[fa.telecom] TELECOM Digest V3 #82

Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) (10/23/83)

TELECOM Digest           Sunday, 23 Oct 1983       Volume 3 : Issue 82

Today's Topics:
                           Ringing your phone
                         Re: "Ring back" numbers
                                MCI Mail
                              VADIC Modems
                         TELTONE DTMF Receivers
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Date: Fri, 21 Oct 83 07:39:21 EST
From: <ECN.davy@PURDUE.ARPA>
Subject: Ringing your phone


Around here (Lafayette, IN), we only have two ESS exchanges, the rest
are some sort of "mechanical" type.  On the old ones, the way to ring
your own phone is to dial 115 and then your phone number.  You get a
busy signal, hang up, your phone rings, and you get a clicking noise
when you pick up.  Dialing 115 is the method used for dialing another
party on your party line.  I don't believe this method works on the
ESS exchanges.

On my exchange (ESS), I can ring my phone simply by dialing my phone 
number.  I get a busy signal, hang up, and the phone rings.  The other
"fun" numbers, such as tone generators, a voice that recites your 
phone number back to you, etc. all seem to be 423-12XX where the XX 
varies, and 423 is my exchange.  I suppose these numbers vary from 
place to place, but you might try -1210, -1208, -1202.

I could tell horror stories about GTE trying to install this ESS
stuff, but I haven't got time to type in that much.  Leave it go at
the thing was supposed to be in by Dec. '81, finally was installed in
May '83, and still crashes for unknown reasons.  Call forwarding and
all those other neat options are still unavailable.

--Dave Curry pur-ee!davy eevax.davy@purdue

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Date: 21 Oct 83 23:50:17 EDT
From: Don <WATROUS@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Re: "Ring back" numbers

I learned about this back in the late 50's.  Most places around North 
Jersey, I've been able to get a ring back by dialing one of (550, 551,
552, ... - stopping before 555) followed by the last four digits of
your number until you get a dial tone.  To this dial tone you hang up
briefly once or twice (like trying to get back to an operator), and
you get a single tone.  Hang up and your phone rings.  Pick up and you
get the tone.  Flash the hook again (phone acknowledges with a break
in the tone) and you can get another ringback.  This works for party
lines also (dialing the other party's last four digits).  I remember
we used to get great delight doing this to a grouch down the 
street....

Don

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Date: 22 October 1983 02:46 edt
From: Dehn.DEHN at MIT-MULTICS
Subject: MCI Mail

Well, I finally got my "Welcome Kit" (they said 7-10 days, and sure 
enough, it took 10 days; they apparently had more people signing up
than they were really ready for).

Anyway, some observations:

1) I wonder how the typical letter-writer is going to react to the 
apparent complexity of the system.  It is not that it is really
complex (the documentation seems pretty clear, and anyone who has used
computer mail and a text editor before will find nothing new), but it
is an order of magnitude more complex than using the phone system or
the U.S. Postal Service.  Anyone who is intimidated by ZIP+4 will be
overwhelmed by the number of identifiers and codes involved (only some
of which are needed to send a message, of course):

 a user name (for logging in)
 a password (for logging in)
 a unique "MCI Mail ID" (numeric)
 a customer number (for billing)
 another password (defaults to mother's maiden name) for
    telephone queries
 local access telephone number

2)There is no mention in the documentation about privacy, other than 
warnings to keep your password secret.  There is a prohibition against
transmitting "material which constitutes an infringement of any 
copyright or trademark or a violation of Section 223 of the 
Communications Act...".  It doesn't say if they consider it OK to
police this by looking at your messages.  It doesn't say whether they
keep copies of your messages on "backup" tapes.

3) I was really surprised that there seems to be no connection between
MCI Mail and the long distance service.  No clever sharing of local 
access numbers.  Apparently two separate bills, in two separate 
envelopes (on top of the fact that it is not clear why either of them 
need to be in envelopes now that I have this new electronic mailbox).
Nothing in the Welcome Kit even invites you to find out about the long
distance service.

4) Some of the aspects of the user interface seem likely to run into 
scaling-up problems.  For example, if you specify a recipient name
that is not unique, it gives you a list of the possibilities.  If you
say "Smith", you get all the Smiths in the whole country.  (Right now
there seem to be only 20.)

                             -jwd3

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Date: Sat, 22 Oct 83 15:42:57 EDT
From: Ron Natalie <ron@brl-vgr>
Subject: VADIC Modems

The University of Maryland bought some Vadic modems from a different 
company who took the VADIC two ways and converted them into three
ways.  The price was comperable with the two way price.  VADIC took
legal action over this.

-Ron

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Date: Sat, 22 Oct 83 11:10:56 pdt
From: jlapsley%D.CC@Berkeley
Subject: TELTONE DTMF Receivers

   I recently came across a product anouncement from Teltone
Corporation, which described their new line of DTMF decoders.  These
are all one chip devices, most requiring only a +5 volt power supply
and an external osc- illator.  The amazing thing is their prices:
$24.75 for their M-957 chip, which is a DTMF only decoder (they also
make pulse decoders), has dial tone immunity, runs on either +12 or +5
volts, is CMOS, and has binary data outputs.  All contained in a 22
pin DIP.  If you're interested, ask for data sheets.

                        Teltone Corporation
                        P.O. Box 657
                        10801 120th Avenue Northeast
                        Kirkland, Washington 98033-0657
                        (206) 827-9626

                                                Phil

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End of TELECOM Digest
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