Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) (12/09/83)
TELECOM Digest Friday, 9 Dec 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 115
Today's Topics:
rotary vs. pushbutton
the 900 ripoff
Hawaii Rates
Telex and MCI Mail
900 numbers -- political uses / technology used?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 83 17:37:59 pst
From: jmrubin%ucbcoral.CC@Berkeley (Joel Rubin)
Subject: rotary vs. pushbutton
Re cmoore's question--I'm using a tone phone on a "rotary" line, right
now. Occassionally, I find a call won't go through on the first try,
but this is rare. However, the phone company is, of course, under no
obligation to provide me with a working tone line, and, under current
tariffs, they could even put a filter on my line to filter out touch
tones. I think you'll find that in cities and inner suburbs, almost
everyone has touch tone capacity as long as they have a tone phone.
You could buy a switchable phone just to be safe.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Dec 83 05:51:52 EST
From: Hobbit <AWalker@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: the 900 ripoff
It seems to me grossly unfair that the people of this country must be
forced to shell out half a buck to express their opinion. After all,
this government is ostensibly designed to bend to public opinion,
which should be freely asked for and supplied. Someone is making fat
profits from Joe Luser who is only trying to express his opinion.
Now, granted, they are perfectly aware that they are paying for the
''vote'', but does he have a choice? Do they think Joe Luser will sit
there watching Nightline and say to himself ''Gee, I feel strongly
about this issue, I think I'll punt the 900 vote and write to my
Congressman.'' ?!?
Well, foo. Personally I never call *any* of those silly 900 numbers;
with the exception of the shuttle rebroadcasts, they aren't worth a
damn.
_H*
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 83 09:20:27 PST
From: Theodore N. Vail <vail@UCLA-CS>
The California Public Utilities Commission is challenging the Federal
Communications Commission planned telephone "access charge" in Federal
Court. Here is most of an article which appeared in the Los Angeles
Times today (Thursday, December 8, 1983):
SAN FRANCISCO - California consumers Wednesday got their first glimpse
of how telephone costs will rise after the January 1 Bell System
breakup as the California Public Utilities Commission approved a $446
million rate increase for Pacific Telephone to take effect next month.
The action, commissioners stressed repeatedly, represents only the
first step in adjusting telephone rates to the new financial realities
stemming from the settlement nearly two years ago of the federal
government's antitrust lawsuit against American Telephone & Telegraph
Company.
"This is round one", said Commissioner Priscilla Grew, who supervised
the PUC staff's analysis of Pacific's complex rate case. Wednesday's
action was intended only to update Pacific's financial picture on the
eve of divestiture.
Round two, Grew said, will come in May, when the commissioners decide
how much to allow Pacific of another $400 million that the company
claims is the local cost of breaking up Ma Bell.
With the new year, the old Bell System will be transformed into a
smaller AT&T and seven independent regional operating companies.
Pacific Telephone becomes Pacific-Telesis Group, which will provide
local telephone service in California through the Pacific Bell
subsidiary. AT&T will retain all toll operations except in local
service areas.
The increase means that the basic monthly rate will rise to $7.74 from
$7.47 at present. The so-called Life Line rate for minimum
residential service is unchanged at $2.67 monthly. In addition, the
commission approved a 10.36% surcharge on long-distance calls within
California.
Pacific had asked for $14.57 for basic service, plus a $1.00 charge
for access to long distance lines, and a Life Line rate of $5.21.
A preliminary estimate by Pacific Telephone was that the monthly bill
of the typical residential customer will rise $1.64, including the
long-distance surcharge.
Customer groups and Pacific Telephone said the PUC decision was fair.
The commissions' rate boost is about half the $838 million the phone
company had requested.
In a related action that may hold great long-term significance, the
PUC also rejected a Pacific proposal to charge residential customers
$1 a month per telephone line and business customers $3 a line to help
replace nearly $1.3 billion in intrastate toll revenues that it will
lose on January 1. Local telephone rates, analysts say, have been
subsidized by revenues from lucrative long distance tolls.
Instead the Commission ruled that these so-called "access charges"
should be collected solely from long-distance telephone companies such
as AT&T, GTE Sprint, and MCI Communications Corp. -- for use of
Pacific's Network in originating and completing toll calls within
California. The PUC intends to apply the same principle to Santa
Monica- based General Telephone Company of California and other local
telephone companies.
