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