TELECOM%usc-eclb@brl-bmd.UUCP (06/23/83)
TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 22 June 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 28
Today's Topics: No, The Digest Is Not Dead
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Date: 22 June 1983 15:53-PST
From: The Moderator <JSol at USC-ECLC>
Subject: Where has TELECOM been?
I've been ill these past 8 weeks and have been unable to produce a
digest during that time. Please bear with me as I send out the backlog
of mail on the digest.
Also, due to time constraints, I did not produce a today's topics
section.
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Date: Wednesday, April 20, 1983 6:28PM-EST
From: Andrew Scott Beals <SJOBRG.ANDY%MIT-OZ@MIT-ML>
Subject: NE Bell
Has anyone had major problems with even 300 baud communicatins under
New England Bilge's service?
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Date: 21 Apr 1983 1044-PST
From: Wmartin@OFFICE-3 (Will Martin)
Subject: Cordless Headset-Phone
Just received a mail-order catalog of electronic gadgets and
noticed the following:
Hands-Free Cordless phone, #AD732446: $149.00 plus $4.50 shipping.
Unit is a clip-on-belt or pocketable 4 oz. black box with a keypad.
(The brand and name pictured on the unit itself is "Technidyne" "Hands
Free Go Fone".) The headset is a clip-on-the-ear lightweight
Walkman-type earphone with a boom mike (a little silver tube)
extending toward the mouth. (One inconsistency here -- the catalog
photo shows a model wearing one with an over-the-head band, but the
inset photo shows no headband, but just a behind-the-ear clip.) The
base unit is a woodgrain box with an hollowed-out area where the
portable unit can sit. I think it recharges the portable unit (there's
a control marked "charge" visible in the illustration) but the text
doesn't mention it.
The catalog is from SYNCHRONICS (Hanover, PA 17331)
Phone 1-800-621-5809 (in Il, 800-972-5858).
Maybe this is what is being looked for?
The catalog blurb indicates that they previously offerred a similar
model which did not have the keypad -- it was an answer-only phone.
Regards, Will Martin
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[UUCP readers - mail to ...!brl-bmd!telecom. Other addresses get
returned undeliverable --JSol]
>From harpo!hou2b!dvorak Mon Apr 18 13:21:31 1983 remote from decvax
Date: Mon Apr 18 09:48:39 1983
Subject: HANDS-FREE TELEPHONY
There has been a fair amount of inaccurate information appearing here with
regards to devices permitting hands-free audio. Note that in the comments
that follow, headsets are not included; rather, hands-free audio pertains to
a telephonic 'terminal' that has a microphone and a speaker that anyone nearby
can use.
For example, consider the traditional speakerphone. It is voice-switched,
which basically means that when it transmits, incoming signals are essentially
blocked. This feature is necessary to prevent talker 1 from having his voice
broadcast in talker 2's room, only to be picked up by talker 2's mike and fed
back to talker 1. Think of it as a half-duplex device as compared to the full-
duplex properties of two talkers each using handsets: No voice-switching, so
you can talk and listen simultaneously. More importantly, you can interrupt
the other person--which is the way in which real people communicate. But
with a speakerphone, when you can hear the person talking from a speakerphone,
then you know he cannot hear you. Supervisory personnel here at the Labs
routinely use these devices, although it is unclear whether it is (a) to
indicate their status, (b) have their hands free, (c) to be the live side of
a half-duplex channel, or (d) all of the above.
The 'rain-barrel' effect one gets when listening to someone on a speakerphone
is due to the reverbations within the room of the speakerphone. It is echo,
but multiple relections of short duration. No practical technology exists
to correct it other than acoustically treating the room.
Which brings up the Quorum (TM) Mike, a linear array of mikes in a vertical
stalk that overcomes the hypersensitivity of other systems to the
dependence of volume level on the distance of the speaker from the mike.
It's neat--a conference room full of people sit and speak at natural levels
no matter where they are relative to the mike. The receiving station hears
a fairly uniform level.
But it is NOT the case that the 'echo' problem is solved. The device is still
voice-switched, and acoustic treatment is necessary to avoid lots of reverb.
The high price ($1700 was quoted here last week) is testimony to the fact that
it is intended for business/educational use by rooms full of people who
choose to teleconference rather than travel.
Hope this all was of some help in clearing the air.
--Chuck Dvorak (floyd!hou2b!dvorak)
Bell Labs, Holmdel
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Date: 25 Apr 83 11:07:34 EDT
From: Gene Hastings <HASTINGS@CMU-CS-C>
Subject: Re: Sources of modular plugs & tools
To: smb.unc@UDEL-RELAY, smb.mhb5b.unc@UDEL-RELAY
Phone: 412/578-3803
In-Reply-To: Your message of 10 Apr 83 12:36:08 EST
I'm sending this again to various addresses, as the first
attempt got returned and the second my own mailer didn't like..
