TELECOM Digest     Sun, 14 Mar 93 20:12:00 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 176

Index To This Issue:                      Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

   Re: An Alarming Circuit ID Technique! (Dave Levenson)
   Re: An Alarming Circuit ID Technique! ([email protected])
   Re: US Post Office Not Caught up With Modern Technology? (H. Hallikainen)
   Re: US Post Office Not Caught up With Common Technology? (Lars Poulsen)
   Re: US Post Office Not Caught up With Common Technology? (Dave Levenson)
   Re: US Post Office Not Caught up With Common Technology? (Marvin Sirbu)
   Re: Cellular System A and B Info Wanted (Brad S. Hicks)
   Re: Cellular System A and B Info Wanted (Harold Hallikainen)
   Re: AT&T Free Time Rewards ([email protected])
   Re: Modem Doesn't Answer But Line is Ringing (Dan Danz)
   Re: Internet Access From Home (Carl Oppedahl)
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From: [email protected] (Dave Levenson)
Subject: Re: An Alarming Circuit ID Technique!
Organization: Westmark, Inc.
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 05:56:45 GMT


In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (that's
me) writes:

> NJ Bell recently spent two weeks installing two private lines between
> my business and residence locations.  The endpoints are actually about
> six miles apart, and are both served by the same central office.

> Well, now the lines work as tariffed.  I have voice and data service
> between my house and my office.  And except for the readers of this
> article, nobody will ever know ...

> [Moderator's Note: Ah, but I have lots of good NJB people reading this
> Digest and they may recognize themselves or a co-worker!  :)   PAT]

Yes, but they are included in the phrase 'readers of this article',
aren't they Pat?


Dave Levenson           Internet: [email protected]
Westmark, Inc.          UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Stirling, NJ, USA       Voice: 908 647 0900  Fax: 908 647 6857


[Moderator's Note: The actual people who did the work may not be
readers here, but their supervisors or managers may be, and the word
will filter down.  PAT]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 09:27:06 EST
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: An Alarming Circuit ID Technique!
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


From article <[email protected]>, by [email protected]
(Dave Levenson):

> I called NJ Bell.  Then sent the technician back.  He said that he
> could replace the line cards in the SLC with the older type that
> allowed him to adjust the gain independently in each direction.  He
> also brought some test gear with him, and confirmed my loss
> measurements.  (The tariff says that OSNA lines will present a loss of
> 4.0 dB in each direction.)

From your description it sounds like NJ Bell tried to use a dual
SPOTS (Super POTS) (TM of AT&T) channel unit to provide the service.
This application for this card is not recommended but, since it
frequently works, the telcos often try it. The correct channel unit is
the single FXO (at the CO end) and FXS (station end) pair of units
which have gain adjustment and appears to be what they used to fix it.
It is not an older card; it's just more expensive and requires a
craftsperson to manualy set the gain. The SPOTS units just slap right
in.

> The older SLC cards require a double-width slot.  Using them meant
> moving two other subscribers' circuit packs to different slots, to
> free up pairs of adjacent backplane slots to accomodate the older
> card.  The FXS/FXO are the same width as SPOTS but the SPOTS serves
> two customers. The man at the remote SLC location pulled the master
> control card out of the SLC equipment bay serving the OSNA lines.

> (The conference call was disrupted by this process.  Approximately 96
> of my neighbors were Since I`m not aware of a "master control card" on
> a SLC96, I assume he pulled out a power supply card to take the entire
> system out. However, I bet he really just pulled an LIU (Line
> Interface Unit) to take out a single T1 line (24 customers) since this
> takes fewer customers out of service and provides the same
> identification.

Did you ever find out what was actually wrong? I mean the SPOTS should
definitely NOT had 18 db of loss in one direction and, in fact, the
FXS/FXO pair can`t provide that much gain.

