Telecom-Request%mit-mc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@mit-mc) (02/28/84)
TELECOM Digest Tuesday, 28 Feb 1984 Volume 4 : Issue 28
Today's Topics:
Re: TELECOM Digest V4 #27
More Toll Station strangeness
Re: More Toll Station strangeness
TELECOM Digest V4 #27
RFI fix, and bugs???
SWB - PUC reverses itself and agrees with Mattox
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 Feb 1984 2000-PST
From: Kelley <BOAN@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V4 #27
RE: Dave Ofsevit's comments in the Friday edition
Well yes, there are charges associated with ATT and the OCC's
accessing the BOC local loops, the enfila (or some such acronym)
charges. The point is that the OCC's pay a lower charge than ATT Long
Lines since the OCC's don't have "equal access", that is, most
everyone still has to dial 24 numbers to use an OCC long line and 10
for ATT. The reasoning is that if the OCC's pay the same charge as
ATT, they'll charge the same as ATT for their service, but their
service won't be "equal" to ATT and people won't use them. Ergo, they
fold. Would you pay the same rate for a long distance call on Sprint
if they only thing it offered was an additional 14 numbers to dial to
connect the call? Not me. Further, the quality of the OCC's service
leaves something to be desired.
As to ATT "wanting" to be divested, they sure as heck spent a
lot of money fighting against something they "wanted". I think they
finally woke up to the fact they were being handed a golden
opportunity to streamline the company, but not until long into the
fight.
As to rates in general, wait until our various phone companies
start implementing ISDN if you want to see some rate hikes.
Somebody's got to pay for the digital revolution, and I'm guessing I
know who it will be.
------------------------------
Date: 24 Feb 84 21:22:32 PST (Friday)
Subject: More Toll Station strangeness
From: Bruce Hamilton <Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA>
Reply-to: Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Maybe John Covert can field this:
Deep Springs College, about 40 miles east of Bishop, CA, near the
Nevada line, served by Continental Telephone, for years could only be
called by asking the operator for "Deep Springs #2", a Toll Station
reached via the Bishop operator. If you wanted to be fancy you could
also give her the V&H numbers (887 225) and TSPS routing (619+058+181)
so she didn't have to get them from some sort of routing operator.
About six months ago, Continental eliminated human operators in Bishop
and the party line, and so now you reached Deep Springs #2 via the
Victorville operator, a couple of hundred miles away, and didn't have
to listen for the distinctive one-long-three-shorts ring if you were
at Deep Springs, or turn a crank to get the operator.
Side note: once (only) when I tried to call, the operator said
something about needing four more digits (0002) after the numbers, and
about having to go through "inward routing". What does that mean?
Now here's the strange part: the college recently discovered through
various back-door sources (such as asking wrong numbers, "what number
did you dial?"), that they now have a direct dial number! ((619)
872-2000) Why would the phone company NOT tell somebody they could be
direct-dialed, and make people go through the operator? (Aside from
the fact that the direct-dial number is 10c from a pay-phone in
Bishop, and 50c if you go through the operator.)
Is Continental just weird, or are there other places like this? In
all fairness though, Continental probably spends at least $10K/ year
maintaining 20 or 30 miles of lines, for which Deep Springs pays all
of about $10/ month. The wonders of regulated utilities...
Vaguely related question: why do "Zenith" and "Enterprise" numbers
still exist? Seems like 911, 800- etc. ought to be able to take their
places.
--Bruce
------------------------------
Date: 25 Feb 1984 0133-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
UUCP-Address: "{ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!rhea!castor!covert"
Subject: Re: More Toll Station strangeness
Very simple.
First -- the Deep Springs 2 toll station is at V&H 8491/7946. The 887
225 is the Mark Other Place. (It's like an NPA NXX for the accounting
system, but unlike towns (like formerly Bryant Pond, Shoup Idaho, and
the one non- dialable exchange in Washington State -- actually dial
within the exchange, but not dialable from the network) it uses a
separate billing only NPA since there are too many of them).
619+054+181 is the Toll Completing route the operator used to dial to
connect with an operator who had a jack to that circuit. It's sort of
like Inward (usually handled at the same position, but 181 is a
"different" service).
What they've done is something I've long thought should be done to
most toll stations. However, the rate point of that location is the
V&H, which is 8500/8017 for 619 872 (Bishop). A distance of about 24
miles.
New rates would have to be filed.
Now, for someone where that 24 miles didn't change the rates, it
wouldn't matter how they called. For someone where it did matter, the
call would have to be handled differently.
They could declare the toll station to be in the Bishop calling area.
The PUC might approve it -- but there might be other undesirable side
effects, like providing more lines to that area.
Giving the number to people and telling them they can dial it from
point X, but that they have to go through the operator to get a toll
ticket written from point Y (like 40 miles the other side of Bishop)
is not really workable.
Assigning a unique NXX is the only other solution. And that can also
be costly. There are precedents -- Naushon Island, Massachusetts is a
special NXX in the Falmouth exchange. The lines run across the
channel at Wood's Hole. Calls within the same No. 5 XBar are toll --
in this case because each of the cross-channel trunks is a toll trunk.