In placing the access charge solely on long-distance telephone
companies, the PUC parted company with the Federal Communications
Commission, which regulates toll calling between states. The FCC
plans to add $2 a month to local customer's bills in April and $4 and
in 1965 in an effort to replace interstate toll revenue that AT&T now
shares with local telephone companies.
The PUC has challenged the FCC's authority to levy these charges
directly on local customers and, in a case pending in Federal Appeals
Court in Washington, seeks to have them levied against long-distance
companies, as the PUC did. Legislation pending in Congress would kill
the FCC proposal.
The rate boost of $446 million comes in the form of a split surcharge
-- a 3.7% surcharge to the basic $7.47 monthly rate and a 10.36%
surcharge to intrastate toll charges on each Pacific customer's bill.
The split surcharge is likely to last only until May when the PUC
expects to replace it with a schedule of specific tariffs covering
telephone services within the state. At that time, the cost a of a
pay-phone call will probably be increased to a quarter from a dime.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 83 09:59:38 PST
From: Theodore N. Vail <vail@UCLA-CS>
The University of California has recently requested bids for a private
communications network connecting all of the UC campuses and other
installations in California. I will send details on this to telecom,
shortly.
The "back-bone" of this system would connect Los Angeles to the Bay
area. With the exception of a possible bid by AT&T that would use a
buried fiber-optics system, all bidders are expected to propose either
a satellite link or else use a microwave system based on FCC licenses
obtained by the UC system for a series of "hops" of around 40 miles
each, between mountain peaks connecting the two areas.
UC hopes to obtain substantial savings over the present system (using
lines leased from AT&T).
This raises the following economic question:
All, but the AT&T possibility, depend upon the use of what I believe
is a national resource which should benefit everyone: The "spectrum".
Presently the spectrum is allocated by the FCC primarily on a
"type-of- usage" then "first-come, first-serve" basis. This has led
(and continues to lead) to great inequities. One need only use a
scanner in a large city to note that vast parts of the UHF spectrum
are barely used -- they are reserved for various industries, etc.;
while others are terribly crowded -- the frequencies used for car
telephones, the taxicab frequencies, the police and public safety
frequencies etc. And of course, there are only four frequencies
available for local wireless telephones; as a result, there is always
unpleasant interference when using them. In large cities, especially
New York, the microwave frequencies are so crowded that it is now
extremely difficult to obtain a microwave license. How many of the
current users are making effective use of the part of the spectrum
that they have reserved?
In some cases, such as allocation of TV frequencies, the present
policy has lead to really major financial windfalls to the recipients
of the spectrum.
Has anyone considered what would happen if spectrum users had to bid
for their use of the spectrum, with the Federal Government holding the
auction (much as Secretary Watt had proposed doing for off-shore oil
leases -- of course the pollution problems here are different and
presumably much less) and receiving the income (hopefully used to
reduce taxes, support welfare projects for hackers, etc.)?
Taking the largest cases first, what if TV stations such as KNXT-TV
(the extremely profitable CBS affiliate in Los Angeles) were required
every five years to bid for their exclusive use of the television
spectrum. Would this make cable-TV (which doesn't use the public
spectrum and therefore wouldn't have to bid) more viable and
profitable. What if MCI and Sprint had to bid against AT&T for use of
microwave frequencies? Would they be able to undercut it so much?
Would the industries that now tie up most of the UHF spectrum, but
barely use it, continue to do so, if they had to bid against its use
by those who want to use it for mobile telephones, etc.?
The impact of such a policy, even if inaugurated gradually and gently,
would be tremendous. What do telecom readers think would happen?
vail
------------------------------
Date: 8 Dec 1983 1415-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Hawaii Rates
Hawaii is due to be FULLY integrated into the U.S. rate system very
soon. In fact, it would have happened on the first of January, if the
FCC had not delayed introduction of AT&T's new rates.
This full integration means the elimination of WATS band 6 and the
inclusion of Hawaii and Alaska in band 5 -- meaning that a large
additional number of 800 numbers in the U.S. suddenly become reachable
from Hawaii and Alaska, and that Band 5 outwats users can suddenly
call to Alaska and Hawaii.
