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The Telecom Digest for June 11, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 148 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Plumbers and other artisans(John Mayson)
Early BSTJ submarine cable article [Telecom](AES)
Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area?(GlowingBlueMist)
Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area?(Michael Moroney)
Cable rates are rising, but don't blame your provider - entirely(Monty Solomon)
Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area?(John Levine)
Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area?(markjcuccia)
Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area?(Some Guy)
Here's a legal question(Bill Horne)

====== 29 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 Bill Horne 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.
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See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.


Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 08:53:52 -0500 From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Plumbers and other artisans Message-ID: <BANLkTi=c5mVtyMz4APVhgx_=jkNb8Ozgug@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 6:59 PM, Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:06:38 -0400, John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote: > >> ... in 1995 BellSouth installed phone service to my house. The >> static was horrendous. They came out, claimed to have fixed it, but >> didn't. Finally I went out, fixed it myself, and then called them >> offering to let their techs know how to fix a static-filled line. > > I did not know that Bell South ever served or tried to serve Austin. > It was Southwestern Bell since, I believe, 1917. I never said I was living in Austin in 1995. :-) I was in Florida. -- John Mayson <john@mayson.us> Austin, Texas, USA
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:57:38 -0700 From: AES <siegman@stanford.edu> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Early BSTJ submarine cable article Message-ID: <siegman-53229B.15573809062011@bmedcfsc-srv02.tufts.ad.tufts.edu> While digging into the July 1964 issue of BSTJ for some classic early Bell Labs papers on lasers -- sorry, optical masers -- I noted that it was also a special issue on submarine cables, with the opening paper being The SD Submarine Cable System Page(s) 1155-1184 Ehrbar, R.D.; Fraser, J.M.; Kelley, R.A.; Morris, L.H.; Mottram, E.T.; Rounds, P.W. Submarine cable systems of a new design have reccently been installed between Florida and Panama, between New Jersey and Cornwall, Englund, and between Hawaii and Japan. Using a single lightweight armorless cable for most of the route, with electron tube amplifiers encased in rigid containers at 20-mile intervals, this type of system will carry 128 channels in each direclion. More detailed discussion of cable , repeaters, and power equipment will be found in companion articles. This article outlines the system development objectives, gives an over-all system description, and describes the equalization plan and terminal equipment ... My OCRing is not too good, but anyone is interested the original is available at http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol43-1964/bstj-vol43-issue04.html Each of the 128 channels in each direction had a 3 kc bandwidth by the way. ***** Moderator's Note ***** I corrected the quote as best I could. For the future, if an OCR program makes too many errors, please leave out the quote or type it by hand. TIA. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:20:52 -0500 From: GlowingBlueMist <GlowingBlueMist@truely.invalid.dotsrc.org> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area? Message-ID: <4df15556$0$316$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> On 6/8/2011 5:39 PM, Some Guy wrote: > Strange. We got a blank voicemail on our Google Voice phone-line today: > > New voicemail from (431) 536-63xx at 8:49 AM > > When I search for info about that area code, I get this: > > +--------------------------------------------------------------+ > http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Area-code-431-being-added-in-2012-99469374.html > > The CRTC also confirmed that a new area code, 431, will be introduced as > of Nov. 3, 2012. > +--------------------------------------------------------------+ > > So, is the 431 area-code active now (contrary to the above article) ? > Most likely it was a spammer faking the caller ID and wanted to use a number that people had not started blocking yet.
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:38:40 +0000 (UTC) From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area? Message-ID: <isthag$tqc$2@pcls6.std.com> GlowingBlueMist <GlowingBlueMist@truely.invalid.dotsrc.org> writes: >On 6/8/2011 5:39 PM, Some Guy wrote: >> So, is the 431 area-code active now (contrary to the above article) ? >> >Most likely it was a spammer faking the caller ID and wanted to use a >number that people had not started blocking yet. Like what "Rachel" of the Card Services scam has been doing for years now.
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 23:27:45 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Cable rates are rising, but don't blame your provider - entirely Message-ID: <p06240807ca173f75990d@[10.0.1.3]> Cable rates are rising, but don't blame your provider - entirely By Johnny Diaz Globe Staff / June 5, 2011 Cable subscribers in Boston are fuming about rising bills, and many blame what they see as Comcast Corp.'s virtual monopoly in the city. The renewed focus on cable prices has come as Mayor Thomas M. Menino, outraged by a recent 19 percent jump in the charge for basic cable, or the lowest service tier, petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to give the city the power to determine basic cable rates, now $15.80. That's about double the cost in communities that already set those rates. But since few households settle for basic cable, essentially limited to local broadcast stations and community access channels, the authority to set these rates would have little effect on the vast majority of subscribers, who purchase more extensive packages of cable and premium channels. In Boston, only 15,000 of the city's 170,000 customers have basic service: The average cable bill in Boston is $65 a month, up from $62 last year, and $58 in 2009, according to the city. For most subscribers, the biggest driver of these rising cable bills is the increased cost of programming - the result, ironically, of competition with satellite companies, Internet TV, movie rental providers, and Verizon Corp.'s FiOS network, analysts said. As these services bid for programming, sports, entertainment, and local channels demand - and receive - higher fees from cable companies, which ultimately get passed on to consumers. ... http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/06/05/cable_rates_are_rising_but_dont_blame_your_provider__entirely/ ***** Moderator's Note ***** Comcrap is the most arrogant, intractable, intransigent, and incompetent telephone service provider in the world: I know, because I had the misfortune of paying them for telephone service years ago. Having said that, I'll also say that cable TV viewers who don't cancel overpriced or substandard television offerings get little sympathy from me: it's an entertainment service, not a food or fuel monopoly, so nobody is forced to put up with prices they find inconvenient. Just tell Mayor Menino that he's a pretentious blow-hard, and organize a boycott of Comcast: they'll get the message. Better yet, turn it off, get a library card, and read a book. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: 9 Jun 2011 21:30:05 -0000 From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area? Message-ID: <20110609213005.8555.qmail@joyce.lan> Nope, not for another year. http://www.nanpa.com/planning_letters/planning_letters_2011.html