AMP makes everything: 4, 6, and 8-position plugs, jacks and
cable. I haven't gotten them to tell me what kind of availability or
pricing (particularly on tooling) they have.
Tools are available from Jensen at $140ea. for a single use tool.
Gene
P.S. We have found (empirically) that the Radio Shaft tools
break REAL EASY, but they don't mind replacing them (the first
time, anyway). They also don't always do an acceptable job of
closing the cord grip cam.
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Date: 3 May 83 15:59-EST (Tue)
From: Steven Gutfreund <gutfreund.umass-cs@UDel-Relay>
Return-Path: <gutfreund%umass-cs.UMASS-CS@UDel-Relay>
Subject: Teleports
Yesterday's NYT had an interesting article in the business section
about Teleports and the rising importance of telecomunications
(5/2/83).
The basic thesis is that while in the past, firms tended to locate
near rivers, good highways, and nearby natural resources (coal, lime,
electricity, etc). Now the importance of good access to various forms
of telecommunications is the key.
Examples:
In NYC the Microwave band is full up. Most firms have moved their
computer back offices to arizona, because of expensive leases and lack
of fully air-conditions offices in-city. Nevertheless, the
headquarters needs access to their machines. What is the answer if one
can't microwave?
The answer: A farm of satellite dishes on Staten Island connected
via fiber optics to downtown offices.
Landlords to seem to be realizing that good pbx and other telephoney
gear can attract tenants. Cited in the article are new buildings being
billed as having: local nets, shared communal WATTS lines (great for
incubator companies like those in First Cambridge), internal mixed
data and phone lines, internal teleconferncing. Also various motels
are looking at putting terminals in the rooms.
"At Harbor Bay Island, a residential and business community under
development in Alameda, Calif. near San Francisco, a high-speed
communications network will connect all homes and offices, and all
homes will be given personal computers, just as they are now provided
with ovens and ranges"
- Steven Gutfreund
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Date: 5 May 83 14:04:13 EDT (Thu)
From: cmoore@Brl-Vld.ARPA
Sender: cmoore@Brl-Vld.ARPA
cc: cmoore@brl-vld.arpa
As far as I know so far, the V&H tape does not indicate whether
prefixes with the same place name serve the same or different
geographic areas. The long way of checking this out is to compile
some addresses & phone #'s from the area in question.
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Date: 6 May 83 10:30:06 EDT (Fri)
From: smb@mhb5b
Return-Path: <smb%mhb5b%Mhb5b.UNC@UDel-Relay>
Subject: recording conversations
To: unc!telecom
Reply-To: smb@unc
What are the legal requirements for recording a conversation? I was
under the impression that it was legal as long as one of the parties
to the call consented; however, the phone book for the jurisdiction in
question (not mine; I'm asking for a friend) says that a beeper gadget
is required. Whose rule is that, the government's or the phone
company's? What happens if you ignore it?
--Steve Bellovin
smb.unc@udel-relay
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Date: 9 May 1983 11:32-PDT
From: John Gilmore <sun!gnu@Berkeley>
Subject: Charges for "touch tone lines"
My central office was recently upgraded to ESS, and Pacific Tel is now
chasing down subscribers who have been using touch-tone telephones on
lines that are not billed as providing touch tone service.
The line in question has never had a Bell System phone on it; it was
ordered as a plain line, for use with a DC Hayes Micromodem. They
charge $1.20/mo extra for touch-tone service, even when they don't
provide a phone, so I didn't get it. However, I later plugged in a
touch-tone phone and it worked fine.
It is my belief (someone who knows, please verify) that it doesn't
cost the phone company ANYTHING to provide touch-tone as opposed to
(or in addition to) rotary service on an ESS subscriber line. The
interface module is the same -- it's cheaper to have one kind than
two, and the interfaces are built with chips that understand both.
Furthermore, it costs the phone company money to gather the
information and administrate the collections from subscribers who are
using touch-tone and paying for rotary -- money that they presumably
recoup in the $1.20 charges for people they "catch".
Is there any real cost basis for rotary versus touch tone pricing?
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Date: Tue May 10 1983 23:20:45-PDT
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@LBL-CSAM>
Subject: Telecom Issues and C-SPAN
Just as a general note, I'd like to remind the readership that many of
the issues we've recently covered in this digest (including new
technologies, telephone rates and the Access Charge decision, etc.)
are discussed, by FCC Commissioners and other officials, on various
programs viewable on C-SPAN. This service (the Cable Satellite Public
Affairs Network) is available on many cable systems throughout the
U.S. Watch for listings like "Telecommunications Seminars" or "FCC
Proceedings". The former are particularly interesting since the very
issues in which we're interested are discussed quite frankly and
rather informally by persons who often actually know what they're
talking about!
These programs are usually taped by C-SPAN during the day and then run
on the network in the dead of night (C-SPAN spends most of the day on
more "general interest" programming including House of Representatives
proceedings.)
I strongly recommend these programs, and C-SPAN in general.
--Lauren--
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End of TELECOM Digest
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