Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (12/20/83)
TELECOM Digest Tuesday, 20 Dec 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 121
Today's Topics:
Cellular vs. public phones
SPRINT drops monthly service fee.
Airport Pay phones
Blue boxes
Cordless phones and stupidity...
July 1983 Chicago call guide
Re: MCI Charge-a-call phones
voice-grade service
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Date: Friday, 16 Dec 1983 13:19:05-PST
From: decwrl!rhea!donjon!goldstein@Shasta
Subject: Cellular vs. public phones
MCI and AT&T may be having a nice time with public phones, but I'd
hate to discount them just because cellular is coming out. Cellular
means we'll have lots of new channels available in cities like NY and
Chicago, which long ago ran out of IMTS slots. But in return, radios
are even more expensive, about three grand apiece. And the hand-helds
aren't in real production yet (lots of battery drain to worry about!).
Then you pay about a quarter a minute for channel time, plus tolls.
And it'll be a few years before the small markets & boonies are on
cellular systems.
So I'll just hang on to my dimes (in Mass., you outlanders pay more, I
realize) and make my calls on the cheap. Heck, up here in the home of
the Bean & the Cod, there's no waiting list for cheap, old-fashioned
IMTS, and Cellular isn't even running yet. Admittedly it's hard to do
decent hand-held at 150 MHz, full duplex (my Yaesu handheld does great
hdx, tho), but only someone whose middle name is Croesus will use
Cellular when coin is available!
Fred
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Date: 16 Dec 1983 14:51-PST
Subject: SPRINT drops monthly service fee.
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <Geoff @ SRI-CSL>
n012 0711 16 Dec 83 BC-SPRINT (BizDay) (ART TO LASER 2 CLIENTS) By
STEVEN J. MARCUS c.1983 N.Y. Times News Service
New York - The GTE Corp. announced Thursday that it would drop the
monthly service fee it charges users of its long-distance Sprint
service on Jan. 1 and offer its discount long-distance phone service
to any city in the United States.
The policy change is Sprint's attempt to increase its market share
quickly as competition for lucrative long-distance calling increases
with the breakup of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.
''We will be offering a single type of service at low rates with
no monthly fee,'' said Dale F. Pilz, president of GTE Sprint. This
will enable the company ''to compete directly for all customers who
spend over $5 a month on long distance,'' he said.
The current long-distance market is worth about $50 billion a
year, according to Harry Edelson, an analyst with the First Boston
Corp. in New York. The market is dominated by the American Telephone
and Telegraph Co., with an estimated 94 percent share of the business.
The MCI Communications Corp., Edelson estimates, is second with 3
percent, and Sprint is third with 1.5 percent.
Given the great gap between the front-runner and the rest, most
analysts, as well as Sprint itself, say that the major target of the
runners-up is AT&T. Each is trying to erode its huge customer base,
with special emphasis on grabbing business customers who spend far
more than residences on long-distance calls.
Even with their small overall market shares, MCI's revenues in
1983 will be about $1.8 billion and Sprint's will approach $1 billion,
Edelson said.
''We view our competitor to be AT&T,'' said Tom Bestor, a
spokesman for GTE Sprint. ''Pricewise, we're about equal with MCI,
with average savings of 10 to 25 percent on a total bill'' compared
with AT&T. ''And by eliminating the monthly fee and start-up costs, we
expect to increase affordability even further.''
Gary Tobin, a spokesman for MCI, said his company was
''mystified'' as to why Sprint was cutting rates now when access
charges are not yet settled. Congress and the Federal Communications
Commission have yet to agree on the access charges that long-distance
carriers will pay local phone companies for access to their systems.
And Tobin said that Sprint's strategy might backfire if it had to
increase its rates once those new charges were set.
Beginning Jan. 1, all customers in Sprint network cities will be
able to call any city in the United States, whether it is in the
network or not, at rates that vary only with mileage and the time of
day.
