Play and Learn 2/19941.ZIP/19941/PUBE/TD10471.TXT

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TELECOM Digest     Tue, 10 Jul 90 00:27:57 CDT    Volume 10 : Issue 471

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Legion of Doom Members Plead Guilty [Eduardo Krell]
    Canadian Hotel Revises Phone Call Rates [Marcel D. Mongeon]
    Merlin Question [Roy M. Silvernail]
    Radio Shack CT-102 [Doug Faunt]
    NAMFAX Info Wanted [Eric Varsanyi]
    Telebit T1000 Modem at 9600 Baud [Phil Ngai]
    How Do I Wire a 500 Set? [Roy M. Smith]
    Curious About Overseas Call Responses [Subbarayu Darisipudi]
    Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Tom Neff]
    Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access [G. Monti]
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From: [e-mail]
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 16:14:38 EDT
Subject: Legion of Doom Members Plead Guilty


Extracts from an AP news wire:

  Three members of the Legion of Doom group pleaded guilty to federal
conspiracy charges Monday. U.S. Attorney Joe Whitley said the group
disrupted telecommunications, stole computer source codes and
information, stole credit card information and fraudulently obtained
money and property.

  In May, authorities in Indiana prosecuted a juvenile who pleaded
guilty to 11 counts of fraud and agreed to testify against the three
Atlanta men, in a trial scheduled to start today.

  Instead, the three pleaded guilty. They are E. Grant, 22 and Robert
Riggs, 22 (both from Atlanta) and Franklin E. Darden Jr, 24 of
Norcross.

  Whitley said in a statement that they illegally accessed various
BellSouth computers between Sept. 10, 1987 and July 21, 1989. Grant
and Darden also monitored private telephone conversations. They were
carged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, wire fraud, access
code fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property.

  Darden and Riggs pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy each and
face a maximum of 5 years in prison and a $ 250,000 fine. Grant
pleaded guilty to possessing 15 or more BellSouth access devices with
intent to defraud and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $ 250,000
fine.


Eduardo Krell                   AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ

UUCP: {att,decvax,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell  Internet: [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Marcel D. Mongeon)
Subject: Canadian Hotel Revises Phone Call Rates
Date: 9 Jul 90 15:35:02 GMT
Organization: The Joymarmon Group Inc.


I administer a hotel PBX (please no flames about hotel charges until
you read this whole posting).  The hotel is located in Ontario Canada
which means we have only one long distance supplier - Bell Canada (A
first cousin of AT&T).  With the proliferation of long distance
companies in the United States and the large number of guests that we
attract from the states, we have been getting a *lot* of inquiries
concerning accessing alternate long distance companies.

In a few cases (MCI and Sprint to be exact), we do let the guests know
about the 1-800-950-1022 and 1-800-877-8000 telephone numbers to
access these two services.  However, I would like to provide our
guests with a much more complete list.  Therefore I would appreciate
e-mail or postings to this group of such numbers (remember they have
to be accessible from Canada! - a lot of US 800 numbers will not work
from Canada).  In addition to the American long distance providers, I
would also like as many of the "Overseas" 'Direct' numbers, including
AT&T's USA Direct.

Finally, as to the charges that we levy: some of you will recall a
posting some time ago on this subject from myself.  AFter overcoming
the shock of the vehemence of some of the replies, I examined what
people were saying and then ran a test period of a new charging
scheme.  That scheme is the following:

      Local Calls -- No charge.

      Directory Assistance -- $1.00 (after all every room has a
            telephone book and we have to pay $.75 for these calls).

      Credit Card Calls -- No charge.

      Operator Assisted (not charged to the Hotel) -- No Charge.

      Operator Assisted (charged to the Hotel) -- Actual charges
            plus a $1.00 surcharge (if you don't want to pay the
            surcharge put it on your credit card).

      800 Calls -- No charge (This includes 800-950-1022 and any
            other LD access numbers).

      Guest Dialed Long Distance (charged to the room) -- Actual
            DDD charges plus 50% plus a $1.00 surcharge ($2.50 for
            international calls) (see description below).

      900 and 700 Calls -- Blocked in the switch

Generally the policy is simple, if the hotel doesn't have to pay for
the call (notwithstanding monthly trunk charges etc.) neither does the
guest.  In the case of Guest Dialled Long Distance, I am sure that
there are some people who might start screaming "Rip-Off" with the 50%
and $1 surcharges.  However, before you start doing this, let's
compare the cost to making a credit card call: My telephone book tells
me that all station-to-station credit card calls completed by an
operator have a surcharge of $1.50 and $3.75 for a person-to-person.
In addition, there is a minimum 34 cent charge for the call on top of
that.  Charges are rounded up to the next whole minute whereas our
call detail recorder only charges 10ths of a minute.

