TELECOM@Usc-Eclb (12/02/82)
TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 2 December 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 135
Today's Topics: DTMF Decoding Using An A/D Converter
Touchtone Decoding
NJ Areacode Boundaries
Telephony Books
Eastern DA Standards
No Matter What Country, Everyone Complains About The Phone Company
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Date: 1 Dec 1982 0116-EST
From: Bob Iannucci <Iannucci at MIT-XX>
cc: Iannucci at MIT-XX, Sirbu at MIT-MC
Subject: DTMF decoding using an A/D converter
A much easier (but not necessarily cheaper) scheme is to use Mitel's
latest DTMF chip (MT8870) which they herald as a "third generation
single chip DTMF receiver with single 5V power supply". It is
packaged as an 18 pin DIP, and is claimed to interface easily to a
microprocessor data bus. This is a new chip with which I have no
experience, but I would suspect it is worth investigating. A nice,
flashy ad appeared in the latest (November 30) issue of Electronics,
p. 34.
Bob Iannucci
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Date: 1 Dec 82 3:08:39-EST (Wed)
From: Ron Natalie <ron@BRL>
Subject: Touchtone decoding
While people are discussing touch tone decoding via various methods
let me put forward the WORST proposed way of doing it. This appeared
in the amatuer radion magazine QST a couple of years ago and signifies
it's declining technical quality. The circuit uses a large number
(greater than 24) of Phase Lock Loop tone decoders. In addition to
being more expensive in the long run than a commercial chip that does
everything, I can't seem to figure out why they need more than 24 tone
decoders. The twelve tones it decodes are made up of two tones each
so the most it could possibly use would seem to be 12 X 2 = 24.
However since there are really only 7 tones in use, you could get by
with 7 PLLs and 3 7400's. The article was submitted by a guy who
works for a company that sells etched PC boards, and was selling the
boards for the circuit in the article. Seems to me that his point was
to maximize the amount of PC board he could sell with each decoder.
-Ron
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Date: 1 Dec 82 10:54:46-EST (Wed)
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@BRL>
cc: cmoore at BRL
Subject: NJ areacode boundaries
Because most NJ points do not require 1+ for DDD, I have checked as
many cases as I can of NJ local service across areacode boundaries.
If 1+ is not required for DDD, then I have a prefix which can't exist
in a certain areacode! Example: Trenton, NJ (609 area) has local
service to 215-295 Morrisville, Pa., and does not require 1+ for DDD;
therefore, there is no 609-295.
I wrote the above because I have not been able to get my hands on the
calling instructions for Barnegat, NJ (609 area), which has local
service to Toms River (201). I have seen the Ocean County directory,
but the only calling instructions I found were for Toms River, not for
Barnegat.
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Date: 1 Dec 1982 12:51 EST
From: Axelrod.wbst at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V2 #134 - Telephony Books
Speaking of telephony books, I've seen a number of references to a
Bell document called "Notes on The Network". Is that worthwhile
having, and does anybody know how to go about ordering it? Thanks.
Art Axelrod
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Date: 1 Dec 1982 2308-EST
From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS>
Subject: Eastern DA standards
A while ago I managed to lay hands on a substantial piece of the local
directory that DA uses [This was back before they had the online
database]. It has *all* listings, but for those that aren't
published, there is a little ''NP'' where the number should go. This
thing was about 2 inches thick [white pages only], has something like
4 columns [so the paper is this large ungainly size], and except for
that looks like a regular phone book, same printing and all. When I
was working for them, I could see the lackeys going about during the
day distributing new pages that the operators would replace old pages
with. So, instead of telling you there is no listing for a NP number,
they can say it's nonpublished [and frustrate you even more].
_H*
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Date: 24 Nov 1982 1824-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: No matter what country, everyone complains about
the phone company
[The following is a large (13K) article about the German Post Office
(which doubles as the phone company). This is the last message in
this digest, therefore readers not interested in this topic need not
read any further. --JSol]
Robbers from the Post Office
Stern, 18. November 1982
Tens of thousands of
citizens suspect that
the Post Office is
collecting excessive
Telephone charges.
There are 150,000 sources
of error which can lead
to overcharges on the
telephone bill.
The monthly drawing is not public. No official ensures that
the device is in proper working order. The twenty-two
million participants may only hope that they won't be one of
the losers in the great Telephone Fee Lottery at the German
Federal Post Office.
One of the unlucky ones is insurance salesman Ingomar
Nitsche in Schwelm. For months he got by for about 180
units at 23 Pfennig each. "Then suddenly I had to pay for
564 units, and I hadn't used the telphone anymore than
before," he said.