------------------------------

From: [email protected] (Harold Hallikainen)
Subject: Re: US Post Office Not Caught up With Modern Technology
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 18:37:35 GMT


       Although fax and email have been around for several years now,
the volume of letter mail at the usps is still increasing, I think.
I got a tour of the usps sorting station in Goleta a couple years ago.
They are using some very fancy technology to sort letter mail.  Most
letter mail is now machine sorted at various locations around the
country.  Incoming mail that is not barcoded (I think large mail
users get a little discount for barcoding their mail) is sent to a
barcoding station.  Mail with typed addresses  have the address read
by an OCR machine, which then sprays the zip code bar code onto the
envelope.

Even if the writer did not use the nine digit zip, the system looks up
the nine digit zip for that address and codes the envelope with it.
For hand-written addresses, a person reads the address, keys it in,
then the machine codes the envelope.  I'm not sure of what the
operator has to key in.  I'd expect it to be something like number,
street, city, state, zip so the envelope does get coded with a full
nine digit zip.  At the destination sorting station (Goleta for us),
the mail is sorted into route order based on the 9 digit zip.  All
this for 29 cents.

       As far as I know, ups and fed ex are still hand sorting
everything.  Both services are barcoding packages, but the barcodes
are with a package serial number to allow tracking.  They are not
coding with a zip code to allow sorting.

       So, realizing it's popular to bash the usps, I was quite
impressed with what they're doing.


Harold Hallikainen              [email protected]
Hallikainen & Friends, Inc.     [email protected]
141 Suburban Road, Bldg E4      phone 805 541 0200 fax 544 6715
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-7590  telex 4932775 HFI UI

------------------------------

From: [email protected] (Lars Poulsen)
Subject: Re: US Post Office Not Caught up With Common Technology?
Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 03:19:13 GMT


Our Esteemed Moderator said:

> The Post Office has made some concessions to modern technology. They
> have an agreement with MCI Mail and ATT Mail (as well as Western
> Union's 'Mailgram' program) to accept email on printers, stuff it in
> envelopes and mail it at the post office nearest the delivery address.
> The Post Office is involved in faxes, as another article in this issue
> will note, but it is poorly advertised.   PAT]

In the early eighties, the post office tried to get into electronic
mail in a big way with the E-COM program. Unfortunately, the enabling
regulations bore the marks of lobbying by the value-added network
providers, who feared that a modernized post office might take their
business away, and the resulting beast was a resounding fiasco.

The original idea was a sound one: Large amounts of mail come from
mass mailers, and it ought to be a good idea to avoid sorting
envelopes, by receiving the material on magnetic tape from multiple
mailers, merge the records and sort them by carrier route before
printing.

About 32 large post offices around the country were equipped with
E-COM processing centers designed by RCA in the old Victrola factory
in Camden NJ, and including some really interesting paper handling
devices made by specialty companies in faraway places (I remember an
automatic advertizing insert selector/folder/stuffer made in Italy).

The people that they were really targeting were the utility companies
and insurance companies. Mailings could be submitted on magnetic tape
or online via remote job entry (IBM2780-like, async or X.25). You
could submit any number of entries in a single mailing, but you had to
pay for at least 200.

The problem that killed them was that they were not allowed to
transfer data electronically between the 30+ processing centers. The
customer had to split the batch into pieces for each of the centers,
or dump it all into the mailstream at a single center and lose the
processing advantages of the electronic injection.

Other significant problems included:

Utility commissions mandated bill inserts for all sorts of regulatory

garbage. This meant customized print setups at the post office.
Again, this nullified the inherent processing advantages of the
system.

The electronic submission formats were designed by someone with a
textbook in hand and no real-life experience. As a result, the
IBM-2780 like submission format was not useable by any of the many
word processing systems with 2780-like communication options. It also
was not compatible with real IBM2780 RJE terminals, and in fact
happened to require a feature that could not be provided by stock IBM
communication controllers used by the very large companies they were
courting.

Finally, this was implemented a couple of years before high-resolution
page printers (commonly known as laser printers) became available.
These would have allowed printing of envelope stuffer brochures and
return envelopes on the fly.