Therefore, the surcharges we tack on are in keeping with those placed
on a credit card call.  Finally, for those who think that these
surcharges still leave us sitting on a mountain of money we have to
take into consideration what the inavailability of answer supervision
means for the charging of short calls.

Answer supervision is what makes a pay phone grab your quarter when
the other party answers and give it back to you if they don't.  If the
phone company can provide it to every blessed pay phone, you wonder
why they can't make it work for a call detail recorer in a hotel.  The
bottom line is they can't (or maybe they won't?).

Therefore, in charging calls to our guests, we have to program two
additional numbers, the minimum time that a call must continue before
it is eleigible to be charged and the time to be deducted from the
total length of the call which represents the setup time (the
switching and the ringing).  If these numbers are set too low, then a
lot of calls that were never made will get charged with a lot of guest
complaints to boot.  Set the number too high and a lot of calls that
were made and completed properly will not get charged with the
attendant loss of income to the hotel even though the phone company
will charge us for those calls.

Our philosophy has been to set up the numbers on the high side.  Since
doing so, we have almost eleiminated complaints of calls being charged
that were never completed.  On the other hand, our comparisons of what
was charged to guests versus what was charged by the phone company
indicates that there is a small revenue loss.  We make up for this
loss with the surcharge.  In other words, all people who make long
duration long distance calls end up subsidizing thos who make short
calls which are not charged for.  If anyone can convince the phone
company to provide us answer supervision no problem, we can get rid of
the surcharge.  Until then, it's the best solution that I know of.


|||  Marcel D. Mongeon
|||  e-mail:    ... (uunet, maccs)!joymrmn!root  or
|||                                joymrmn!marcelm

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

Subject: Merlin Question
From: "Roy M. Silvernail" <cybrspc![e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 21:15:51 CDT
Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN


An associate has asked a question I cannot answer, so I would like to
call on any Merlin gurus reading this group.

He doesn't know the model number, but is discussing adding a line card
to a Merlin system. I believe this would be a 820 KSU. The question
is... are there any third-party voice terminals available for the
Merlin system, or must he use the AT&T model?

E-mail responses would be fine, as I doubt this is of great general
import. Thanks in advance!


    Roy M. Silvernail            | Opinions found
    now available at:            | herein are mine,
 cybrspc![e-mail]          | but you can rent
(cyberspace... be here!)|        | them.

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

Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 20:33:16 -0700
From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Radio Shack CT-102


The Radio Shack CT-102 is for sale for $299.  What does the Telecom
collective conciousness think of the unit?  Are there better deals
available in the SF Bay area?  What is the lowest base cost rate
available for service in the Bay Area?

Thanx for the information.

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

From: Eric Varsanyi <boulder!pikes!zippy.craycos.com![e-mail]>
Subject: NAMFAX Info Wanted
Date: 9 Jul 90 13:52:48 GMT
Organization: Cray Computer Corporation


A while ago someone posted about the NAMFAX guide to programming
various cellular phones. I called them (they are in the Bay Area) and
asked for details on what type of information they had on each phone,
but the person I talked to was not very knowledgable and just answered
that they have all the information I would ever need.

Has anyone out there actually bought NAXFAX? If so, what level of
detail do they have on the Motorola 750. I have all the info on
reprogramming the NAM and getting into maintenance mode (shorting a
pin on the back to GND), but Motorola would not give me any of the
details on what other neat things you can do from maintenance mode
(like how to change the six digit internal lock code). Does the NAMFAX
guide have this level of detail? On other phones too?  Is it worth the
$100/$150 for someone with a single phone?


Eric Varsanyi ([e-mail])        Cray Computer Corporation

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

From: Phil Ngai <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telebit T1000 Modem at 9600 Baud
Reply-To: Phil Ngai <[e-mail]>
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Sunnyvale CA
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 07:47:07 GMT


A couple years ago, I went from 2400 to Telebit for dial-in,
interactive use. I was unimpressed. I found the packetization
disturbing. The average delay from when I did something to when the
first character of a response came back seemed greater.

After that, of course, the characters came in faster. But I think the
delay to first character is what's important. I can't read at 2400
anyway. If there was no way to select what I want to display then it
would be nice to display the stuff I don't need faster, but usually I
can skip to exactly what I want and after that, the difference between
2400 and 9600 is not that important.

For UUCP, Telebit is probably worth considering but for dial-in, I
didn't like it.


