telecom@ucbvax.ARPA (03/12/85)
From: Jon Solomon (the Moderator) <Telecom-Request@BBNCCA>
TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Mar 85 23:51:16 EST Volume 4 : Issue 168
Today's Topics:
Phone Sharing
collect calls under equal access
0+ from rotary dial
Equal access pay phones
Re: Equal access in Boston restored
value of spectrum
AT&T wants FCC's okay fro private business lines
news from the SW: PUC approves private pay phones
news from the SW: Bellcore accepted into MCC
Equal Access problems in Boston allow free calls from MIT
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 85 09:24 EST
From: Steven Gutfreund <gutfreund%umass-cs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
To: telecom@rutgers.ARPA
Subject: Phone Sharing
This brings up one of my wish list 1+'s for the phone system, a way
of entering a prefix code on the phone to distinguish my calls from
my roomates (you have no idea what a pain it is to dis-entangle a bill
of multiple users all pro-rated for taxes, a mix of local and national
calls & some who want Reach-Out-America and some who don't). I don't
think equal access has any provision for this sort of phone sharing.
Indeed in general it should make no difference whose physical phone I am
at, there should be a transparent way of indicating this is a bill to
my phone.
Since we are still prior to equal access, there does seem to be a way
with multiple non-AT&T carriers to do this.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 85 08:36:40 est
From: ulysses!smb@Berkeley (Steven Bellovin)
To: telecom@bbncca.ARPA
Subject: collect calls under equal access
How will these work? Right now, only AT&T has operators, but that won't
necessarily be the case forever. Suppose you use (for example) an SBS
operator to place a collect call to me, and I only subscribe to AT&T.
Whose facilities will carry the call? Who will I pay?
--Steve Bellovin
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 85 12:44:10 EST
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@Brl-Vld.ARPA>
To: telecom@Brl-Vld.ARPA
Subject: 0+ from rotary dial
Some if not all exchanges will now give the special tone (the prompt
for the self-service credit-card entry) even if you make a 0+ call
from a rotary dial phone, in which case you have to wait a few seconds
for it to "time out" and send your call to local operator. This happened
to me recently from 302-656 and 302-731, both ESS.
------------------------------
From: ima!johnl@bbncca
Date: Fri Mar 8 21:29:00 1985
Subject: Equal access pay phones
To: bbncca!telecom
How are they supposed to work? Dialing 10XXX+number seems not to do what
I'd expect. Do outfits that have billing arrangements with local telcos
have the option of having telco collect their coins at pay phones, too?
At least around here the 950 numbers work pretty reliably without putting in
a dime.
A final note -- the new instruction cards on pay phones are amazingly
uninformative. They tell you how to place a call within the area code
(which is the LATA here) but if you want to make a long distance call, you
have to guess. Dialing 1+number or 0+number goes to AT&T, as always, but
you wouldn't know it from the instructions.
John Levine, ima!johnl or Levine@YALE.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 85 17:37:19 est
From: mar@mit-borax (Mark A. Rosenstein)
To: TELECOM@BBNCCA
Subject: Re: Equal access in Boston restored
More was wrong than just you not being able to get equal access working
on calls to New York. Normally restricted phones (centrex, dormatory,
and payphones) were allowed to make FREE calls to New York during this
time. The condition existed for more than a week before they
discovered that it was a software bug introduced when trying to convert
Cambridge to equal access. New England Telephone is assuming the cost
of the free calls made during that time.
-Mark
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 85 22:32:08 PST
From: "Theodore N. Vail" <vail@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
To: telecom@bbncca.arpa
Subject: value of spectrum
There has been discussion in Telecom in the past about the "free
resource", the frequency spectrum. The value of this spectrum is
brought home, with a vengeance, by an article in today's Los Angeles
Times Business Section which stated that the TV station KTLA, Channel
5, is for sale, and that the president (of Golden West Television,
its owner) expects that $500 million (yes 1/2 of one billion dollars)
would be a "fair estimate" of what the station may fetch! The station
is independent (not network); its physical facilities are old and worth
at most a few million dollars. The purchaser will obtain the station's
programming and existing advertising contracts, as well as its good
will. However it's clear that its most important asset is its FCC
license to use channel 5 in the nation's second largest television
market.