I think the system went online in 1982, and when the legally mandated
five year period was over, the systems were dismantled and sold for
scrap.

I worked for the company that supplied the communications interfaces
to the system, and we did quite a bit of benchmarking to prove that we
could handle the large loads of data transfers that were envisaged.
We were very proud when the system when online, and I still think this
could have been great.


Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer    Internet E-mail: [email protected]
CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l   Telephone: +1-805-968-4262
Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083            TeleFAX:   +1-805-968-8256

------------------------------

From: [email protected] (Dave Levenson)
Subject: Re: US Post Office Not Caught up With Common Technology?
Organization: Westmark, Inc.
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 05:28:42 GMT


In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Michael Rosen) writes:

> You would think maybe the US Post Office would have something as
> simple and common as a fax machine ...

What amazes me is that the US Post Office can get away with charging
$0.29 for a one-ounce letter.  A one- to two-page fax costs less than
that between almost any two places in the US, and gets there faster.


Dave Levenson           Internet: [email protected]
Westmark, Inc.          UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Stirling, NJ, USA       Voice: 908 647 0900  Fax: 908 647 6857


[Moderator's Note: Except of course, there are times when original
documents are required, such as checks in payment, signatures on other
documents, etc.   PAT]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 16:42:48 -0500 (EST)
From: Marvin Sirbu <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: US Post Office Not Caught up With Common Technology?


If the U.S. Postal Service began offering fax service there would be
an incredible hew and cry from companies like Mailboxes Etc. and
others that a Fedral Government agency that does not have to pay taxes
was competing unfairly with a private sector business.

About a dozen years ago the Post Office proposed an innovative service
with the airlines: they would install ticket printers in Post Offices
around the country and provide next day delivery of airline tickets
ordered directly from the airlines.  Travel agencies, which account
for about half of all ticket sales for the airlines saw this as a
direct attack on one of their major comaprative advantages: local
delivery.  They threatened to stop writing tickets on any airline that
signed up for the USPS service.  Needless to say the service was
stillborn.

The USPS is incredibly sophisticated at things which don't bring
about an outcry from competitors -- like using neural network
technology to build OCR decoders that can process 30,000 addresses per
hour and spray bar codes on an envelope to simplify further sorting.
But let them try and expand the services offered from their post
offices and hear the howls from retailers who would be hurt
competitively.


Marvin Sirbu

------------------------------

From: mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/[email protected]
Date: 14 Mar 93 21:25:13 GMT
Subject: Re: Cellular System A and B Info Wanted


> I have read many messages on this bulletin board ...

Apropos of nothing, except the way Carl started his message: I love
the "blind men and the elephant" wording that I see here all the time.
I get this via email; to me, it is and will always be Telecom Digest.
But I see messages here from UseNetters who would never think to call
it anything other than comp.dcom.telecom; it's transparent to them
that this starts out as a mailing list. And the FidoNetters who are
getting it gatewayed via EchoMail either see it as "this echo" or if
they're new enough, just as "this BBS."

But anyway, something Pat said in response struck me as odd; is this
really true?  And if so, how counter-intuitive!

> ... the B carriers are owned by the local 'wireline' telephone
> company in the area. ... Here in Chicago, Cellular One (the A carrier)
> is owned by Southwestern Bell, a telephone company in another part of
> the USA.  On the other hand, the same Southwestern Bell is the B
> carrier operating in the St.  Louis, Missouri area. ...  Is all that
> clear?

OK, I'm not very familiar with cellular, but so far I think I'm still
with you. But the thing that struck me as weird, given this, is that:

> the A carriers stick among themselves with things like roaming
> agreements; the B carriers do the same.

Now wait a minute. Suppose I run down to Southwestern Bell Mobile
Systems (as I've been thinking about doing) and pick myself up a
cellular phone; since I live in SWBT territory, I'd be on a B carrier.

Now suppose that I ask for roaming and take my SWBT "B" phone up to
Chicago. Are you telling me that SWBT would rather I use Ameritech's
"B" service, sharing the revenue, than refer me to their own Chicago
"A" service?  Why in Eris' name would they do that?

