TELECOM@Usc-Eclb.ARPA (04/07/83)
TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 7 April 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 21
Today's Topics:
Phone Rates Ebb And Flow - Calling Cards
Cable TV - Local Loop Data Services
Data Call Conferencing (2 Msgs)
Long Distance Access Charge
Bill To Third Number vs. Calling Card Calls
Zipcodes & Prefix Designations
Modems - Bill To Third Number: Operator's Point Of View
Speaker Phones And Ringer Equivs
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Date: Sun Apr 3 1983 02:18:17-PST
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@lbl-csam>
Subject: misc.
Greetings. Some brief comments on several previous messages:
1) Telephone rates: I'll give you 3:1 that, within the next couple
of years, we'll see Congress heavily modify the structure of the
FCC actions (and court actions, where possible) regarding AT&T and
the broader issues of affordable telephone service. Once the folks
back home really understand how high rates are going, they'll be
knocked out of their stupor and will be screaming bloody murder!
Watch and see.
2) Calling Cards: Very briefly, calling cards allow for fully
automated call handling, and anything that reduces reliance on
human operators can result in faster (and, *theoretically*,
cheaper) calls. Calling cards are also important to help reduce
telephone fraud. Billing of calls to a third number is now being
restricted to cases where an actual positive response can be
obtained from a person at that third number. Up until this change,
illicit third party billings have been a serious problem for telcos
and a real inconvenience for many subscribers. Since calling cards
now include a changeable PIN (Personal Identification Number), they
can provide a fair degree of security. Not perfect by any means,
but better than nothing.
3) Competition from cable TV companies: During a speech I made at
Bell Labs last summer, I said that "most cable TV companies make
General Telephone look good." It's still true. Most cable
operators are hardly competent to redistribute local off-air
signals with reasonable quality, much less properly handle
satellite equipment. To expect most of them to provide reasonable
communications/data services is a total joke. Another problem is
that many large cities are badly fragmented when it comes to cable
service -- and each company in the area may run an entirely
different sort of system with different forward and reverse
capabilities.
In the Los Angeles area, for example, there are no less than ten
completely separate cable companies operating in different areas.
Most of them are under continual fire for providing atrocious basic
service. To think of them providing "advanced" communications/data
type services is ludicrous. Many other parts of the country are in
a similar situation.
4) Residential Data Services: The way basic telephone service rates
are shooting up, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out how
such services as data communications will be priced.
I have been asked by several persons to comment on the recent
message where a Bell Labs official was quoted as saying that some
(very high) percentage of telephone lines could support data
services. The statement was simply that the *capability* to handle
medium speed data was (or will be) present on most local loops.
This of course does *not* mean that the modems required to actually
provide such services will be priced cheaply -- just that most
loops could support them if the user was willing to pay the price.
--Lauren--
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Date: 3 Apr 83 20:40:11 PST (Sun)
From: jlapsley%D.CC@Berkeley
Subject: Data Conference Calls
A possible solution, if you have enough money, is to use a fancy
modem such as the D.C. Hayes Smartmodem. It allows the user to turn
off the carrier in either answer or originate mode, allowing the
monitoring of communications. Unfortunately, when I say "monitoring,"
I mean "monitoring" and nothing else, since the carrier is turned off.
Because of the lack of carrier, you can't transmit. Still, if you
only want to display data, this might be one way of doing it. Also,
some modems now have a side input jack for playing data into them from
a tape recorder. This, too, might be worth checking out.
Phil Lapsley
(d.jlapsley@Berkeley)
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Date: 4 Apr 1983 0036-EST
From: Richard K. Braun <BRAUN at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Modem conferencing
The problems found in trying to wire up 3 or more modems on the same
circuit aren't surprising. To work properly, each one would have to
be allocated its own separate send and receive frequencies.
There is an obvious solution, though. You set up N modems at the
master site, connected to one machine thru separate terminal lines,
and use separate phone lines to talk to each site. (Doesn't matter
which end is originating or answering). The extra costs of this
approach are the extra modems and phone lines, which are most likely
already present at any fair-size computer facility. Software to tie
them all together isn't too tough, until you get into fancy things
like splitting up the screen into N sections so the users can all type
in their own zones simultaneously, etc.
Regards, Rich
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Date: 4 Apr 1983 0839-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: The "Long Distance" Charge
This has been explained here many times before, but questions seem to
keep coming back up:
Everyone will have to pay the Long Distance charge, no matter whose
long distance service they use. In fact, the long distance charge is
there precisely so you can use whichever long distance service you
prefer.
