TELECOM@Usc-Eclb (07/24/82)
TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 23 July 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 91
Today's Topics: French DA Project
Rate Quoting Systems
Who's Going To Make Cellular Radios
Dial-A-joke & Dial-A-Prayer Move Over ==> Dial-FREE-Sex!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 22 July 1982 1648-PDT (Thursday)
From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: French DA project
For the record, the French project is actually rather simplistic in
terms of technology. The terminals being handed out are very cheap
CRT's with simple (not full alphanumeric) keyboards. They would not
be useful for fullscale "normal" computer usage, though perhaps they
would be adequate for Viewdata types of queries (I don't think they
have that capability right now, however. Viewdata generally assumes
color monitors for full effect, and these are simple monochrome
CRT's). I'm not too sure what baud rate they are using for the
project. It would either be 300 or 1200/150 split (the Viewdata
standard).
There is already a considerable backslash to the whole project forming
in France. Many persons object to having to hassle with making a
phone call (apparently charged at regular metered local rates!) to
reach the service. Since the plan is to discontinue the mass
publishing of most phone books, people feel that they are being
"railroaded" into using a technology that in many instances will be
LESS convenient to use than the phone book (you have to go to the room
where the terminal is located, you can't look up a number if somebody
else is using the phone, you pay for the call, etc.)
All in all, the public reaction to the plan has been very mixed.
--Lauren--
------------------------------
Date: 22 Jul 1982 2053-EDT
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
Subject: Rate Quoting Systems
Rate quoting voice-response computers have been around for years; I
remember hearing them as early as 1968 in the Washington, D.C. area.
They all work by having an on-line copy of the V&H coordinate data
base, which also contains info like operators route (how to reach an
operator closer to the destination) and which digits to check for
collect calls to avoid coin phones.
The systems provide different amounts of information based on the
input format. If just an NPANXX is entered, info about which phones
are coin stations and how to reach the distant operator is provided.
If NPANXXNPANXX is entered, the rate step between the two points will
be the reply. Credit (calling) card validation can also be done.
Some of the systems also allow NPANXXNPANXX+timeofday+number
ofminutes+typeofcall to be entered. The cost of the call is the
response. Note that to do this, the only additional online database
required is the translation of a few rate steps into cost. The big
database with V&H info is required just to get the rate step.
Back in the old days of cord switchboards with MF pads for the
operators, these systems were reached by dialing the operator code
assigned to them. When they answered it was with an MF receiver, so
the operator just keyed the input.
On TSPS, which does not have an MF pad under control of the operator,
calls to RQS were handled by a sequence which looked like an overseas
sequence, because TSPS could only do "dual- stage-outpulsing" (dialing
one number, waiting for response, and then outpulsing additional
digits) when handling overseas calls, which currently also work this
way (your CO or TSPS dials up an overseas sender, then blasts the
overseas country code and number at the sender). Newer generics in
TSPS have a special program specifically for RQS.
Operator training is different from place to place. In some places,
operator work time is considered so important, that the extra time
involved in putting one TSPS loop on hold and going to another to
place the call (not to mention the slight bit of extra equipment put
to work) is frowned upon, and operators are encouraged to make these
kind of calls (to the computer RQS or to rate-and-route operators)
with the customer on the line. In other places, the phone com- pany's
secrecy madness takes over, and these kind of calls are always placed
with the customer on hold.
------------------------------
Date: 22 Jul 82 23:53:43-PST (Thu)
From: Stef.uci at UDel-Relay
Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V2 #90
Via: UCI; 23 Jul 82 5:54-EDT
According to an article in Business Week some months ago (reference
lost), Motorola has a product for cellular radio called a DYNATAC,
which, when I tried it out after I found someone who had loan of one,
performed very well indeed. Stef
------------------------------
Date: 22 Jul 1982 2028-PDT
Sender: GEOFF at SRI-CSL
Subject: Dial-A-joke & Dial-A-Prayer move over ==> Dial-A-Sex!
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow
Reply-To: Geoff at SRI-CSL
a226 1343 21 Jul 82
AM-Dialing for Sex, Bjt,560
2,000 Callers An Hour For 'Free Phone Sex'
By RICK HAMPSON
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Dial-a-Prayer, Dial-a-Joke and other prerecorded
telephone message lines have been joined by an X-rated newcomer named
''Free Phone Sex'' whose callers range from curious youngsters to
bored night-shift workers.
''We're averaging 2,000 calls an hour,'' many of them long
distance, said Ira Kirschenbaum, vice president of High Society
magazine.
The call-in line is designed to bolster sales of the magazine,
which features pictures of naked women in various sexual poses and is
described by Kirschenbaum as ''strictly a girlie book.''
The prerecorded, three-minute ''message'' is an audio
accompaniment to a series of photos in the monthly magazine that
illustrate a prurient story line.
Kirschenbaum said 1.5 million calls have been received in the two
months since the magazine opened the line. ''A lot of people call
again and again. The phone company is making a lot of money,'' he
added. to the New YSYMPATHETIC. [I received it garbled --JSol] ''I
understand how they feel,'' he said. ''Once I found my son was calling
a Santa Claus line seven times a day at 50 cents a call.''
Telephone company spokesman on both sides of the border said there
was nothing that could be done to prevent anyone from operating a sex
line. ''We are not censors,'' said Mark Kenville, a spokesman for New
York Telephone. ''Telephone conversations are none of our business,
except when it's an annoyance call.''
Kenville confirmed that the ''Free Phone Sex'' line's 60 recording
devices are deluged with an estimated average of 42,000 calls an hour,
only 2,000 of which get through.
Charles Hernandez of the Federal Communications Commission said his
agency had no jurisdiction over such calls. Telephone wires, unlike
the airwaves, are not public, and telephone users are not licensed, he
noted.
''We get complaints, but people call these numbers of their own
free will. No one forces them to listen,'' he said.
Kirschenbaum said it is too early to tell if the recording will
boost circulation. Regardless, he said, the magazine plans to
supplement sounds and pictures with more words. ''We need some
socially redeeming content,'' he explained.
[The telephone number for the prerecorded sex conversation
is 212-883-8877]
The AP
ap-ny-07-21 1644EDT
------------------------------
End of TELECOM Digest
**********************
-------