For that matter, if I got a Cybertel (St. Louis' "A carrier") mobile
phone, why would they rather I use SWBT's "A carrier" service while I
was in Chicago, given that in my home market SWBT and Cybertel are
direct competitors?


J. Brad Hicks     Internet: [email protected]
X.400: c=US admd=ATTMail prmd=MasterCard sn=Hicks gn=Brad


[Moderator's Note: A cellular company gets very little from you as a
customer when you roam *elsewhere* -- the distant cellular company
gets most of it. All your home company gets is a few cents for the
billing aggravations. When you are in Chicago, so little is at stake to
them financially they probably don't care if a subsidiary of their
direct competitor gets the money or some third party (in this context)
like Ameritech gets it. That being the case, what is the tie which
binds?  I think back in 1983 or so when cellular started, divestiture
dictated that in order to have 'competition' in the cellular industry
(yuk!) there had to be two carriers in each place: yes, the local
telco, ever eager, could be in the cellular business if they wished,
but to offset potential monopolies there had to be a 'non-local-telco'
in the business also, so consumers would have a choice and not get
ripped off (too badly, yuk!) by the sole provider, the greedy old local
telco, which up until 1983 generally meant the Mother Company.

So they said, come one, come all, let's everyone be in the cellular
business and give some rough competition to Mother's Daughters ... it
will be gpod for the consumers, you know ... trouble is, there were
not that many applicants other than telcos, and some small rural areas
still have only one carrier from lack of anyone else wanting the local
market. So they cheated (or revised their definitions a little) and
said telcos from other towns could come in to fill the 'alternate to
telco' choice, but they could not be telcos as such.  That is why SWBT
cannot come to Illinois and do business in cellular as SWBT. They use
the name 'Cellular One' instead.  Ameritech Mobile operates as the B
carrier in the central states where they are the local telco (Ohio,
Indiana. Michigan, Illinois) and as the A carrier in other places
where they have gotten into the market.  A couple of Ameritech's 'A'
locations do business as guess what? Why, Cellular One, of course, the
catch-all generic name for a large collection of cellular companies
unrelated in any way (in theory) except their stated duty to provide
competition to the local telco. Ameritech cannot go to Texas, for
example, and operate as 'Illinois Bell Cellular', but they can operate
there under some other name. So the tie that binds the B carriers and
the A carriers is "us" versus "them" in the spirit of divestiture.
Given time outside the watchful eye of the court, I suspect all sorts
of cozy alliances outside the A/B scheme would develop among the
cellular providers.  PAT]

------------------------------

From: [email protected] (Harold Hallikainen)

Subject: Re: Cellular System A and B Info Wanted
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 20:44:55 GMT


> [Moderator's Note: Really, the B carriers are owned by the local
> 'wireline' telephone company in the area. For example, in Chicago,
> Ameritech Mobile is the B carrier; they also operate Illinois Bell,
> our telco.  The A carriers are the 'non-wireline' carriers. They will
> frequently be telephone companies also, but in some other part of the
> country.  The A carriers often times use the generic name 'Cellular
> One'. Here in Chicago, Cellular One (the A carrier) is owned by
> Southwestern Bell, a telephone company in another part of the USA.  On
> the other hand, the same Southwestern Bell is the B carrier operating
> in the St.  Louis, Missouri area.  So if a telco goes to the territory
> of some other telco to operate cellular, they do it as an A carrier.
> The telco which 'belongs there' (or has historically always been the
> telco in that community) is the B carrier.  Is all that clear? :) In
> addition, the A carriers stick among themselves with things like
> roaming agreements; the B carriers do the same.  PAT]

       So, is GTE MobilNet here in San Luis Obispo an A carrier or a
B carrier?  We are served by Pacific Bell, but the GTE Mobilnet system
is based in Santa Barbara, where GTE is the local telco.  The border
between GTE and PacBell is at the county line, about 30 miles south of
here.  As I understand the system, GTE does all their cellular
switching in Santa Barbara and just has cell sites up here, connected
to SB by T-1 lines.  So, a call across the room goes to SB and back.
So, is GTE Mobilnet a B carrier here, or do they switch from B to A
when they cross the Santa Maria River?


