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Message Digest 
Volume 28 : Issue 183 : "text" Format

Messages in this Issue:
  Re: Rating cell phone calls 
  Re: Rating cell phone calls 
  Re: Cable TV Broadcast Retransmission Consent Feuds "Ease Up"   
  Re: Cable TV Broadcast Retransmission Consent Feuds "Ease Up"   
  Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord 
  Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord 
  Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord 
  Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord 
  Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord 
  Re: Cellphones and driving 
  Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper? 
  Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper? 
  Re: Rating cell phone calls 
  Re: Rating cell phone calls 


====== 27 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 03:16:42 +0000 (UTC) From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Rating cell phone calls Message-ID: <h2p5up$qac$1@news.albasani.net> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >On Jul 4, 8:16 pm, "Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote: >>The concepts of "rate center" and "roaming" aren't related. If on the >>edge of territory and the subscriber had the misfortune to have his call >>picked up by a tower for which roaming charges would be imposed, he'd >>have to pay them even if his assigned rate center happened to be in the >>same area. >Actually, I believe they made a point of assigning the serving >exchange location in the middle, not on the edges, to avoid that >problem. For the fifth time, the subscriber wasn't expected to know his rate center. Cell phone companies did not assign subscribers to rate centers based on where the subscriber was expected to travel nor where he was billed. In a market, one rate center was very much the same as another, each subject to exactly the same local calling area, each subject to roaming at the same locations in the days before national plans were common. >Under the system that existed at the time, it all made sense. Rate centers weren't used to market services to potential subscribers. Subscribers were generally unaware. Rate centers weren't used to rate long distance calls. Rate centers led to unreasonable consumption of scarce numbering resources. It was an unreasonable thing to do at the time. >But as mentioned, the point is moot since roaming and long distance >charges on cell phones today are very rare. hancock, as you repeated the same incorrect statements, you missed the point that the concepts are generally unrelated. Having numerous rate centers in a local calling area was not necessary to assign a cell phone subscriber to that particular local calling area and weren't the basis for rating long distance calls. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jul 2009 20:21:44 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Rating cell phone calls Message-ID: <20090705202144.2730.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >For the fifth time, the subscriber wasn't expected to know his rate center. In places like Chicago with large local calling areas, I agree that you don't care which of umpteen rate centers that are all local to each other you were assigned to. On the other hand, my first two cellular accounts on my AMPS car phone were in Massachusetts and Vermont, where local calling areas are quite small. I lived in Cambridge, and if they'd given me a Waltham rather than a Boston number, it would have been a relatively expensive message unit call to call my mobile. In Vermont, if they'd assigned me in Burlington rather than White River Junction, it would have been a very expensive intra-state toll call rather than a free local call from our cottage near Woodstock. I assure you, we cared in which rate center our number was assigned. R's, John ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 03:35:41 +0000 (UTC) From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Cable TV Broadcast Retransmission Consent Feuds "Ease Up" Message-ID: <h2p72d$rpa$1@news.albasani.net> Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> wrote: >"Adam H. Kerman" ahk@chinet.com> wrote: >>This statement wouldn't apply to CATV situations. >I don't understand that statement. CATV *is* cable TV. Back when the >industry started, CATV stood for "community antenna television" because >that's all it did: act like a big antenna for broadcast stations. But >after CATV systems started carrying non-broadcast satellite-delivered >programming, the term "cable TV" replaced "CATV". I still use "CATV" >and "cable TV" interchangeably. If I understand correctly, cable and CATV are regulated differently, that systems that exist to retransmit broadcast stations to locations within the 35 mile radius of the broadcast tower that defines the market but for reasons of geography cannot receive the signal continue to be treated like monopolies and subject to rate setting by tariff. I don't know how things are regulated in areas outside television markets based on radii around broadcast towers. Yes, I agree that the technology originated with CATV, supplementing broadcast television, but came to compete with it too. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:19:46 -0400 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Cable TV Broadcast Retransmission Consent Feuds "Ease Up" Message-ID: <op.uwkua8lno63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net> On Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:09:16 -0400, Neal McLain <nmclain@annsgarden.com> wrote, in part: > ... [much snipped] ... > > I don't understand that statement. CATV *is* cable TV. Back when the > industry started, CATV stood for "community antenna television" because > that's all it did: act like a big antenna for broadcast stations. But > after CATV systems started carrying non-broadcast satellite-delivered > programming, the term "cable TV" replaced "CATV". I still use "CATV" > and "cable TV" interchangeably. Funny, I always thought CATV stood for "Community Access TeleVision." Anyway, that's what our local Community Access stations seem to think. > Footnotes: ... [likewise snipped] ... > > Neal McLain Straighten me out, please, if I've got that wrong :-) . And cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:02:58 -0400 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord Message-ID: <op.uwkti8koo63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net> On Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:47:29 -0400, John F. Morse <john@example.invalid> wrote: > tlvp wrote: > >> I'm hoping someone here can help me identify the following item. >> >> Amongst the assorted telecom bric-a-brac I've amassed over the years >> there's a DTMF deskset, looking for all the world like a broad-hipped >> 2500 set, with ten station- or line-select buttons across the top, the >> left-most one of these in clear red plastic, others just in clear, and >> the line cord is a fifty-conductor jobbie terminating in what I'd be >> tempted to call an old 50-pin Centronics-like connector. >> >> Comes with a handset, and a bolted-on handset cradle on the LH side. >> Rubber-stamped on the underside: 845 13 (BA) 42 M 3 76 . No actual >> documentation available. >> >> Full set of questions I have about this: >> >> What is it? (type of device, model, function) Advice how to use it on >> basic 2-conductor, single-line POTS service Accessory equipment needed >> to put it into service (KSU? other?) Anything else I ought to be >> asking, if only I were well-enough informed? >> >> TIA; and cheers, -- tlvp >> >> [PS: if a little jpeg image would help, and isn't frowned upon >> here, I can provide that in a follow-up, upon request. -- tlvp] > > Sounds like a 10-button KTS wall set. Seems WECo used the 8xx designation. > > I don't recognize the "hipped" description though. > > Post a picture in x.binaries and I'll have a look-see. Done, under the Subject: line "Conjectural WEco KTS wallset photo". > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > We don't publish images in messages (sorry), but I'll be glad to put > it on the TD website for a day or two. > > Bill Horne Bill, thank you: I've emailed you a jpeg photo of the unit, likewise with Subject: line "Conjectural WEco KTS wallset photo". > Bill, would you please post a URL for this site? > > TIA. Yes, a link to that pic once it's up would be welcome, please; thanks. Cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 10:17:03 -0400 From: Telecom digest moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord Message-ID: <20090705141703.GA28873@telecom.csail.mit.edu> On Sun, Jul 05, 2009 at 12:02:58AM -0400, tlvp wrote: > > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > > > > We don't publish images in messages (sorry), but I'll be glad to put > > it on the TD website for a day or two. > > Bill, thank you: I've emailed you a jpeg photo of the unit, > likewise with Subject: line "Conjectural WEco KTS wallset photo". The image is at http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/back.issues/recent.single.issues/WEco.KTS.wallset.40pc.jpg . -- Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 16:10:15 +0000 (UTC) From: David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord Message-ID: <h2qj97$s8d$1@reader1.panix.com> >The image is at http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/back.issues/recent.single.issues/WEco.KTS.wallset.40pc.jpg . If I recall correctly; it was a non-WECO keyset. I think AE made them. I can't recall the name, but the distinguishing aspect was unlike 2565 series sets, it used fewer conductors. A 2565 plug was wired: {Pin # 1-26} T-R A-A1 Line one L-LG {4-29} T-R A-A1 Line two L-LG etc. which limited you to 5 lines per 50-pair jack, once you included the special pairs needed for various things such as speakerphones. So sets with more keys [such as the SecDef's and POTUS Call Directors ..] needed multiple cables.. The pictured set was wired: T-R Line one A-L T-R Line two A-L with common grounds for A and lamps. This saved on cabling, at the cost of the lamps getting dimmer as more were on. -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:16:35 -0400 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord Message-ID: <op.uwlrhxqto63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net> On Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:32:48 -0400, Telecom digest moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote: > > The image is at > http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/back.issues/recent.single.issues/WEco.KTS.wallset.40pc.jpg . > Thank you, Bill! And cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:10:56 -0400 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Q.: 10-button deskset w/ 50-conductor line-cord Message-ID: <op.uwktwiyxo63xbg@acer250.gateway.2wire.net> On Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:21:15 -0400, Reed <reedh@rmi.net> wrote: > ... [much snipped] ... > > Does it look like this ?? > > http://phonebooth.us/phones/images/tn_2852.JPG Close. From the front up to the top row of 10 buttons, yes. But there's no cradle/hookswitch for the handset above that; instead, there's a bolt-on cradle/hookswitch on the left side (and marks on the underchassis suggesting that had once been bolted on on the right side, instead). Thanks for your interest in helping out. I think a photo may be getting hosted temporarily on a site the Moderator has control of (thanks, Bill, if you can do that for a time). Cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:12:46 -0700 From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Cellphones and driving Message-ID: <zx24m.4417$3o6.862@newsfe24.iad> Adam H. Kerman wrote: > > >>I had my first amps telephone installed in a car in 1984. It was >>mounted to a large transceiver which, in turn was mounted to the floor >>to my right on the front seat floor. In order to place or receive a >>call I had to take my right hand and press two clamps on [each] side >>of the handset, then lift it and use it like a wireline phone. >>Holding it and dialing out was a hoot. > > > How could you possibly do that safely whilst driving? > > I remember car phones, but I recall that they could be dialed while > mounted, with the dial at the back of the corded handset. Hehehe. I > almost wrote "on hook", which doesn't apply to cellular of course. > My point. It was far less safe than my hands free unit of today, which is dialed via a phone directory displayed on the car's navigation system. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:15:43 -0700 From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper? Message-ID: <jA24m.4418$3o6.1632@newsfe24.iad> Robert Bonomi wrote: > *sigh* The 3+3+4 number format 'logic' is embedded *VERY* deeply into the > architecture of the software of the aforementioned 'stored program controlled' > C.O. switches in the U.S. Data structures (e.g. routing tables) are sized > based on the 'assumption' of that format; code 'assumes' _fixed_length_ > break-out of the sections of the full number; etc., etc., ad nauseum. > > [Moderator snip] > > The 3+3+4 number format _is_, for practical purposes, "hard wired" into the > control program software. [Moderator snip] > > There's also more than 'just' the C.O. switch that has to be considered. > Courtesy of 'local number portability', there is a database look-up ("dip") > that has to be done for effectively every call, to find out 'where' that > must be sent for delivery. That database, for performance reasons, requires > a fixed-length 'key' (the phone number) field. Increasing the size of the > key is a relatively minor task, but it requires a 'flag day' cut-over, *AND* > assurance that the protocol for querying the database can handle the extra > digit(s) properly. > > Also, significant parts of the _hardware_ design are also predicated on > certain economies based on the specific _scale_ of the elements in th 3+3+4 > design. This constrains 'where and how' you can stick extra digits into the > dial-string. This sounds like Nortel (DMS-100) and AT&T/Lucent (5ESS) locked themselves out of the international market. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jul 2009 20:16:06 -0000 From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: NANP ten digit dialing, was Goodbye to copper? Message-ID: <20090705201606.1281.qmail@simone.iecc.com> >> Also, significant parts of the _hardware_ design are also predicated on >> certain economies based on the specific _scale_ of the elements in th 3+3+4 >> design. This constrains 'where and how' you can stick extra digits into the >> dial-string. > >This sounds like Nortel (DMS-100) and AT&T/Lucent (5ESS) locked >themselves out of the international market. Of course not. There are versions for networks with ITU rather than North American signalling. But those aren't what's installed all over the US and Canada. R's, John ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 11:04:41 -0400 From: "Bob Goudreau" <BobGoudreau@nc.rr.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Rating cell phone calls Message-ID: <CE194941713841F1AFC673990B3412E9@estore.us.dg.com> "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote: > Few subscribers to cell phone service would have had any idea what a > rate center was, so there was never a need for a cellular provider to > offer prefixes in each rate center, or even most rate centers, in a > market they were signing up customers in. Cellular providers were not > competing on the basis of who had the most rate centers and subscribers > wouldn't even consider any distance-related cost imposed on land line > subscribers making distance-rated local calls to the cell phone number. I can't agree with that last half-sentence. One class of wireless customers was VERY cognizant of how calls to their number would be rated: small local businesses whose primary (or only) advertised phone access was their cell number. Consider the one-man plumbing shop, lawn care service, etc. They might never be "in the office", so their cell number is the one they will list in Yellow Pages ads, mailbox flyers, etc. They are certainly going to want a number from a rate center that doesn't incur toll charges to their prospective customers! Bob Goudreau Cary, NC ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:40:03 -0700 From: Steven Lichter <diespammers@ikillspammers.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Rating cell phone calls Message-ID: <h2qvq3$8eo$1@news.eternal-september.org> Bob Goudreau wrote: > "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote: > >> Few subscribers to cell phone service would have had any idea what a >> rate center was, so there was never a need for a cellular provider to >> offer prefixes in each rate center, or even most rate centers, in a >> market they were signing up customers in. Cellular providers were not >> competing on the basis of who had the most rate centers and subscribers >> wouldn't even consider any distance-related cost imposed on land line >> subscribers making distance-rated local calls to the cell phone number. > > I can't agree with that last half-sentence. One class of wireless customers > was VERY cognizant of how calls to their number would be rated: small local > businesses whose primary (or only) advertised phone access was their cell > number. Consider the one-man plumbing shop, lawn care service, etc. > They might never be "in the office", so their cell number is the one they > will list in Yellow Pages ads, mailbox flyers, etc. They are certainly > going to want a number from a rate center that doesn't incur toll charges > to their prospective customers! > > Bob Goudreau > Cary, NC > > AirTouch; now Verizon had their switch in Ontario, California and the numbers for phone in Riverside had a rate center of Corona which made it toll for the better part of Riverside. Each time my wife would call me we got a toll charge. I'm not sure how it is now; I have Sprint and its switch is in Corona and the number is local to most of the area. I know for a while after a lot of screaming AirTouch worked out some kind of plan with Pacific Bell and GTE to make it local. My problem is when I'm traveling and on job sites out of area any calls to me which the exception of my home area call are long distance, but most of us now use Cell Phone to call each other. Years ago my Analog phone had 2 numbers on it, one local to California and one for Las Vegas. -- The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to Usenet, where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. The Telecom Digest is currently being moderated by Bill Horne while Pat Townson recovers from a stroke. Contact information: Bill Horne Telecom Digest 43 Deerfield Road Sharon MA 02067-2301 781-784-7287 bill at horne dot net Subscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=subscribe telecom Unsubscribe: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org?body=unsubscribe telecom This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm- unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list on the internet in any category! URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Copyright (C) 2008 TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved. Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA. ************************ --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of The Telecom digest (14 messages) ******************************

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