The 6 megahertz channel belongs to the United States Government and is
licensed at (essentially) no charge to the station.
One wonders how much the Government would collect if this, and all
other stations, had to bid to obtain its channel. One can't also help
wondering how viable the various long-distance services and "bypass"
services would be if they were required to pay a reasonable fee for
their use of the spectrum. Note that in any large metropolitan area the
microwave spectrum that these companies use is a very limited resource
(almost entirely used in lower Manhatten already). Standard economic
theory requires that limited resources be restricted by high prices and
this is done for "commodities" ranging from oil to diamonds. However,
Uncle Sam seems to be immune to the market.
If these companies were not subsidized by "free" use of the spectrum,
long distance bypass would be more expensive and perhaps the high
local rates and "long distance access" fees now being charged by the
operating companies (to make up for revenues lost to bypass) could be
substantially reduced.
ted
------------------------------
Date: Sat 9 Mar 85 07:11:32-CST
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: AT&T wants FCC's okay fro private business lines
To: telecom@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
AT&T wants FCC's okay for private business lines.
-------------------------------------------------
Washington (AP) - AT&T on Thursday proposed that it be allowed to offer private
telephone networks for business customers using the existing web of
long-distance telephone lines as a backbone.
If approved by the FCC, a corporation could have a system of dedicated lines to
its offices across the nation without the cost of having a seperate piece of
wire running from the main office to each of the outposts.
An employee in any office could dial other phones on the network as easily as
dialing a local call.
AT&T said it would still be cheaper to maintain private dedicated circuits on
heavily used lines. With private lines, customers pay a flat monthly rate no
matter how many calls are made.
AT&T said the service is designed for companies already heavily into private
lines and would allow expansion of a private network to enhance price
performance.
AT&T spokesman Jim Byrnes said there would be overall savings for a customeer,
although there might not be a lower price on each individual phone call.
If the FCC approves, the service will be offered this year, AT&T said.
-------
------------------------------
Date: Sat 9 Mar 85 16:35:38-CST
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: news from the SW: PUC approves private pay phones
To: telecom@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
[ from the Austin American Statesman - March 8, 85 ]
PAY PHONES MAY BE PRIVATE
The PUC Thursday approved privately owned pay telephones to be connected
to Southwestern Bell Telephone's network. Owners of the private phones will
be able to charge only 25 cents or less from calls made from the privately
owned pay telephones. The PUC order goes into effect within 20 days.
[ I assume, these phones have no capability for long-distance calls, other
than by dialing a local number for MCI, Sprint, etc. -- Werner ]
-------
------------------------------
Date: Sat 9 Mar 85 16:37:06-CST
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: news from the SW: Bellcore accepted into MCC
To: telecom@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
[ from the Austin American Statesman - March 8, 85 ]
BELL COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH (BELLCORE) has been accepted as the 21st member of
the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC). Bellcore,
headquartered in Livingston, NJ, is the research arm for Southwestern Bell
and six other regional holding companies split off from AT&T in last year's
divestiture.
-------
------------------------------
Date: Fri 8 Mar 85 14:17:38-EST
From: Ralph W. Hyre Jr. <RALPHW@MIT-XX.ARPA>
Subject: Equal Access problems in Boston allow free calls from MIT
To: telecom-request@BBNCCA.ARPA
The software problem that made it difficult to make long distance calls to New
York from regular phone also made it easy to get free phone calls to New York
on MIT's internal dormline phone system. Our student paper reported
that this condition existed from Saturday afternoon and 3pm Wednesday.
Normally, attempts at direct-dialed long distance calls or other toll calls
are blocked from dormline, since New England Telephone has no way of charging
for the calls. Apparently the equal access bug removed this block.
3 years ago, it was possible to simply get the operator to complete the call,
just by saying "I'm having some sort of trouble getting through", but then
they discovered abut dormline's pay-phone like status and stopped doing it.)
How is New England telephone going to straighten the billing out? They said
they would eat the cost of the free MIT-New York calls, but how will they
correct for the overcharging?
- Ralph
-------
------------------------------
End of TELECOM Digest
******************************