Phil Ngai, [e-mail]        {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil
PALASM 90: it's not the same old PALASM any more!

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

From: [e-mail] (Roy Smith)
Subject: How Do I Wire A 500 Set?
Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 12:18:18 GMT


    I have a good old basic rotary desk phone (500 set) that works
fine except for the ringer, which doesn't ring.  I suspect that
somewhere along the (time) line it might have been disconnected to
avoid REN-count detection, and put back on the wrong terminals on the
network block.  Can anybody tell me how to wire the ringer so it
works?  Tip and ring I now have on L1 and L2, although there seem to
be many combinations of terminals to which I can connect T/R and still
have the phone work, modulo the ringer.  I experimented with various
places for the red and white wires from the ringer, but havn't found
the magic combination yet.


Roy Smith,  Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue,  New York, NY 10016
[e-mail] -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy

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

From: Subbarayu Darisipudi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Curious About Overseas Call Responses
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 18:37:54 GMT


Just curious, wondering how the phone system works. When I call up
India using the University phones I dial 8 and after a I get a
different tone I enter my billing code and I get back to the usual
tone. Now I press 01 - Country Code - Area Code - Phone number. The
call usually takes a couple of seconds to set up.  When the call is
not set up, I get a message which goes something like this: "YOUR
INTERNATIONAL CALL DID NOT COMPLETE IN THE DESTINATION COUNTRY
DIALLED.  PLEASE TRY YOUR CALL LATER 405 2 T"

Two questions:

1. Is the message due to the reason that the party called is busy or
is it due to the reason that there were no lines available to India at
that instant? ( Note: When I call up from a friend's phone with a
direct AT&T line or from a pay phone using AT&T or MCI card, the call
is usually set up promptly but from the university phone, it literally
takes forever!!)

2. The numbers at the end of the message, are they indicating the
originating area code. I am calling from (405)-XXX-XXXX.

As I said, just curious. Nothing more.

Thanks,

Subbarayudu D.

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

From: Tom Neff <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles?
Date: 9 Jul 90 10:19:07 GMT
Reply-To: Tom Neff <[e-mail]>


In this summer's movie DIE HARD 2**, which supposedly takes place in
Dulles International Airport (Washington DC), the payphones have a
prominent Pac*Bell logo on them.  Do they really provide the service
in Dulles?  Or was this an unavoidable glitch due to shooting in LA?
Or just a plug for the highest bidder?  (GTE was featured prominently
on the in-flight public phone, and hundreds of other vendors had their
little plugs too -- this has become par for the course in movies.)

** Mini review -- not as tight as the first one, even less believable,
but still good for laughs and ouch! type thrills.  See it on a hot,
boring afternoon.

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

Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 13:54:32 PDT
From: "John R. Covert  09-Jul-1990 1654" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access


 From: Greg Monti
 Date:  9 July 1990
 Subject: Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access


(Regarding what kind of carrier, inter-LATA or intra-LATA, carries
international toll calls.  I had stated that international calls were
inter-LATA): [e-mail] writes:

> This is not quite accurate.  LEC's are not allowed to provide
> inter-LATA service.  They are allowed to provide intra-LATA and
> International service.
> This situation in very familiar to the carriers that serve the Hawaii
> market.  One of the largest IRC's (International Record Carriers) in
> the region is GTE Hawaiian Telephone (HawTel) the local LEC...
> ...we find our LEC (which has a monopoly for local
> service) ... competing with us.

You are right, I wasn't clear enough.  The Modified Final Judgment
which governed the breakup of AT&T affected (and still affects) only
AT&T and the *Bell* Operating Companies (BOCs) which were once
*majority*-held by AT&T.  Technically speaking, the concept of a LATA
applies only to *BOC*s.  "Independent" LECs can either be "associated
with" a nearby BOC's LATA or can be in their own "area" which acts
like a LATA, like the "Rochester Area" referred to in New York
Telephone directories.

There are states that have no BOCs operating anywhere within them.
Alaska and Hawaii are two of them (the only two?).  GTE, since it is
not a BOC, but is an "independent" does not have the same
line-of-business restrictions on it that the MFJ has over a BOC.
That's why companies like GTE can do international service, why Centel
can run cable TV service (which broadcasters and cable operators are
trying to keep BOCs out of) and why Contel can run a competitive
domestic satellite data company (Contel ASC).

I believe that GTE is subject to a different (non-MFJ) consent decree
which *does* require it to offer equal access, even where its one-time
long distance company (Sprint) was one of the equal competitors.  So
the same restrictions don't apply to BOCs and independents.


Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work [phone]

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End of TELECOM Digest V10 #471
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