In fact every subscriber has his own toll circuit to his dial tone.
In fact, the customer's of Naushon Island Phone Company have long been
in a situation much more drastic than for the rest of the people
within 617 now -- with New England Telephone ONLY PROVIDING DIAL TONE.
Not even the lines, poles and Network Interfaces.
By the way the place in Washington mentioned earlier is New Halem. It
can actually be dialed (direct to station) by any operator on the
network, but only nearby Inward knows the "secret code." Their NXX
for billing is 206 397.
The reason they are non-dialable is PROBABLY (I may be wrong) because
of an old policy that if you couldn't dial the 7 digit number from
WITHIN the exchange, no seven digit number could be published, and
thus you couldn't go on the network.
>From inside ONLY 4 digits works; seven doesn't. Many of you may
remember places where less than all 7 digits COULD be dialed. But if
the place was dialable from outside, it had to be possible (even if
you were told not to) to dial the call with 7 digits.
All this from a network standards organization, where truth is
stranger than fiction.
------------------------------
Date: 25 February 1984 16:35-EST
From: "Marvin A. Sirbu, Jr." <SIRBU @ MIT-MC>
Subject: TELECOM Digest V4 #27
The reason the local operating companies can't just charge the long
distance comapnies a lot of mony for accessing the local loop is that
the local loop can be bypassed.
For example, if New England Telephone raises its rates to AT&T for
connecting to the local network, AT&T will have to raise its long
distance charges. However, If I run a microwave link directly to AT&T
then I can make long distance calls without any payoff to NET.
There are other alternatives besides microwave: cable TV, new fiber
optic links, etc. So raising the charge to the long distance
companies doesn't work.
------------------------------
Date: 25 Feb 84 18:05:08 EST
From: Hobbit <AWalker@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: RFI fix, and bugs???
And while you're at it, bunky, how about getting rid of that radio
station that keeps playing in your phone? While trying to rid myself
of incoming garbage on my Vadic 3405 [yes, that's one of the old ugly
green ones!], I came up with the following:
------------*------------- Tip
|
= .001 uF
|
*------------- to AC Ground
|
= .001 uF
|
------------*------------- Ring
This effectively reduces or eliminates RFI in modems or phones. I now
live near the transmitter of a completely useless AM station, and it
walks all over the lines in the area. We all know that anything
having to do with phone lines and AC ground creates problems, but if
you use two of them and balance the pair, you shouldn't get any hum
[and the .001's are too small to transmit that anyway].
While on technical subjects, re: Yugoslav phones. As soon as I saw
that message, I realized why in Gorky Park, they would always cock the
dial of the office phone and stick a pencil in the finger hole before
talking about something private! **However**: The way U.S. phones
are wired, this is pretty much impossible. All the handset parts are
electrically removed from the line when the thing is hung up. Unless
you shout loud enough to vibrate the ringer coil [an unlikely
prospect] you can rest assured that when your phone is on the hook, no
one can hear ambient sound through the line.
_H*
------------------------------
Date: Mon 27 Feb 84 02:54:09-CST
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: SWB - PUC reverses itself and agrees with Mattox
UTILITY PANEL BARS BELL RATE INCREASE
=====================================
( Austin American Statesman, Feb 24, 84 )
SWB was barred by the PUC Thursday from giving
itself an immediate $280 million rate increase that
would have added $2.75 to monthly residential bills.
The commission, conceding its decision was just a
stop on the way to the courthouse, voted 3-0 to
concur with Attorney General Jim Mattox's opinion
that the increase would have been illegal.
After the decision, SWB lawyer Jon Dee Lawrence said
he was headed for the courthouse to find a judge.
The company hopes to get its case heard within a few
days.
Dale Johnson, a Bell representative, said the
utility panel decision will cost the company more
than $700,000 a day.
The battle is over bonded rates - the temporary,
refundable rates that utilities are allowed to
charge while their rate increase requests are
pending. Bell has a $1.3 billion case pending at
the commission.
When Bell first filed the rate case in June, state
law said companies could collect bonded rates 125
days after filing. But the 1983 Legislature, in a
law effective Sept 1, extended the period to 185 days.
Now the courts must decide which law applies to the
Bell case. Although the rate case was filed in
June, the request was not completed until Oct 19.
That is the date used by the commission as the start
for counting the days.
....
Jim Boyle, counsel for the utility panel, went to
court Wednesday after the commission initially
approved the bonded rates. ....
John Cunningham, the acting general counsel for the
commission, said Mattox's opinion should be
followed, wether it is right or wrong.
"It's been our practice to follow the att. gen.'s
opinion relating to the PUC Regulatory Act," he
said. "I don't particularly agree with the opinion
in this case."
Commission Chairman Alan Erwin said Cunningham was
right about sticking with the att. gen.'s opinion.
"There's no doubt this issue will end up in court,"
he said. "He who goes to court has the burden of
proof. I think it's appropriate that the utility
have the burden of proof.
------------------------------
End of TELECOM Digest
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