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 12:50:40 -0700 (PDT) From: markjcuccia@yahoo.com To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area? Message-ID: <422db697-6374-4604-8d5d-1d1f5c9a13fa@p20g2000yqg.googlegroups.com> On Wednesday 08-June-2011, "Some Guy" wrote: > Strange. We got a blank voicemail on our Google Voice phone-line > today: > > New voicemail from (431) 536-63xx at 8:49 AM > > When I search for info about that area code, I get this: > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Area-code-431-being-added-in-2012-99469374.html > The CRTC also confirmed that a new area code, 431, will be > introduced as of Nov. 3, 2012. > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > So, is the 431 area-code active now (contrary to the above > article) ? The 431 area code is NOT active yet. The Winnipeg Free Press article mentions 03-November-2012 (Saturday) as the effective date for the new area code. If you go to the CRTC or CNA or NeuStar-NANPA website (I don't know if MTS has anything re 204/431 yet at their website), they all will say the same thing, that the 204/431 Manitoba overlay is effective on Saturday 03-November-2012. As for 10-digit local dialing... Saturday 20-October-2012 is when ten-digit local dialing in Manitoba becomes mandatory. Sunday 29-July-2012 is actually the date when a REMINDER recording will be played (with call completion following the recording) on local calls still dialed as just seven-digits. Thursday 01-December-2011 is when ten-digit dialing must be made permissive (alongside seven-digit dialing) where it isn't already possible. MOST-if-not-ALL wireless providers in North America already allow ten-digit local dialing (alongside seven-digit local dialing unless one is in an overlay area). It MIGHT be possible that MTS (incumbent landline) or some landline CLECs already allow such permissive ten-digit local dialing. All of the dates for permissive or mandatory ten-digit dialing are when a week long "phase-in" period begins for the service providers to open permissive ten-digit local dialing, or introduce the reminder recording (with call completion) for calls still dialed as just seven-digits, or convert to mandatory ten-digit local dialing. There will be a pair of test-numbers -- one for routing purposes, and one for billing test purposes both provided by the MTS incumbent landline side of MTS-Allstream: 431-610-TEST (8378) (NOT "supposed" to return billing supervision) 431-610-BILL (2455) (is "supposed" to return billing supervision) At this time, Bell West CLEC, Telus CLEC, and the Allstream CLEC side of MTS-Allstream have not announced plans for any 431 test-numbers. Rogers Cable CLEC and Rogers "CallNet" CLEC don't seem to have any presence in Manitoba, thus no test-numbers have been announced for Rogers neither. The test announcement will be English "only", although it was originally intended that the test announcement (and 10-digit reminder or mandatory recordings as well) be English-then-French, but the bi-lingual plans were dropped. The test-announcements are scheduled to begin by Monday 30-April-2012, and be disconnected (or at least access to the MTS test-numbers by long distance carriers throughout the US and Canada) no earlier than Monday 03-December-2012. It's possible that the MTS test-numbers and even access to them via IXCs in the US and Canada could continue through early January 2013. NeuStar-NANPA issued the Planning Letter (prepared by the CNA), #419, on Friday 06-May-2011, the pdf file can be downloaded from NANPA's website at: http://www.nanpa.com/pdf/PL_419.pdf As to WHY you got a call with the 431 area code indicated this early, it's likely that some telemarketer has been spoofing calls with this (at present) inactive North American area code. $cammers and Tele-$pammer "marketers" are known to spoof and hi-jack unused (and even used) numbering space from not only North American telephone numbers, but even other countries' numbering plans. Mark J. Cuccia markjcuccia at yahoo dot com Lafayette LA, formerly of New Orleans LA pre-Katrina
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:42:53 -0400 From: Some Guy <Some@Guy.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: New telephone area-code 431 in Winnipeg area? Message-ID: <4DF2579D.E927FA74@Guy.com> markjcuccia@yahoo.com wrote: > > Strange. We got a blank voicemail on our Google Voice > > phone-line today: > > > > New voicemail from (431) 536-63xx at 8:49 AM > > > > So, is the 431 area-code active now (contrary to the above > > article) ? > > The 431 area code is NOT active yet. > > As to WHY you got a call with the 431 area code indicated this early, > it's likely that some telemarketer has been spoofing calls with this > (at present) inactive North American area code. $cammers and > Tele-$pammer "marketers" are known to spoof and hi-jack unused (and > even used) numbering space from not only North American telephone > numbers, but even other countries' numbering plans. How exactly can someone inject their own caller-ID information into the phone system? The caller ID info is injected during the space between the first and second rings - right? Do telco's allow customers to inject their own info somehow to over-ride the real data?
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 17:27:41 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Here's a legal question Message-ID: <20110610212741.GA10005@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Here's a legal question: if there are any lawyers reading the group, I'd like to hear your views on this. What, if any, restrictions are there on the things an ILEC can do when one of it's own employees requests a tariffed service that the ILEC is unwilling to supply? In other words, can an employee of an ILEC be punished for requesting a tariffed service if the ILEC doesn't want to supply it? Replies offline, please. TIA. Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM for direct replies)
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