On the MTS side of things, there are two new rate zones above the
existing ones (and only slightly more expensive than the top one).
The Alaska and Hawaii rates will then be simply mileage rates like
everywhere else.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Dec 1983 1547-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Telex and MCI Mail
MCI just announced their Telex service.
Port: 8. Please enter your user name: jrc Connection initiated. . .
Opened.
Welcome to MCI Mail!
MCI Mail Version 1.13
You may enter: ... Command: help telex
The nation's new postal system becomes worldwide after the new year.
Through an agreement with MCI International (MCII), MCI Mail users
will be able to send and receive MCI Mail messages to and from all
telex addresses worldwide.
How will it work? You, and every other MCI Mail subscriber, will have
a telex number. Telex messages sent to this number will be placed in
your MCI Mailbox along with your Instant Letters.
When you send MCI Mail messages, you will be able to include telex
addresses just as you now enter postal addresses. These messages will
be delivered by MCII through the telex networks.
How will you know your telex number? When the MCI Mail Telex Service
becomes available, your telex number will be 650 followed by your MCI
ID. (For example, if your MCI ID is 1060184, your telex number will
be 6501060184.)
How much will it cost? MCI Mail Telex Service will be offered at
competitive telex rates. As with other MCI Mail services, you will be
charged only when you send messages -- you will never be charged to
receive telex messages.
If you have additional questions, send them TO: MCIHELP.
Command: cr
CREATE LETTER TO: (MCI Mail Customer Support MCI DISC WASHINGTON DC)
Subject: Telex Service Text: (Type / on a line by itself to end)
Can you please tell me what answerback will be received by incoming
Telex calls. Telex subscribers usually check an answerback to veri-
fy that their call has reached the correct destination.
Value added telex services provide this feature on an automatic basis.
/
Your message was posted: Thu Dec 08, 1983 3:05 pm EST Command: ex
Signing off from MCI Mail.
What I really want to know is when they'll do Teletex -- which is much
nicer than Telex -- 1200 to 2400 bps transmission (instead of 50) and
a MUCH larger character set, including upper/lower case and the
special characters of many foreign languages.
(There's a gateway between Telex and Teletex, but it's always in the
Teletex side of the call, so the international portion always runs at
50 bps unless you are Teletex to Telex.)
------------------------------
Date: 8 December 1983 00:14 EST
From: Minh N. Hoang <MINH @ MIT-MC>
There's no (shouldn't be) real electrical differences between the
rotary and push-button phones when they're on-hook or off-hook and not
dialing. They both have to meet the same FCC part 68 requirements.
I think the additional charges capitalize on the convenience factor
and the support equipment overhead. Before the advent of switched
capacitor filter and CMOS VLSI it was pretty hairy to design a good
DTMF decoder.
Now that both tone encoders and decoders are rather cheap, I think the
telco should slowly phase out rotary phones - say, by reversing the
order: charging rotary lines extra - and use the pulse for other
features like the switch hook 'flash' on the Rolm CBX.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Dec 83 03:39:58 PST (Thu)
From: sun!gnu@Berkeley (John Gilmore)
Subject: 900 numbers -- political uses / technology used?
As I watched "The Day After" and its "commercials" which mentioned
that they would "ask you what you thought of it", a 900 number
immediately came to mind. I bet if they offerred the choice "Would
you spend 50c to register a protest against nuclear war?" they'd get
many million calls. [Plus give Bell a few million dollars.]
Upon further reflection I decided it would be a horrible idea, since
it would set a precedent of taking a "major poll" of US citizens just
after showing an hour's worth of heavy emotionally loaded footage. I
could see the politicians and the TV networks latching right on to the
idea -- we could elect a President that way, right?
Can anyone describe the technology used to answer thousands of calls
to a 900 (or otherwise) recording or polltaker? For polls it's pretty
easy since you really only want a summary anyway -- as soon as the
call reaches an "in the know" node in the phone hierarchy it can just
add one to a counter and be done, forwarding the counters every few
seconds to whoever's watching the totals.
They could use digital speech for the recordings (giving trivial
random access and cheap playback thru a codec) -- is this it? They
could also reduce the degree of random access by not answering on the
first ring; wait til a few dozen people are ringing, then give them
all the same message.
------------------------------
End of TELECOM Digest
*********************