Aucbvax.2996 fa.telecom utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!telecom Tue Sep 8 05:00:30 1981 TELECOM Digest V1 #11 >From JSol@RUTGERS Tue Sep 8 00:13:53 1981 TELECOM AM Digest Sunday, 6 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 11 Today's Topics: Foreign Exchange vs. Selective Calling Voice Input Systems by Phone Natural Disasters and Their Effects on Local Switching AT&T and Data Processing - Recent FCC Rulings ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 September 1981 01:42-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon Subject: Foreign Exchange Service, Vs. Selective Calling There seems to be a bit of confusion over terms here. Foreign Exchange service is specifically service which originates in the city or town you wish your local calling area to be. Usually these lines travel over reserved Toll lines (2 pair separated transmit and receive), and special arrangements are made to allow you to dial (if you use a dial phone) calls from here over that line. Selective calling, on the other hand, is the ability for a customer to select his local calling area range (given usually in "zones"), with the cheapest service having the smallest calling area. Normally this service is made available to suburban areas who desire access to their city on a local basis. The Boston area has this service (called "Metropolitan" service) which allows the surrounding areas to call Boston as a local call. With ESS this is a simple twiddling of bits in your "phone line status word" (similar to the priviledge word for an account on many computers), Crossbar and Step Switching usually requires some mechanical set of jumpers which permits you to dial these calls as a local call (i.e. without prefixing it with a "1"). Sometimes Phone Companies simply tell you to place the call as if it was a toll call, and then they will bill you at some smaller rate or at flat rate, in which case you only need to tell the local final billing computer not to include these calls on your bill. /Jsol ------------------------------ Date: 5 September 1981 02:34-EDT From: Eliot R. Moore Foreign exchange service is a nice thing, and here in Los Angeles it is offered extensively - a customer in an outlying suburb can easily get L.A. Metro service. In the case of the Metro service, many exchanges have an entire prefix or prefixes reserved solely for foreign exchange service from one CO to Los Angeles. There is some form of mileage fee associated, but it is not the normal $1.60 per quarter mile. (A normal phone is $6.00/mo, LA service is $11.70) For other areas, I assume the rates differ slightly. There is also normal foreign exchange service, which I also have. A lot of people use it to hop across telephone companies. I live in Pacific (Bell), but I have a GTE phone...[yes, one does do that] Since your handset is still going through your local C.O., and mine is all crossbar, I would assume [cautiously] that the service will function on step equipment also. As for what good it will do you... A while back the CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) came up with a wonderous toll system called ZUM (Zone Usage Measurement) in which all calls within an 8 mile radius of a specified point were designated Zone 1, 12 miles Zone 2, and 16 miles Zone 3. Beyond that is intra-city long distance. Zone one calls are "local", costing 3 cents for the first minute and 1 cent each minute thereafter, or nothing on unlimited service. Zone 2 and 3 are 5/3 and 7/4 respectively. A 35% discount applies 5PM-11PM and a 60% discount applies 11PM-8AM. This is all fine and dandy, however many of us are used to calling places 40 miles away for free... ZUM, however, has in mind to shrink our local calling areas drastically. For those of us who still need to make calls to far away areas frequently would opt for ORTS (flat-rate calling to a specified C.O. within 40 miles) but the CPUC changed that too... its now usage-sensitive. The last resort is paying mileage fees to faraway exchanges. This was also fine and dandy up until August 29, 1981; at that time, all flat rate foreign exchange service was frozen in Pacific Telephone. Now if one gets an FX phone, it is usage-sensitive... you pay per minute, which is the ultimate goal of our beloved Commission. [My last one was installed August 23rd] FX service is a good buy if it costs you less per month than the other available services. Most importantly, steer clear of usage sensitive pricing... Maybe Lauren or IHM can put it in better prospective... Eliot ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1981 23:55:21-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: voice-input computer systems The Fidelity group of mutual funds uses a voice-input system to give the current yields on their various funds. You dial their 800 number (allegedly up 24 hours a day; it's answered the phone exactly twice when I've tried it), and recite (one at a time) the two-digit code for the fund you're interested in. You can make up to three queries in one call. It's error detection isn't too good; it treated "gibble" as a digit, though I don't recall which one.... ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1981 0824-EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Foreign exchange service - the real way & the Maryland hack Foreign exchange service is available just about everywhere in the country -- where facilities permit (the standard proviso). The physical connection differs depending on how far away the exchange is from you. I have a foreign exchange line here which is provided from the next town; it is provided by using a real pair of wires in the interoffice cable, plus a two-wire repeater (the model E6 is a commonly used one). On a much longer distance FX the circuit will be converted to a four-wire circuit and will be put up through carrier (i.e. multiplexed along with all the other long distance traffic) then converted back to two wire (either in the CO or on the premises where the phone is located). Each of these circuits is individually "engineered," as the telephone company will explain when they are late installing one for you. HOWEVER, the service which is provided in the Maryland suburbs between Washington and Baltimore is drastically different. In this case, what you get is a plain, vanilla line from your local CO. But a special NXX is reserved for customers who have this service. For LOCAL area calling, this NXX is "declared to be in a different town" and you pay a special mileage charge from your town to that town. It is somewhat lower than the mileage charges which you would incur if they were providing real FX service. For interstate calls, the exchange is still declared to be where it really is. Since you have a special NXX, you can both make and receive calls as though you were located in the foreign exchange. So this is quite different than, for example, Metro service offered to Concord, Mass. customers which allows them to make calls to the whole Metro area, but doesn't give a break to any incoming calls. ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 5 Sep 1981 10:03-PDT To: Telecom at MIT-AI Subject: Los-Angeles Earthquake & Telephones From: nomdenet at RAND-UNIX The Southern California earthquake, Friday (9/4) at 8:51 a.m., disrupted the telephone system somewhat. Home at the time and not worried because the quake seemed minor, 5-10 minutes later I picked up my telephone to make a data connection to work -- but no dial tone. Finally, after 5-10 seconds, I got a dial tone. Intrigued, I tried taking the receiver off hook a few times, and encountered delays in this same 5-10 second neighborhood. Once I got tone, my call went through with no further problems. The February, 1971, earthquake also affected the telephone system. (Lauren, didn't you write in Human-Nets that TPC had to "turn off" the 213 area to incoming calls?) From those who follow the various Bell publications, I would appreciate hearing about anything written concerning the earthquake's disruption. Reply to the mailing list if appropriate (OK, JSol?), otherwise to me. A. R. White Nomdenet @ Rand-UNIX [Sure - if there are too many of them I may send them out in a supplementary issue -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1981 12:24:20-PDT From: ihuxl!jej at Berkeley Subject: Touch-Tone vs. Dial Pulse I doubt that this is a complete answer, but in the book *The Biggest Company on Earth*, it is mentioned that it is easier for subhumans to commit mayhem on dial coin phones by prying off the dial; hence some justification for a switch from dial to Touch-Tone pay phones. James Jones (ihuxl!jej) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1981 14:06:36-PDT From: IngVAX.geoff at Berkeley Subject: Judge Approves AT&T Expansion Copyright (C) 1981, Washington Post Company, Saturday, September 5, 1981 A federal judge yesterday gave American Telephone and Telegraph Co. permission to compete for the first time in the computer and data-processing business -- a ruling that could have an explosive impact on the future of the telecommunications industry. Handing the Communications giant a major victory in its bid to enter lucrative new business areas, Judge Vincent P. Biunno of the U.S. District Court in New Jersey ruled that AT&T could offer data-processing because it is a communications service. Under a consent decree AT&T signed with the government 25 years ago, the company has been barred from offering any noncommunications service. Until yesterday's ruling, that meant AT&T could not offer computer services. "It seems to the court beyond dispute that AT&T ... will be engaging in the business of furnishing communications services and facilities" by providing data-processing services, Biunno wrote. The ruling was handed down from the New Jersey court because that was here the original 1956 consent decree was filed. The decision means that beginning as early as March 1, AT&T will be able to become a direct competitor with International Business Machines Corp. and other major computer companies. What's more, the Bell System will be able to offer a wide variety of telephone equipment and services, ranging from the black rotary-dial phone to highly sophisticated computer services, without any of the government pricing restraints it now must follow. The judge's decision, however, by no means puts to rest the current congressional debate over AT&T's future structure and its role in the telecommunications industry. Congress is considering legislation to allow AT&T to offer data communications services, although it would bar the communications giant from offering electronic newspapers and up-to-the minute advertising. Debate on the issue is expected to continue shortly after Congress returns from its August recess. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.