TELECOM@Usc-Eclb (07/01/82)
TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 1 July 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 81 Today's Topics: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 June 1982 20:14-EDT From: Mark Saltzman <MSALTZ at MIT-AI> Subject: AUTOVON (?) What *IS* Autovon? I was leafing through some recent issues and saw it mentioned along with something else... It said something about the government... Mark ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jun 82 22:29:51 EDT (Tue) From: Steve Bellovin <smb .unc@UDel-Relay> Subject: Re: Options for getting a second line for using a modem To: Kim.luria at Ucb-C70 Via: UNC; 30 Jun 82 0:31-EDT I concluded a few years back that if I was going to use my terminal at home at all, I had to have a second line. Too many people couldn't get through, and I felt too inhibited about using my terminal when I though someone might be trying. Call waiting is no good -- the tone will upset the machine, and you can't put the machine on hold to talk to the other party: all it will notice is that the carrier has gone away, so it will assume you've hung up. Whether or not you can get metered calling on one line and unlimited calling on the other is a matter for local tarrifs. As was discussed on this list some time back, such arrangements are often prohibited by the regulatory agencies. This is especially true for the ultra-cheap "life-line" services, such as they have in California. I don't know whether or not you have to tell the telco that one of your lines will be a data line; I never did, even when I was renting a modem from them. (And boy did that confuse matters -- they really couldn't deal well with data equipment on a residential line, especially since the order had to go through the Business Phone office in Raleigh, rather than the Residential Office here in Chapel Hill. And then I tried to combine it with a newly-tarriffed extended calling area feature -- it took at least a year to straighten out the paperwork enough to make them leave me alone about it, and for all I know they're still trying to figure it out -- I moved, and for assorted reasons (and at my request) they treated my new set of lines as a different account, apparently without a forwarding pointer.) ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jun 82 7:56:42-EDT (Wed) From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@BRL> cc: cmoore at BRL Subject: 900 area code I just read in Telecom of "dial shuttle" phone 900-410-6272. Are you sure that is a correct number (given the long discussions in this digest about N0X and N1X prefixes and their effect in NYC and in LA area)? Other uses of 900 as area code: Then-President Carter had a national dial-in set up for a Saturday afternoon in March(?) 1977, where the number used was 900-242-1611(?); and the "Dial-It national sports news is 900-976-1313 (latter costs 50 cents plus tax, and I got "900 serv" displayed in lieu of city name when my phone bill came). Incidentally, I heard that somebody in Milwaukee got flooded with calls for Carter call-in above (his number was same as Carter's call-in except for 414 area code); that a big consideration for Carter call-in was the other phone traffic (having something to do with the use of that 900 number); and that DC area calls for Carter call-in were routed by way of Wayne, Pa. [Most dial-it services use 900-976, and conveniently 976 is not a widely used prefix (212-976 is the same thing only local to NYC dial-it service numbers) --JSol] ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 30 June 1982 09:27-PDT From: KING at KESTREL Subject: TELECOM Digest V2 #80 I used a Vadic 1200/150 modem at home, where I have Call Waiting. The beep tone reliably busted the connection, leaving me free to observe this fact and pick up the phone, and later reestablish the severed connection. Of course, I have to be reasonably active at the terminal to notice promptly that the connection has been severed. I often, but not reliably, get garbage characters on the screen when the Call Waiting beep happens. Dick [And of course if your call lasts longer than the time it takes for your operating system to kill your job, assuming it even detaches it for you, you may have just lost several hours of editing for that poor call wait. Seems to me to be worth a second line. --JSol] ------------------------------ From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Dial-it service & hotels, coin phones, etc. It's a direct dial service and can't be used if it requires an operator's assistance. You could have left your home phone call forwarded to it, but that might have cost a bit and left your friends and telephone solicitors confused. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** -------