Customers with bills of more than $25 will receive a discount on
all calls, with the discount increasing as the volume goes up, and
Home Sprint and Business Sprint will be combined in a single service.
But analysts say that Sprint's elimination of a start-up charge
and monthly service fee - there will be a minimum use charge of $5 a
month - will have the greatest impact. Sprint now has a service charge
of $5 a month for home users and a minimum of $25 a month for
businesses.
''This makes an enormous difference'' to the many low-volume users
across the country, said Edward M. Greenberg, an analyst with Sanford
C. Bernstein & Co. ''By eliminating the $5 charge, Sprint is
broadening the market it appeals to.''
But Edelson also expressed some surprise that GTE Sprint would cut
its prices now, before the access charge question is settled. He said
the new charges would likely require Sprint and its competitors to
revise their rates.
Still, ''they are cutting their rates now,'' Edelson said, ''so
that when customers get to choose'' the long-distance carrier they
wish to use in conjunction with their local phone service, the hope is
they will choose Sprint. ''GTE has enough cash to do a loss-leader now
and make it up later on,'' he said.
nyt-12-16-83 1001est ***************
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Date: Thu, 15 Dec 83 11:01 EST
From: Steven Gutfreund <gutfreund%umass-cs@CSNet-Relay>
Subject: Airport Pay phones
When I was last at Homdel, the folks doing pay phones were very
worried about MCI's intention to enter the airport pay phone business.
It turns out that Airport pay phones are the only net income source in
the pay phone business, the rest of the pay phones are losers.
Collection costs are the worst part of it.
They were looking into magnetic strip cards and "smart cards" (those
with the chip inside them). But since they expected to still have to
provide those that collected the change, they were worried by this
move.
(oh yes, they have elaborate histogram and statictics that tell them
how often to visit each phone to pick up the money).
- steve
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Date: Fri, 16 Dec 83 22:16:26 pst
From: The tty of Phil Lapsley <jlapsley%D.CC@Berkeley>
Subject: Blue boxes
I personally wouldn't think that the proliferation of Radio Shack
Touch-Tone generators would lead to many more blue boxes being used.
After all, most people who would use a blue box would not use it in a
public place. Perhaps having more people with portable Touch-Tone
generators might let people with blue boxes use them with a bit less
secrecy, but I don't really think that will add to the number of
people using blue boxes.
Around here (Bay Area), the blue box situation is quite neatly sewn
up by Pac Tel. The equipment is set up in such a way that any call
made with a blue box drops a trouble card or triggers a printer
somewhere, so they have the time the call was made, as well as the
number it was made from, and the number it was made to. While this
certainly doesn't stop the call from being made, it effectively limits
what a person can do with a blue box -- that is, he cannot call
anyone, since they will simply get a call the next day from the
Security division, and of course, he must call from a pay telephone.
To me, this seems a very good solution to the problem.
As far as actual laws refering to blue boxes, you might check
California Penal Code 502.7. It does not actually make the posession
of a blue box illegal, but it does make doing anything with it a
misdemeanor. I quote: 502.7(b) "A person who ... sells, gives, or
otherwise transfers to another, or offers, or advertises, plans or
instructions for making or assembling an instrument, apparatus, or
device described [above, which mentions the actual intent to avoid a
charge with the device] with knowledge ... that they may be used to
make or assemble such an instrument ... is guilty of a misdemeanor."
Next comes 502.7(g) "An instrument, apparatus, device, plans,
instructions, or written publications described in subdivision (b) or
(c) of this section may be seized under warrant or incident to a
lawful arrest, and, upon the conviction of a person for a violation of
[the above laws], such instrument [etc] may be destroyed as contraband
by the sheriff of the county..."
They don't say what happens if they don't get a conviction. But in
any case, with the advent of CCIS and the ESS, blue boxes should be
rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
Phil
(jlapsley%D.CC@Berkeley)
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Date: 18 Dec 1983 1325-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Cordless phones and stupidity...
