Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) (01/26/84)
TELECOM Digest Thursday, 26 Jan 1984 Volume 4 : Issue 13
Today's Topics:
MCI/Sprint/etc. ILLEGAL? (and other topics)
Billing agents
connection quality with SBS
PTC'84 highlights.
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Date: Tue, 24-Jan-84 02:50:47-PST
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX>
Subject: MCI/Sprint/etc. ILLEGAL? (and other topics)
Greetings. I had an interesting conversation yesterday afternoon with
my California PUC contact. Among other things, he pretty well cleared
up my questions regarding directory assistance -- at least for now.
It appears that since the AT&T proposal only covers INTERstate DA, and
no tariffs have been proposed for INTRAstate (other than local) DA
charges in California, the result is that out-of-area-code but still
within Calif. DA calls would remain "free" -- at least for now. He
also assumes that if such charging *were* proposed, the 213/818 area
codes would be under a special arrangement.
In the course of our conversation, we got into a long discussion about
Central Services Organization (CSO) and the role the DoD played in
bringing it about by calling into play "national security"
considerations. CSO is actually very important -- but virtually
nobody outside of the industry (or this digest?) has ever heard of
them, nor is it clear if CSO will ever become a household word.
---
A reader of this digest made some comments about "half-duplex"
telephone conversations. The effect is caused by the use of blocking
echo-suppressors on long-haul toll circuits. These devices are
usually required to prevent unacceptable echo. If you've ever
experienced a circuit where they weren't working properly, you already
know how important they really are! There are new types of
suppressors that have been developed which largely eliminate the need
to block even on very long-haul circuits, but it'll be some time
before they are in general use.
I might add that you always have the capability of a true full-duplex
circuit during your call -- as is demonstrated by the fact that modems
work after sending their 2225 Hz. echo-suppressor disabling tone (and
maintaining energy in the specified frequency bands). Since most
modems don't care much about echo (we hope!), this sort of
functionality works out very well.
---
Flash: Watching C-SPAN just now, I heard U.S. Senator John Melcher
(D-Montana) say that given the way the U.S. telephone system seems to
be progressing since the FCC/Court decisions regarding AT&T, "we may
have to put it back together again". That's as close a quote as I can
remember. I don't offer a comment at this time.
---
By now you're all wondering about my banner headline regarding
possible legal problems for MCI/Sprint, etc. I've held that off to
the last for best effect. During the conversation with the PUC that I
mentioned earlier, my contact mentioned that Pacific Bell/AT&T might
well get PUC approval for their "intrastate call blocking devices"
fairly soon. I hadn't heard about such devices and asked for a full
explanation.
Fascinating. According to him, all carriers other than AT&T currently
providing INTRAstate phone service in California are operating
ILLEGALLY, period. It seems that they have never filed tariffs with
the PUC for such services, even though the procedures for doing so
have been in place for some time. The result is that
AT&T/Pacific*Bell are hopping mad, and have requested permission to
install devices on the access lines to these services which would
detect and block intrastate calls. Any attempts by these companies to
evade such devices would be evidence of attempted fraud, apparently.
Frankly, this is the first I had heard of this, but it is apparently
well along and is seemingly pretty close to getting approval.
I thought you might be amused.
--Lauren--
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Date: 24-Jan-1984 0850
From: (John Covert) <decwrl!rhea!castor!covert@su-shasta>
Subject: Billing agents
JSol asks "what of the future, when the LOC's no longer act as billing
agents for AT&T?"
Why should they ever stop? It's profitable for both parties; AT&T
doesn't have to spend the postage to send out the bills; the local
operating company makes money for itself by doing a little bit of
extra data processing to include the charges on the bill.
The operating companies have had billing arrangements with Western
Union forever. Some mechanism for transfer of the information between
operating companies for the calls made intra LATA in other companies
has to exist; this will flow through the Central Services Organization
(I would presume).
The CSO needs to also handle the flow of billing to and from the
independent companies for billing. AT&T (and MCI and GTE-Sprint,
etc.) need not be treated differently than General Telephone of
Florida.
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Date: Tue, 24 Jan 84 10:34:37 PST
From: Theodore N. Vail <vail@UCLA-CS>
As has been noted, the new AT&T calling cards state:
Use of this card is an extension of credit and
the customer named on the front accepts the terms
furnished when issued and agrees to pay for all
charges incurred."
Obviously the key words here are "charges incurred". If your number
becomes public knowledge (e.g. is posted on the bulletin board of a
college dormitory without your permission) and $10,000 worth of
long-distance calls are charged to it, you won't have to pay for them.
You (the customer) didn't "incur" the charges. (Of course this would
be the case regardless of what AT&T states -- you don't have to pay
for services you didn't receive.)
However, in the case of bank and other general purpose credit cards
there are explicit Federal and State Laws limiting your liability.