In the past, a VERY large part of your local telephone company's
income came from money they received from AT&T as a commission for
providing a service to AT&T -- the service of connecting local
telephones to the nationwide long distance network. This was paid by
AT&T to every local telephone company, Bell Company or Independent.
It was an incredibly complex system of calculations.
But now, anyone who wants can provide long distance service. If you
read your newspapers, you'll see adds not just for AT&T, Sprint, and
MCI, but for Citicall, Skyline, and more.
The courts have decided that the system of commissions won't work in
the new multi-network environment. Since the local telephone
companies have to have a way to recover that income (or they'll go
broke, and you won't have any service at all), it's going to have to
be paid by you.
Why isn't it based on the cost of your long distance calls? This
could cause your local company to give preferential treatment to
long-distance carriers with higher rates, so that they get a larger
commission.
Why isn't it based on number of minutes talking long distance?
Because your local telephone company may not be equipped to measure
your con- versation time through all the different long distance
carriers.
But eight dollars per phone seems high to me. Especially since AT&T's
total Toll revenue last year (Message, WATS, and private line) was
$33.26x10^9, or only $133.03 per person.
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Date: 4 Apr 83 11:02:15 PST (Monday)
From: lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Subject: Re: Calling card query
Pacific Telephone recently announced that they would no longer allow
you to charge a call to another phone (not the caller or callee) until
the operator receives permission from someone at the phone receiving
the charges. Of course if you have to ask to charge it to your home
phone (the usual case), you won't be home to give the operator
permission. The fact that Pac Tel is pushing the use of their Calling
Cards in such situations seems to indicate that they realize (but
weren't explicityly admitting) that the new policy was in essence
discontinuing a service that many people use, at least occasionally.
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Date: 5 Apr 83 14:52:52 EST (Tue)
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@Brl-Vld.ARPA>
cc: cmoore@Brl-Vld.ARPA
Subject: zipcodes & phone prefixes
Is the info regarding areas served by particular exchanges available
(along the lines of the zipcode directory)? I know that a phone
prefix will, in general, serve a wider area than 5-digit zipcode, but
it does come in handy when you are not very familiar with a given
area.
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Date: 5 Apr 1983 2339-EST
From: Hobbit <AWalker@RUTGERS>
Subject: Modems and 3rd number fraud
If you're willing to hack some hardware, you can do something like the
following:
You want modem A to initiate a link by calling modem B, and then put
modem C online to log all that passes between modems A and B. This is
how I see your intent. Ideally, you would have modem C grab its
extension, and presumably under software control, first see if there
is a valid carrier on the line. If so, then listen to it, but don't
*transmit*, because that would interfere with A and B's protocol. You
would have to install something that would prevent modem C's sending
signal from reaching the line, and to effectively fake it into
believing that it is really online in both directions. If you're
using acoustic modems, it would be like removing the microphone disk
from C's handset. The incoming carrier would kick C into action, but
its answering tone would never get to the line. With direct-connect,
you could probably install something in the path of the sent signal
that would disable its getting out under certain conditions.
The next step after this is to interface two receive-only modems to
your micro, one in answer mode and one in originate mode, and have a
program to display both sides of a given ''conversation'' on a split
screen. I had the notion to build such a thing for diagnosing modem
line problems a while back; it more or less stagnated because there
are much easier ways to troubleshoot.
As regards 3rd-number billing: When I was hacking TSPS, we used to get
obviously fraudulent 3rd-number calls all day long. These were ones
in which someone would call home and 3rd charge, say ''come pick me
up'' and then hang up and leave. The lose was that we were *required*
to connect the original call first, and then go check the billed-to
number for verification. By the time the 3rd party answered and said
''no'' [if they answered at all], the original call was over and done
with. If the attempt to get the calling party to stick money in the
pay phone failed, it was passed off as a loss. When I brought all
this to the attention of the management [of course they knew all about
it already], they informed me that it was company policy and there was
nothing they could do about it. And you wonder why I left?? They
seem to have finally seen the light now.
_H*
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Date: 6 April 1983 00:37 EST
From: Richard P. Wilkes <RICK @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Speaker Phones and Ringer Equivs
Two unrelated questions:
I have been looking for a speakerphone that does not inflict the
echo-chamber effect on whoever happens to be on the other end. I
currently have one of the Radio Shack speakerphones but the echo is
horrible and the voice activated circuit makes the conversation almost
unintelligible (why can't I talk and listen at the same time?)
Anyway, if anyone has had any positive experience with a brand of
speakerphone, I would appreciate hearing from you.
Next question: what is the "maximum" total ringer equivalence that I
can hook onto one phone line? What happens if this is exceeded?
Thanks. -r <Rick at MIT-MC>
<zza_a116.jhu@UDEL-RELAY>
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