Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) (10/20/83)
TELECOM Digest Thursday, 20 Oct 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 79
Today's Topics:
trouble with Plain Old Telephone Service installation
Access Charge Delayed.
switched digits
MCI Mail dial-up
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From: vortex!lauren at RAND-UNIX
Date: Monday, 17-Oct-83 19:18:12-PDT
Subject: trouble with Plain Old Telephone Service installation
Gee, I don't see what you're complaining about! That sounded like a
perfectly ordinary course of events to me...
Now, if you want to hear some *real* tales, someday I'll tell you
about the 4 wire leased lines I used to have to a friend's house, or
what happened when I ordered two FX lines into a General Telephone
service area when I was served by PacTel! I'll give you a clue:
getting (and keeping) those circuits running has involved the use of
pentagrams and powdered bat wing, and much chanting during the full
moon...
--Lauren--
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Date: 19 Oct 1983 01:09-PDT
Subject: Access Charge Delayed.
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow
Reply-to: Geoff@SRI-CSL
a023 2316 18 Oct 83 PM-Telephone Bills, Bjt,490 Phone Bill Hike
Delayed; But So Is Long-Distance Reduction By NORMAN BLACK Associated
Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Communications Commission is giving
consumers an unexpected three-month reprieve from new telephone fees
that had been scheduled to take effect Jan. 1.
The reprieve from paying a $2-a-month ''access charge,'' however,
was accompanied by some bad news - the FCC is also delaying an average
10.5 percent reduction in interstate long-distance rates proposed by
the American Telephone & Telegraph Co.
The commission voted unanimously Tuesday to delay from Jan. 1
until April 3 the implementation of both the new access fees and the
long-distance rate cuts. Agency officials said the delay was necessary
because they needed more time to investigate the long-distance rate
reductions and other changes that were scheduled to accompany the
payment of the $2 monthly fee by consumers.
Jack D. Smith, chief of the FCC's common carrier bureau, said, for
example, the agency might want to order AT&T to make an even larger
long-distance rate reduction.
Smith also cited the need to investigate a proposed AT&T rate
increase for private business lines; the imposition of a 75-cent
charge for long-distance information calls, and a series of other fees
to be charged long-distance telephone companies for access to local
switches.
Smith and Jerald N. Fritz, the chief of the FCC's tariff division,
both stressed the delay would not affect the scheduled Jan. 1 breakup
of AT&T. The company is required by an antitrust settlement to give up
its 22 Bell System operating companies and that process is being
overseen by a federal judge.
Both also stressed the FCC is not considering any changes to the
order it adopted earlier this summer establishing the principle that
consumers should begin paying the new monthly fees.
''Our access rules aren't being changed,'' Fritz said. ''The
question is the way the telephone industry proposed to apply our rules
...''
The imposition of the new access fees and the proposed reduction
in long-distance rates are bound together because the FCC is trying to
eliminate a subsidy system that has existed for decades. Under that
system, AT&T's long-distance rates have been kept artificially high to
produce money to hold down local telephone rates; currently, the
subsidy is an estimated $10.7 billion.
The FCC maintains the subsidy should be gradually removed from
long-distance rates and shifted to all local telephone customers in
the form of monthly access fees. In effect, all customers would be
expected to help make the payments instead of just those who place
long-distance calls.
The fees would start at $2 a month for residential customers and a
maximum $6 a month for business customers, but would gradually rise
over the next six years to a projected $6-to-$8 a month. The
commission maintains the change is needed to spur competition and to
lower long-distance rates as a means of discouraging large
corporations from building private phone systems.
ap-ny-10-19 0218EDT ***************
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Date: Wed, 19 Oct 83 10:49:34 EDT
From: cmoore@brl-vld
Subject: switched digits
Is it possible for the system to reverse 2 digits which you dialed
correctly? (E.g., you dialed "47" but it was interpreted as "74".)
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Date: 19 Oct 1983 0606-PDT
Subject: MCI Mail dial-up
From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin)
I tried calling the 800-323-7751 number for the MCI Mail registry, and
got a data tone, but it wouldn't produce carrier-detect on my 1200 bps
Vadic VA3434. Doesn't seem right to me that a public-access data
dial-up should be so picky about what equipment it can talk to.
Modems that respond to both Bell and Vadic type signals aren't that
much more expensive than those that talk Bell alone, and a
common-carrier type of service should interface to any common
varieties of equipment. Vadic is pretty widespread, after all; it's
not like I was expecting them to interface with a one-of-a-kind
homebrew hodgepodge.
I can see such limitations on a hobbyist's CBBS system, but not on a
public-access nationwide system. I called the 800-MCI-CALL number to
ask about this, and they said that ther was no plan to support
anything but Bell 212A for 1200 bps. (It's HARD to dial using letters
when you are used to numbers -- interesting psychological sidenote
there...)
Maybe I'm wrong about how "normal" the Vadic mode is; after all, it is
what we have here, so it's common to me, but maybe it isn't so common
to the rest of the world. Am I justified in expecting support for
this mode from a public data resource, or am I demanding more than is
reasonable?
Will Martin
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End of TELECOM Digest
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