TELECOM Digest     Tue, 28 Dec 93 13:37:30 CST    Volume 13 : Issue 840

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Monopoly For Hong Kong Telecom is Threatened, Cable is Merging (Dan Chun)
    Information Wanted on European E1/ISDN Standards (Doug A. Chan)
    FTP Site For EIA Standards (Rob McConnell)
    FCC Jurisdiction Over 500-Channel TV (Justin Fidler)
    Communication Speeds and Distances (jemli@iastate.edu)
    Telix and Busy Signals (Eric Walrod)
    Guatemala Calls Canada Looking For Love (James Salsman)
    Dialing in Area 601 (Mississippi) (Carl Moore)
    Re: Details of AT&T's Divestiture and the MFJ (Robert L. McMillin)
    Re: Details of AT&T's Divestiture and the MFJ (Michael Jacobs)
    500 Channel Cable Television (A. Padgett Peterson)
    Re: TDMA vs. CDMA = Betamax vs. VHS? (Michael G. Capuano)
    Re: The Superhighway and Telcos (Fred R. Goldstein)
    Re: Unique(?) Problem With Voicemail Prompts (Martin McCormick)
    Re: TDD Software Wanted (Todd D. Hale)

TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere
there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of
public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie.
Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations
and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify:

                 * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu *

The Digest is compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson Associates of
Skokie, Illinois USA. We provide telecom consultation services and
long distance resale services including calling cards and 800 numbers.
To reach us:  Post Office Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690 or by phone
at 708-329-0571 and fax at 708-329-0572. Email: ptownson@townson.com.

    ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu **

Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using
anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email
information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to
use the information service, just ask.

TELECOM Digest is gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated
newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom. It has no connection with the unmoderated
Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom.tech whose mailing list "Telecom-Tech
Digest" shares archives resources at lcs.mit.edu for the convenience
of users. Please *DO NOT* cross post articles between the groups.

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

Date: 28 Dec 93 17:52 GMT
From: "chun d."@infomail.infonet.com
Subject: Monopoly For Hong Kong Telecom is Threatened, Cable is Merging


Hi everyone,

There are many stories covered on mergers and acquisitions for cable
operators, online information services and home shopping operators,
telcos, etc in the news. Everybody talks about multimedia and
interactive services and information superhighway with ISDN,
fibre-optics and the idea of anywhere-anytime computing concepts.

Are there any interests from the western part of the world to learn
more of the development in Asia and in particular Hong Kong. I have
checked some newswire and some newsgroup but very few are aware of the
development in this part of the world.

In HK, where the local PTT -- Hong Kong Telecom HKT (a C&W plc's
subsidiary) has recently been threatened on its monopoly by the OFTA
(Office of the Telecommunication Authority) which has prepared to grant
three fixed telecom licenses to three conglormerates. HKT stills enjoy
the monopoly of providing local voice services until June 1995.

The three conglormerates are namely:

- New T&T Hong Kong ( backed by Wharf Holdings which also holds first
exclusive Cable TV license for three years, NYNEX is the technology
partner in this case);

- Hutchison Communications ( joined by Telstra, formerly Telecom
Australia and backed by Hutchison Whampoa empire of the richest man in
HK, K.S. Li.);

- New World Communications ( backed by New World Development, another
conglormerate interested in property, infrastructure developments and
to a lesser extent, paging services is also backed by US West, Infa
Telecom, and Shanghai Long-Distance);

In Hong Kong, the facts are that:

1. HKT holds all monopoly for international traffic in voice and data
circuits until 2006;

2. HKT holds monopoly for providing local voice and data service until
1995;

3. HKT has fully digitised all exchanges and had spent major PR efforts
in running up to the last minute including inviting the Governor to
initiate the ceremony;

4. There is no charge for making any local calls in both voice/fax/data
except for a monthly subscription rate;

5. HKT made about 60% of the revenue from enjoying the international
monopoly;

6. The regulatory is begining to prove that it exists now that the
appointed director who used to help deregulate the Australia market
seeing Optus challenging Telecom Australia - now Telstra has announce
the plan for deregulation;

7. In HK, the fax machines are very popular and is only second to Japan
in the penetration of fax.(since fax supports funny images that are
known as chinese or japanese chacracters.) It also supports a primitive
workgroup concept before Lotus notes became a hit;

8. Online information services, BBSs, mobile data, PDAs, value-added
networks, commercial internet gateways, enhanced fax store-forward
services, fax-on-demand, and other advance services are all available
and had made their presenece felt;

Now, my question is do *you*, as a researcher or professional think
the market in HK can substain three fixed telecom license? Debates
and questions are welcomed.