An article in the Boston Globe tells of some people in Woonsocket,
Rhode Island who were stupid enough to discuss illegal activities over
a cordless phone for an extended period of time (six weeks after they
were discovered by the police who taped some 100 hours of
conversations).
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Date: Mon, 19 Dec 83 8:50:37 EST
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@brl-vld>
Subject: July 1983 Chicago call guide
On Friday night, I looked it up on microfiche at U of Del library.
Pages 32 & 33 list 312-area prefixes, and even though 1+ was
implemented for out-of-area calls from 312, I find no N0X or N1X.
Area code map points out 212 & 718 in NYC, but area code list shows
only 212 for NYC. No mention in either of 818 (to be split from 213).
I could not find CNA number on p. 2, which lists phone-co. numbers.
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Date: Mon, 19 Dec 83 9:02:19 EST
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@brl-vld>
Subject: Re: MCI Charge-a-call phones
I don't understand your comment about "just about everything is
interstate" from Washington National Airport. The airport is in
Virginia, not DC. It can be reached using area 202 (which is good for
all except outermost Md. & Va. suburbs), but I understand that
intrastate rates would apply if you are calling long-distance between
Va. suburbs and other parts of Virginia. 202-936 was or is the
weather report from (or based on info from) Washington National, but
Richmond, in 703 area until 703/804 split in June 1973, also had a 936
for the weather.
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Date: 19 December 1983 23:47 EST
From: Minh N. Hoang <MINH @ MIT-MC>
Subject: voice-grade service
This is in response to a question that was raised in the Telecom
Digest a while ago. I joined recently and didn't see too many
responses to it in the later digests.
The typical phone channel has about 3 Khz bandwidth (.5 - 3 Khz).
Most analog signals within the band will be passed except for a few
special signalling frequencies (like 2600 Hz), subject to the usual
channel distortions. The phone companies do have a basic specification
for their connections but this seems pretty much self-imposed on the
local level. I don't know whether the FCC specs minmum channel
performance on interstate circuits. But the international lines are
specified by CCITT in terms of noise, nonlinear distortions etc...
Going digital actually improves the phone's performance. As long as an
analog signal is sampled at least twice as fast as its highest freq
(Nyquist criteria), it can be reconstructed exactly. The tel. lines
are sampled at 8 Khz and as long as the bits don't get screwed, the
signal gets through w/ less distortion (some quantizing noise and
freq. shift) after the digital-to-analog conversion at the local
central office. Also digital signals are easier to switch and can be
transmitted w/o the additive noise effect like their analog counter
parts.
Further more, once the analog signal is in digital format, it can be
put through fancy signal processing schemes which bring us the $300
1200-baud modem in 3 chips. The fastest rate for dial line,
full-duplex is 2400 bps, the 224 modems. The fastest rate for dial
line, one way is 9600 bps. (The real state-of-the-art modem coming in
1 or 2 yrs is dial line, full-duplex 9600 bps each way, conforming to
the recently adopted CCITT Rec. V.39. By the way, Bell 212 is equiv.
to CCITT Rec. V.22; the 224's conforms to CCITT Rec. V.22 Bis. Modem's
handshaking protocols have to be set before anybody make them.)
Anyhow, for leased line, the fastest advertised speed if 19.2 Kbps.
But the real working speed is around 14.4 Kbps. Needlessly said here,
these modems cost bundles (A dollar a bps).
You can do a lot in 3 Khz... On the other hand, say the phone company
is digitizing our signal into 8-bit samples at 8 Khz. That means in
the system, the nominal rate is 64 Kbps. If the telcos can just extend
their lines to those who are sending digital data, the modems can be
eliminated w/ much improvement in service and little extra switching
cost. Direct digital service....
And then I'm still using a 300-baud modem... *Sigh*
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End of TELECOM Digest
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