Things went much the same way for Irmhild Pawalek in
Ennepetal. For seven years the thrifty housewife spent
about 45 Marks per month. This summer the state telephone
company, blessed with profits in the billions, suddenly
demanded ten times as much. Frau Pawalek was said to have
telephoned away 461.45 Marks.
And Irmgard Fahrin, housewife in the Saarland, upon seeing
her telephone bill this April, wondered if she had actually
"congratulated every monkey in Africa on Mothers' Day." In
any case, she had no explanation for the 2058 units which
had been presented to her in the bill.
The three examples stand out from the tens of thousands of
citizens who feel they have been hit up by the Post Office.
83,000 complaints from telephone customers were recorded by
the Federal Postal Ministry just last year. Fully 23,000
times the yellow giant had to admit that it had snatched too
much from its customers.
Irmhild Pawalek got money back as well: 422.61 Marks. The
Post Office explained that a circuit malfunction was
present. The admission came late. Three complaints
remained fruitless for some time. Once the local paper had
reported about the "Post Office Robbers" an official
arrived, made a few calls from Frau Pawalek's set and
presented his employer with a certificate of good health:
"Everything totally in order."
Tough going for those who complain
Only after the Duesseldorf Consumer Center took up the case
and brought influence to bear upon the responsible telephone
office in Hagen did the Post Office agree to look more
thoroughly into the matter and finally to give in.
Technical malfunctions and human error during fee
calculation are the order of the day in telephone offices.
The Dortmund Area Headquarters admitted that there are
150,000 possible sources of error. The most common cause
are faulty connections in the lines and functional failures
in the switching apparatus.
For example, upon overhearing the conversation of another
user during a call, one must count on getting not only one's
own fees, but also the fee for the other call slapped onto
his meter. Technicians speak in such cases of "Crosstalk
suppression". The charge impulse from one timing machine
can run up both message registers.
Overcharges can also come about if a backhoe runs into a
Post Office cable. Then the charge impulse generator goes
crazy and annoys entire sections of town with extra charges.
The most common indication that something is foul:
crackling during the connection. Then it is recommended
that one immediately interrupt the call and dial again.
A further failure can surface when making calls to other
countries. As soon as the ringing of the desired party
begins in Denmark or Italy the charge impulses let loose.
This only becomes evident to an individual citizen when --
as happened to Hamburg postal customer Ewald Steinhoff --
the counter turned completely around. 227,624 Marks and 18
Pfennig was the amount the Hamburg Area Postal Headquarters
wanted from him. This record-making failure cleared itself
up rather rapidly.
But practically noone notices anything if he is burdened
with 20 or 30 Marks too much. The Union of Postal Users in
Offenbach presents a high figure. It estimates that a half
million bills containing overcharges are sent to postal
customers each year.
Those who complain don't have an easy procedure. The
disadvantaged customer, not the Post Office, must prove that
he kept his telephone calls short. Even the courts usually
start by assuming that the high telephone bill is correct.
As a rule, the Post Office need only claim that it found no
technical malfunctions when reviewing the case. The state
operation prefers to place blame for gigantic bills on third
parties: "The most common cases of presumable overcharges
can be traced back to secret calls made by children,
cleaning ladies, or neighbors who had the key to the
residence during a vacation."
There is something in that. An unguarded and unlocked
telephone leads to toll theft. And the peace at home is
disturbed when suddenly the demand from the telephone office
is higher than the monthly rent payment. But unlike the
case with the public utilities providing electricity, gas,
and water, the postal customer seldom has the opportunity to
check his usage on a tried and true meter.
The Post Office will, indeed, provide sets with meters.
However, what is displayed on the meter is not accepted by
the Post Office as proof. Manfred Bergman from the Federal
Post Ministry: "These meters are never as good as the
meters in the local exchange."
Maybe they aren't good, but they are expensive: 40 Marks
one-time installation charge and then every month the toy
costs another 5.70 Marks. The Union of Postal Users
nonetheless recommends your own meter. Director Wilhelm
Huebner recommends that in addition to that, every single
telephone call and the associated message units should be
noted in writing -- a piece of work that seems difficult to
demand. In court the postal customer still only has a real
chance when he can prove that a lock in the dial had made
misuse impossible.
Customers who make use of one of the new push button
dialling telephones have tough luck. These do not allow a
lock on the dial. The monopoly at the Post Office, which is
currently heavily advertising these convenient push button
devices, is not only improving its profits, but is also
improving its strong position of power against the users.
