including those who had specified privacy. My impression, which needs confirmation by others, is that many exchanges routinely forward the calling no. on local and long-dist trunks; but I bet the local exchanges which could deal with it, filter it off for non-buyers before you would have a chance to see it. You gotta be "wired" (coded) for it. (Those in the know please confirm). As for pac bell san francisco, years ago they did record your equipment diligently in their files. I tried to register a rad shack phone and they couldn't find it in their master book; the book listed "all" fcc phones, was available for viewing in local phone offices. Neither me nor telco could figure out what to do about my phone which said it was registered but was not in their book; I felt squeezed unfairly at the time. Later discovered somehow that the Rad Shack phone was somehow not authorized in Calif. and that's why it wasn't in the telco book. But they were not stopped from selling it. Nowadays if you try to report your stuff they don't seem to know how to handle that request. Please note that many phones being marketed, even recently invented ones, have a long printed speil explaining your need to call the local telco. Those instructions offer their own reason: "to allow the tel co to inform you if they are going to make any changes that will affect your service. They are required to so notify you...etc.". On that basis, I "registered" a representative set of example instruments so I'd get informed of almost anything. Never heard a word. I have since concluded that telcos can hardly maintain such databases these days, and that a mutual solution is possible. First of all, they can hardly make changes that deviate way outside some sort of industry range or parameter standards. Second of all, should they ever need to make radical changes, they must have concluded by now that they'd just have to inform every subscriber in the mass bills, so why bother with elaborate sublists of equipt. types and costly partial notification, which wouldn't even reach all those affected. Supposedly in the year 2012 or 2045 they'll finally kill rotary, for example. So just tell everyone, 6 times over 2-3 whole years. Thanks, Doug &ringer equiv's; orlando ESS features; fcc reg's