From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!duke!unc!brl-bmd!TELECOM@Usc-Eclb Newsgroups: fa.telecom Title: TELECOM Digest V2 #138 Article-I.D.: brl-bmd.490 Posted: Wed Dec 15 15:49:15 1982 Received: Fri Dec 17 05:53:22 1982 TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 16 December 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 138 Today's Topics: Callular Radio Making Headlines How To Get Dialing Instructions Machines Making Telephone Calls Modular Plugs and "Curly" Cords ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Oct 1982 1434-PDT Sender: GEOFF at SRI-CSL Subject: Cellular Article on the Chicago grant. From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow To: wb4jbx at SRI-CSL By Mark Brown (c) 1982 Chicago Sun-Times (Field News Service) The Federal Communications Commission gave American Telephone & Telegraph Co. the go-ahead Thursday to begin building a cellular mobile telephone system in Chicago. The commission's action opens the way for Chicago to become the first city in the nation with the revolutionary system that is expected to increase the use of portable telephones greatly. An AT&T spokesman said the company hopes to have the service available by late 1983. The FCC decision came as a major disappointment to a pair of firms vying for a chance to compete with AT&T in the Chicago market: Graphic Scanning Co. and Rogers Radio Communication Services Inc. They had sought a delay to keep AT&T subsidiary AMPS Inc. (Advance Mobile Phone Services) from getting what they have termed an unfair ''head start.'' The FCC plans to allow only two cellular systems per city and had already decreed that half of the radio frequencies being made available would be reserved for local telephone companies. The telephone companies have negotiated agreements between themselves so that only one application was made from each city for their half of the spectrum. All other applicants were left to fight among themselves for the lone remaining license, a process that could require lengthy FCC hearings. The other applicants, generally radio paging companies, say they fear the AT&T will be dominating the market before they can get a chance to put their systems into action. Bud Kahn, executive vice president of Rogers Radio Communication Co., one of the companies in the portable phone chase, complained that AT&T will have a ''double head start'' in Chicago because it is already operating an experimental cellular system here. He said AMPS will have the advantage of being able to retain the 2,000 customers who participate in that experimental system. Kahn said he expects the cellular phone service market in Chicago to attract between 100,000 and 200,000 users and have a value in excess of $100 million. Its attraction is that it will make mobile phone service available to a great many more people. The cellular system will also provide technically superior service and privacy, both of which are lacking in present mobile systems. The FCC sought to calm those complaining about AT&T's ''head start'' by stipulating that AMPS will not be able to begin serving customers until it finishes its construction and applies for an operator's license. But the complainants said they doubted the FCC would allow AT&T to invest the necessary $18 million for construction and equipment and then tell the company it would have to wait to use it. ''We trust that there will not be any other delays,'' AT&T spokesman Pic Wagner said. The FCC has urged Graphic Scanning and Rogers Radio to make some sort of settlement between themselves, Kahn said. However, no talks have taken place, he said. END nyt-10-22-82 0452edt ********** ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 1982 1341-EST From: John R. Covert To: cmoore at BRL Subject: Calling instructions The best way to get calling instructions is to call the business office (collect). Your request reminded me that I had been curious about local calling between Falmouth (617-548 and 540) and Naushon Island (617-299). Naushon Island is a privately owned island whose residents own the Elizabeth Islands Telephone Company. This company has lines and telephones, but no switching equipment . Their calls are switched by the Number 5 XBar in Falmouth, but it is not a local call, even though it is within the same machine. (Also, for customers with Bay State Service, which allows two hours of calling to "anywhere" in Massachusetts with additional minutes at a very low rate, Naushon Island is still toll.) >From Barnegat, NJ, the following exchanges are a local call: Toms River (201) 240,244,255,269,270,341,349,929 Tuckerton (609) 296 Beach Haven (609) 492,494 Barnegat (609) 597,693,698,971 For all local calls, only seven digits are required. There are no ambiguities, since the 201 codes in Toms River are all unassigned in 609. These are known as "protected codes" and reduce the total number of NXXs available in a given area. When 415 and 408 ran short on codes, the dialing plan was changed to require the NPA on local calls to the other NPA. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 82 17:26:36-EST (Tue) From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) cc: cmoore at BRL Subject: phone call FROM machine! Previously, I've heard of machines which dial an entire sequence of phone numbers to play advertising messages via recording; such things reach EVERYTHING on the phone system including prisons, unlisted #'s, etc. (Do some of these not permit hanging up, possibly delaying an emergency call you want to make right then?) What prompts this message: I placed an order by visiting a store's catalog department, and was told that a machine makes the calls notifying customer that the order is in. Because I have an answering service, I had to tell the sales people that it was people, not a machine, answering the phone. (The store's machine can't send a message to an answering set.) I got the message OK (" called, your order is in") from switchboard operator. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 1982 0656-PST From: Gene Autrey-Hunley Subject: Modular Plugs and Curly Cords cc: AUTREY-HUNLEY at SRI-KL Have you ever noticed that the modular plugs for a phone's handset and for its line cord (= the "wall" connection cord) are different sizes? Why? The only explanation I can imagine is that the size difference is to prevent accidental insertion of the line cord into the jack intended for the handset. If that's true, is there some reason (potential damage to the phone or something else) for Bell wanting to prevent such accidents from happening? (Note that the smaller handset modular plug can be inserted into the line cord jack, or for that matter, even directly into a wall mounted modular jack even though it may not work properly.) Finally, why isn't there a curly cord made for the line cord? For some applications, a curly line cord would be much less bothersome than the traditional "extension" cords. --Gene ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** -------