Customers are made subjects of the State Monopoly
The cornerstone of the postal monopoly was laid in 1595. In
that year Kaiser Rudolf II granted the Lord of Thurn and
Taxis the post of Head Postmaster-General. What the Lords
of Thurn and Taxis once were, is today the Postal Minister
in Bonn, currently Christian Schwarz-Schilling of the
Christian Democratic Union, who replaced the Social
Democrats Gscheidle and Matthoefer.
As in the Age of Empire, the citizens are not seen as
customers, but as subjects of the state monopoly. Then as
well as today no prices are requested for services, rather
fees are "levied."
The citizen still can't simply buy a telephone; he must
"apply" for one, and, if he is lucky, there will be no long
waiting time before one is loaned to him to be used
carefully and properly. Only in the last few years has the
subscriber been able to choose from a variety of sets, at a
higher price, it must be understood.
If the subscriber would like to have a longer cord, maybe
because his chair is seven meters away from the connection
box, the accomodation capability of the Post Office is
already exceeded: It cuts, by maxim, only lengths of at
least three and at most six meters from its cable drums.
Seven meters are beyond the rules -- and cost extra.
If the telephone wants to ring, then it must be allowed to
do so. The customer is forbidden by Postal-Edict to shut
off the bell if he would like to have some peace. Those who
do it anyway -- and many do -- run the danger that the
authority will shut off service.
"The right of the Post Office should stop outside the home"
One who has fought the almighty decrees of the Yellow
Monopoly for years is Engineer Ulrich Jochimsen from
Flensburg. He was advisor to three Postal Ministers and
Director of a scientific institute for communications
technology and systems research. Since then the engineer
has given up on reforming the Post Office from the inside.
Because, the communications expert says, "The word
'monopoly' means single. At the Post Office this has led to
single-mindedness."
The internationally trained specialist Joachimsen even sees
an unconstitutional reach into the private sphere of the
citizen in the operation of the Postal Monopoly: "The right
of the Post Office should stop outside the home." The
monopoly must restrict itself to the installation and
maintenance of a network. The customer must have the right,
as in other countries, to connect devices of his own
choosing at the end of the line: "After all, the electric
utilities don't have the idea that they should proscribe
which television set, which toaster, which iron, or which
heating pad can be used."
Jochimsen: "If the market were opened up here we would
create desperately needed jobs and might also again gain
technical advantage over other countries."
What is presumed impossible in the Federal Republic has long
been standard practice in the USA -- to the advantage of the
customers. There many private telephone companies compete
and can only remain in the market through high standards.
So the telephone customers in New York obtain detailed bills
for each telephone call. Complaints are, as a rule,
acknowledged without bureaucratic problems. Sets with all
technically possible finesse are available in every
department store. Naturally the collect call, eliminated in
the Federal Republic, is available, and at every street
corner there are telephone booths, at which one can also
receive calls.
Such a useful service is unknown here. Ulrich Jochimsen
believes he knows why: "That is a remainder from the Nazi
era. In that time the Gestapo wanted to prevent resisters
from being able to make contact with each other without
being overheard or identified." In Europe, with the
exception of the Federal Republic, only the East Bloc
retains this principle. The Federal Post Office argues:
"The telephone booths are there so that outgoing calls can
be made. If one could dial them, they would be tied up." In
order to eliminate growing criticism over their high-handed
customer tutelage, the Post Office has finally agreed to at
least start a trial of dialable telephone booths in
Frankfurt.
There are other things the Federal Post Office could also
learn from foreign postal authorities. In Denmark, for
example, overpayments at payphones do not immediately
disappear, never to be seen again. The device holds the
overpayment for further calls -- even for the next customer.
Here, whoever throws in a 1 Mark coin to make a 20 Pfennig
call hears his money rattle loudly, and then it's gone.
Telephone rates support the letter service
This 500,000 man company is more inventive than almost any
other undertaking when it comes to collecting money. The
Post Office even levies fees for authorizing delayed payment
of fees. On the balance sheets all this looks good. In
1981 the Post Office took altogether more than
24,000,000,000 Marks from its customers and used that to
support other services which, -- like the shipment of
letters or packages -- regularly operate at a loss.
This year the income from telephone charges will be even
higher. The CDU/CSU, which protested loudly against the
last rate increase, wanted to see the reduced
moonlight-tariff for calls after 10 PM reinstated, and did
not want to see the billions in profits ooze away in the
Federal budget, has suddenly changed its mind now that it is
in power.
The new Federal Postal Minister Schwarz-Schilling has
already made firm plans for using up the expected increased
revenue and is leaving everything else in addition to the
charges the same as before. Only one thing was promised:
Telephoning will not become more expensive -- at least not
until 1984.
Heiko Tornow
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End of TELECOM Digest
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