Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) (10/06/83)
TELECOM Digest Thursday, 6 Oct 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 68
Today's Topics:
garbled digest
RE: Phone Wiring General Info
Third Party Billing
Piracy
Some misc. items...
Variable Day Plan
phone line limitations
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Date: 4 Oct 1983 1650-PDT
From: Jon Solomon <JSol@USC-ECLC>
Subject: garbled digest
Apparently the program I use to prepare the digest went haywire. I
will look at the digests more carefully in the future.
Sorry,
--Jon
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Date: 4 Oct 1983 1853-EDT
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: RE: Phone Wiring General Info
>From your nearest Phonecenter Store you should be able to get a couple
of free pamphlets describing how to wire up single line phones.
It's pretty simple. Red and Green are the two wires to connect. Some
Touch-Tone phones may be polarity sensitive (so if the dial doesn't
beep you may have to turn the wires around) but most now have bridge
rectifiers in them.
No other wires should ever need to be connected on today's single line
phones. You aren't allowed to do your own wiring on party lines (the
only case in which yellow would be used for party identification).
Old lighted-dial phones used to run power for the lights on yellow and
black, but most of them now use low-power LED illumination which is
powered from the line.
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Date: 4 Oct 1983 1901-EDT
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Third Party Billing
I repeat -- third party billing is NOT being eliminated. They've just
gone to great effort to implement the third party billing screening
system so that anyone who wants to can turn it off.
It even works from Washington, D.C. -- So if C&P said they were
eliminating it, they were wrong.
The only things I have ever seen have been notices that Third Party
Billing from Pay Phones would require verification. They still do not
even verify from non-coin.
Calling Card calls are cheaper than third number billing in order to
encourage use of calling cards, which have a PIN and are thus more
difficult to hack.
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Date: 4 Oct 1983 1952-EDT
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Piracy
My last phone bill had a $50 "Maint Serv Chg" on it. I called the
Business Office to find out what it was -- and they couldn't find any
record of it, so they took it off.
It may have been from the time I reported that MCCS was not working on
my phone (they had apparently dropped the Touch-Tone bit from my
line). Their first response was "it's because you have customer
provided equipment."
I wonder how many customers pay the charge without asking.
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From: vortex!lauren at RAND-UNIX
Date: Monday, 3-Oct-83 23:18:27-PDT
Subject: Some misc. items...
Greetings. A number of various points to cover...
---
Regarding the AJ 4800 baud full-duplex (dialup) modem: I had one of
these modems here in the Vortex for a couple of weeks, and tested it
rather extensively with a matching modem on a (semi-local) VAX. I was
disappointed. I got a fairly high error rate, including (but not
limited to) about one noise "hit" every 10 seconds or so when the
modem was sitting idle. When data was actually flowing, the error
rate seemed to drop somewhat -- apparently indicating some problem
related to the modems' idle state scrambler pattern. The unit also
exhibited problems with its automatic equalization sequence. The
device has no built in data error checking, and is very expensive,
making it not at all cost effective.
My testing involved a two central office hop. I should mention that
some other people who tested the modem (particularly those in the same
central office as the VAX) reported better results. In any case, I
think that it's too expensive even if it worked perfectly all of the
time.
---
I've seen John Covert's Telephone Management System, and it *is* quite
impressive. Of course, it may be a bit expensive for some more simple
applications. For such tasks, it is pretty simple to rig up a
touch-tone decoder (genuine Bell 407 modem or the various cheapo
decoder chips and boards now available) and an inexpensive Votrax
voice synthesizer. I've setup such systems several times over the
years -- they're not really terribly complicated, though they may be
necessarily limited in various respects.
---
There are a number of reasons why the revenue base to be derived from
residential telephone subscribers cannot be compared to that of
businesses. I'll only mention a couple here.
First of all, note that the range of services that most residential
subscribers really need is comparatively limited. Oh yeah, there will
be all sorts of interesting services appearing that are directed
toward the residence customer, but any increase in the monthly bill by
more than a fairly small amount will probably be considered to be
quite extravagant by most people for quite some time.
Unlike residential users who mainly use the phone for personal
communications, businesses use the phone to make money. To the extent
that they can increase their business, they can justify larger outlays
of money for telecommunications services of various sorts. For the
residence customer, it's more a matter of convenience, since the new
features will rarely add to his or her income producing ability (at
least in most cases).
One additional point to consider: when a business wants new phone
services (at higher costs) they can usually pass those costs along in
some form to their customers, thusly spreading the cost increase quite
widely. Residential customers do not have such a capability. Any
increases they pay come strictly out of pocket -- and they usually
have nobody to whom they can "pass along" the new costs.
The end result of the above (and other) factors is that for the
forseeable future, a quite vivid disparity between the
telecommunications income potential of business and residential
subscribers is to be expected.
--Lauren--
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Date: 4 Oct 1983 2032-EDT
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Variable Day Plan
The person who mentioned this a few days ago probably thought he was
kidding -- but it's right there, on page 54 of FCC Tariff 1, filed 3
October, not yet approved:
The Variable Day Plan applies to dial station calls placed during
specified hours from phones in Nevada to Conus, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto
Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The discount is 20%, Monday thru Friday, 8-9 AM, Noon-1PM, and 4-5PM.
Expires April 17, 1984, unless sooner cancelled or extended.
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Date: Tue, 4 Oct 83 16:56:30 PDT
From: Theodore N. Vail <vail@UCLA-CS>
Subject: phone line limitations
In answer to the question:
Has anyone had any reason to believe that it is possible to exceed
the limit on the amount of equipment which can be placed on one
line? The ringing generator in a C.O. ought to be able to handle
quite a bit, and the duty cycle should not be enough to burn out
your pair in the cable, but it does seem that there might be a
limit.
------- Both the talking current and bell current are limited. So, if
you use ordinary instruments, there is a limitation, typically around
4 bells or instruments in use at one time. However, if your bells or
instruments are self-powered then there need be no specific
limitation.
vail
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End of TELECOM Digest
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