Are there such laws regulating telephone "credit cards" and how much
hassle will the various telephone companies give you if you deny calls
charged to your telephone credit card?
ted vail
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Date: Sun, 22 Jan 84 23:31:00 EDT
From: haddock!johnl%ima@BRL-BMD.ARPA
Subject: connection quality with SBS
I recently signed up for SBS Skyline home service, because MCI service
(around here at least) is terrible and SBS looks cheaper. Their
flyers boast about their high-quality connections, and the calls I've
made bear it out. There seem to be two reasons for the high quality:
- Their access number (everywhere) is 950-1088. Regular Telecom
readers recall that before the Bell breakup, the plan for OCC
connections was to reserve the 950 exchange for OCC access
everywhere, providing supervision and the same quality of
interface that AT&T gets. I had thought the 950 business was
scrapped given that 10XX is coming, but there it is. (I expect
1088 will be SBS.) The 950 call is always free, not even message
units, even from pay phones many places.
- Their topology is a star with their satellite at the middle. An
article in the IBM Systems Journal in 1983 describes the ground
stations that IBM builds for SBS. The satellite bandwidth is TDM
divided into 480 us slots allocated to ground stations as needed,
so your conversation goes from your SBS office to the satellite
to the destination office without intermediate hops. They go
everywhere, but I don't know what their strategy is for handing
calls off to AT&T. Connections to North Pomfret Vermont were
pretty good.
If people are interested, I can send their price list and other
details.
John Levine, decvax!yale-co!ima!johnl, ucbvax!cbosgd!ima!johnl,
{allegra|floyd|amd70}!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.ARPA
PS: Has it occurred to anybody else that the airport of the future
will have tens of thousands of payphones from all the different
carriers? I expect that after they cover all available wall space and
put kiosks every 2 feet all over the concourses, Darwinian forces will
have them pushing out snack bars, news stands, departure gates,
baggage carousels, ticket counters, etc.
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Date: Tue, 24 Jan 84 18:55:00 pst
From: cunningh@Nosc (Robert P. Cunningham)
Subject: PTC'84 highlights.
A couple of weeks ago, I promised a summary of the Pacific
Telecommunications Conference (PTC'84) held in Honolulu Jan 8-11.
Unfortunately, due to other commitments, I wasn't at most of the
sessions. Here's a few of the highlights that I did hear about,
though:
Most of the sessions dealt with the problems of the Pacific basin
countries, and what better telecommunications could do for the smaller
developing nations.
If most of the speakers are to be believed, these nations are growing
economically much faster than the rest of the world and many of their
leaders believe that decent telecommunications is a key to further
growth (I kept hearing references to 'catching up with the Japanese').
Still, the telecommunications traffic around the Pacific is a small
fraction of the trans-Atlantic traffic, and most of the multinational
service providers, though they say polite things, still seem a bit
skeptical about the Pacific market.
Undersea cables still carry a major portion of the trans-Pacific
traffic, and more new cables are going in. Apparently the problems in
developing optical fiber repeaters are close to solution. AT&T
confidently expects to put in a trans-Pacific optical fiber undersea
cable in 1988. It'll have at least 40 fibers (plus spares), carrying
an average of 1,000 circuits per fiber. That's 40,000+ circuits.
In the face of this (or more likely, in the face of coming SDS
offerings), INTELSAT announced a new service called 'Vista', a
low-volume, low-cost service to multiple points within small nations
available through relatively low-cost ground stations. The figure of
$25,000 per ground station was mentioned.
Since many Pacific nations have precious little telecommunications
infrastructure, they already rely on INTELSAT not only for
international communications, but for communication between selected
points within a nation. There seemed to be considerable enthusiasm
for the 'Vista' offering.
Besides the US, Japan, Canada and Indonesia, several of the better-off
nations also play to launch their own national communications
satellites soon. Expect to see satellite systems go up within the
next year or two for: Australia (with Papua New Guinea), Columbia, and
the People's Republic of China.
According to the Deputy Director-General of Japan's Telecommunications
Policy Bureau of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT),
the MPT is now drafting up bills for the Diet to turn over the Nippon
Telegraphic and Telephone Public Corporation (NTT) to private
enterprise. This will probably have some of the same effects there as
the AT&T deregulation in the US. The legislation is modeled more on
what the British are doing than what the US is doing, though.
There was a considerable amount of talk about what the Japanese call
'the new media', apparently referring to the conglomeration of digital
transmission techniques they're developing.
There was mention of the Japanese BS-2 direct-broadcast TV satellite.
I've just heard the satellite was launched yesterday from the
Tanegashima Space Center. It should be operational around May,
allowing Japanese subscribers to receive TV signals using a parabolic
antenna less than 30 inches in diameter and a signal converter. It's
operated by the NHK network.
Incidently, I saw a demonstration of the Knight-Rider (Florida) and
Canadian Telecom 'viewtext' services. Very impressive.
Bob Cunningham, Oceanography Dept., Univ. of Hawaii (cunningh@nosc-cc)
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End of TELECOM Digest
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