Harold


[Moderator's Note: Good question. I don't know anything about that
part of the country. Where you have two major telcos serving one metro
area like Los Angeles (Bell and GTE) and they both are in the cellular
business as well, then I guess some arbitrary decision was made in the
past.  PAT]

------------------------------

From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: AT&T Free Time Rewards
Organization: ProLine [pro-gallup]
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 07:58:52 MST


In <[email protected]> [email protected]
(Randall K. Smith) writes:

> The Free Time promotion sounded too good to pass up, so I called and
> tried to sign up for it.  But, unfortunately, it's a "targeted"
> promotion and if you're not one of the targeted few, it's no go.

For my Reach Out America service, AT&T offered me one month free if I
continue to average $25 in charges per month for the next six months.
Since I do average considerably more than $25 a month in AT&T charges,
and the free month will be based on the average of six months of
calls, I couldn't refuse the offer. :)

------------------------------

From: [email protected] (Dan Danz)
Subject: Re: Modem Doesn't Answer But Line is Ringing
Date: 14 Mar 1993 00:09:45 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer Inc, Marlboro MA
Reply-To: [email protected]


Harold Hallikainen writes:

> In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Craig
> Moynihan) writes:

>> A phone can use an analog phone line to orignate and receive phone
>> calls. A modem is hooked up to this same phone line. This modem is set
>> answer on the third ring (S0=3). Another modem calls this modem.  The
>> AA light flashes on and off, but the modem does not answer.
>> Occasionally, the modem will answer after a hundred rings or so.

> One problem I've noticed with most modems is that they are
> easily confused if they are receiving data on the RS232 port (or thru
> the computer bus) while the line is ringing.  We often want to be able
> to call a system that has a modem and terminals connected to a single
> serial port.  If there is data being sent to the terminals (and the
> modem, which is then in the command mode) when the line rings, the
> modem will often answer for a very short time, then go back on hook.

I had a problem like this with a Racal-Vadic VA 212 modem at a
customer site once. It seems that the PBX that handled the incoming
call to the modem had discriminating ringing enabled.  This is a
feature that rings two short tones for outside calls and one long ring
for internal calls.  The two short rings were not recognized as
ringing by the PROM code in the modem.  While the modem manufacturer
provided an upgrade, we also were able to get around the problem by
turning off discriminating ringing in his PBX.


L. W. "Dan" Danz         (WA5SKM) VOS Mail:  [email protected]
Sr Consulting Software SE         NeXT Mail: [email protected]
Customer Assistance Center        Voice Mail/Pager: (602) 852-3107
Telecommunications Division       Customer Service: (800) 828-8513
Stratus Computer, Inc. 4455 E. Camelback #115-A, Phoenix AZ 85018

------------------------------

From: [email protected] (Carl Oppedahl)
Subject: Re: Internet Access From Home
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 20:58:57 GMT


In <[email protected]> [email protected] writes:

> I am interested in getting internet access capabilities from my home
> computer.  How do I do that? I have a Mac IIvx. What hardware/software
> will I need and who do I call to allow access and get the internet
> access phone number?

There is a newsgroup which you might not know about, called
alt.internet.access.wanted.  It is perfect for your query.  (I realize
you may not have access to that group, in which case that would be why
you did not post to it.)  Anyway, if you can I suggest you post to
that group.

If you are not able to post to that group directly, you may wish to
consider using one of the services that lets you post via email.  For
example, you could post to:

[email protected]

and state in your posting that you would like to get responses via
email.

Best of luck.


Carl Oppedahl AA2KW  (intellectual property lawyer)
30 Rockefeller Plaza   New York, NY  10112-0228
voice 212-408-2578     fax 212-765-2519

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End of TELECOM Digest V13 #176
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