Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!duke!unc!brl-bmd!Telecom-Request@usc-eclc From: Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) Newsgroups: fa.telecom Subject: TELECOM Digest V3 #68 Message-ID: <663@brl-bmd.UUCP> Date: Thu, 6-Oct-83 11:51:14 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-bmd.663 Posted: Thu Oct 6 11:51:14 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 8-Oct-83 04:23:49 EDT Lines: 202 TELECOM Digest Thursday, 6 Oct 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 68 Today's Topics: garbled digest RE: Phone Wiring General Info Third Party Billing Piracy Some misc. items... Variable Day Plan phone line limitations ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Oct 1983 1650-PDT From: Jon Solomon Subject: garbled digest Apparently the program I use to prepare the digest went haywire. I will look at the digests more carefully in the future. Sorry, --Jon ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1983 1853-EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: RE: Phone Wiring General Info >From your nearest Phonecenter Store you should be able to get a couple of free pamphlets describing how to wire up single line phones. It's pretty simple. Red and Green are the two wires to connect. Some Touch-Tone phones may be polarity sensitive (so if the dial doesn't beep you may have to turn the wires around) but most now have bridge rectifiers in them. No other wires should ever need to be connected on today's single line phones. You aren't allowed to do your own wiring on party lines (the only case in which yellow would be used for party identification). Old lighted-dial phones used to run power for the lights on yellow and black, but most of them now use low-power LED illumination which is powered from the line. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1983 1901-EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Third Party Billing I repeat -- third party billing is NOT being eliminated. They've just gone to great effort to implement the third party billing screening system so that anyone who wants to can turn it off. It even works from Washington, D.C. -- So if C&P said they were eliminating it, they were wrong. The only things I have ever seen have been notices that Third Party Billing from Pay Phones would require verification. They still do not even verify from non-coin. Calling Card calls are cheaper than third number billing in order to encourage use of calling cards, which have a PIN and are thus more difficult to hack. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1983 1952-EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Piracy My last phone bill had a $50 "Maint Serv Chg" on it. I called the Business Office to find out what it was -- and they couldn't find any record of it, so they took it off. It may have been from the time I reported that MCCS was not working on my phone (they had apparently dropped the Touch-Tone bit from my line). Their first response was "it's because you have customer provided equipment." I wonder how many customers pay the charge without asking. ------------------------------ From: vortex!lauren at RAND-UNIX Date: Monday, 3-Oct-83 23:18:27-PDT Subject: Some misc. items... Greetings. A number of various points to cover... --- Regarding the AJ 4800 baud full-duplex (dialup) modem: I had one of these modems here in the Vortex for a couple of weeks, and tested it rather extensively with a matching modem on a (semi-local) VAX. I was disappointed. I got a fairly high error rate, including (but not limited to) about one noise "hit" every 10 seconds or so when the modem was sitting idle. When data was actually flowing, the error rate seemed to drop somewhat -- apparently indicating some problem related to the modems' idle state scrambler pattern. The unit also exhibited problems with its automatic equalization sequence. The device has no built in data error checking, and is very expensive, making it not at all cost effective. My testing involved a two central office hop. I should mention that some other people who tested the modem (particularly those in the same central office as the VAX) reported better results. In any case, I think that it's too expensive even if it worked perfectly all of the time. --- I've seen John Covert's Telephone Management System, and it *is* quite impressive. Of course, it may be a bit expensive for some more simple applications. For such tasks, it is pretty simple to rig up a touch-tone decoder (genuine Bell 407 modem or the various cheapo decoder chips and boards now available) and an inexpensive Votrax voice synthesizer. I've setup such systems several times over the years -- they're not really terribly complicated, though they may be necessarily limited in various respects. --- There are a number of reasons why the revenue base to be derived from residential telephone subscribers cannot be compared to that of businesses. I'll only mention a couple here. First of all, note that the range of services that most residential subscribers really need is comparatively limited. Oh yeah, there will be all sorts of interesting services appearing that are directed toward the residence customer, but any increase in the monthly bill by more than a fairly small amount will probably be considered to be quite extravagant by most people for quite some time. Unlike residential users who mainly use the phone for personal communications, businesses use the phone to make money. To the extent that they can increase their business, they can justify larger outlays of money for telecommunications services of various sorts. For the residence customer, it's more a matter of convenience, since the new features will rarely add to his or her income producing ability (at least in most cases). One additional point to consider: when a business wants new phone services (at higher costs) they can usually pass those costs along in some form to their customers, thusly spreading the cost increase quite widely. Residential customers do not have such a capability. Any increases they pay come strictly out of pocket -- and they usually have nobody to whom they can "pass along" the new costs. The end result of the above (and other) factors is that for the forseeable future, a quite vivid disparity between the telecommunications income potential of business and residential subscribers is to be expected. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1983 2032-EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Variable Day Plan The person who mentioned this a few days ago probably thought he was kidding -- but it's right there, on page 54 of FCC Tariff 1, filed 3 October, not yet approved: The Variable Day Plan applies to dial station calls placed during specified hours from phones in Nevada to Conus, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The discount is 20%, Monday thru Friday, 8-9 AM, Noon-1PM, and 4-5PM. Expires April 17, 1984, unless sooner cancelled or extended. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 83 16:56:30 PDT From: Theodore N. Vail Subject: phone line limitations In answer to the question: Has anyone had any reason to believe that it is possible to exceed the limit on the amount of equipment which can be placed on one line? The ringing generator in a C.O. ought to be able to handle quite a bit, and the duty cycle should not be enough to burn out your pair in the cable, but it does seem that there might be a limit. ------- Both the talking current and bell current are limited. So, if you use ordinary instruments, there is a limitation, typically around 4 bells or instruments in use at one time. However, if your bells or instruments are self-powered then there need be no specific limitation. vail ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest *********************