I am happy to continue this discussion based on the assumption that
there are sufficient interests from all of you in the telecom market
in HK and secondly I would like to learn from the deregulating
environment experienced by AT&T some years ago and also the UK Mercury
cutting into BT, etc. from you folks.

I am online in CompuServe at 100267.712@compuserve.com and also here
in Infonet but will be departing before end of year. I am also
obtaining a full internet access via one of the local commercial
gateways soon. So I will be in touch with you folks someway.

Best regards and Happy 94!!!


Daniel J Y Chun    The Extrategic Wizard


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Something else to be considered are the
changes coming in 1997 with the change in 'ownership' as the UK pulls
out and China takes over. Will all the deals make prior still be
honored? Will the economy in HK change to the extent that if three are
supportable now, they will all remain viable after the change in the
government?  PAT]

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

From: apollo1@netcom.com (Doug A. Chan =-)
Subject: Information Wanted on European E1/ISDN Standards
Message-Id: <apollo1CIrCLw.5t7@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 18:27:31 GMT


1) Where can I find out more info about E1 for telephony use?
   I'm looking for very specific details (line coding format, signalling
   format, etc...) for different countries (Germany, France, UK).

   Also, call progress information/tones for each of the countries would
   be very helpful...

2) I'm also looking for ISDN standards in Europe (EEC's NET 5 vs. current
   country specific implementation vs. CCITT specs?)

I know this is quite a bit of information but I'll be quite happy if
someone can point me in the right direction.

I'll post a summary if I get sufficient info ...


Thanks,

Doug   apollo1@netcom.com   apollo@world.std.com

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

From: rob@ubitrex.mb.ca (Rob McConnell)
Subject: FTP Site For EIA Standards
Date: 28 Dec 1993 15:52:27 GMT
Organization: UBITREX Corporation, Winnipeg, MB Canada
Reply-To: rob@ubitrex.mb.ca


Does anyone know the whereabouts of an FTP site for EIA standards,
specifically EIA IS-60?


Thanks,

Rob McConnell
Ubitrex Corporation                | Voice: 204-942-2992 ext 223
1900-155 Carlton St                | FAX:   204-942-3001
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3C 3H8 | Email: rob@ubitrex.mb.ca

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

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 00:03:54 EST
From: Justin Fidler <jfidler@cap.gwu.edu>
Subject: FCC Jurisdiction Over 500-Channel TV


With all this talk of 500-channel television, the medium of delivery
will change as well.  If this medium is carried on private company
equipment, will the FCC still have a right to control/censor the
programming like they do broadcast television (which travels over
airwaves)?


Justin Fidler   jfidler@cap.gwu.edu

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

From: jemli@iastate.edu
Subject: Communication Speeds and Distances
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 00:23:52 GMT


The latest draft of the `Communications Speeds and Distances' chart is on:

129.186.149.1 vincent1.iastate.edu (login: anonymous.jemli)
as either comspeed.eps or comspeed.gif.

The circles represent some protocol (like ethernet or local talk)
positioned at their transmission speed (ethernet = 10Mbps) and as high
as their range (ethernet = .5km).

The ovals (like frame relay and DBDQ) represent their transmission
speed range (frame relay goes from 64Kbps to 37.5Mbps), and their
height is, again, their range.
The colors are arbitrary.

For most thingies I don't know their range (without repeaters) and
just guess. If you can help with this info send a note.

I was thinking that perhaps I should color them all according to their
OSI layer.  If this makes sense and anyone can classify all these
thingies into their OSI layers I would welcome the feedback.


Thanks,

Jeremy |-)

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

From: ericw@seanews.akita.com (Eric Walrod)
Subject: Telix and Busy signals
Organization: SEANEWS - Seattle Public Access News + Mail
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 03:15:24 GMT


Okay, I just set up a new PC Logic 14.4kbps Internal Fax/Modem for a
friend, and set-up deltaComm's Telix v3.21 for it.

I CANNOT get Telix to recognize a busy signal.  I am already using
ATX4V1 to no avail (sp?).

Any suggestions (besides TRY x PROGRAM and BUY x BRAND MODEM) e-mailed to
me would be most appreciated.


Eric Walrod
[] SEANEWS [] Seattle Public Access Usenet News + Mail [] +1 206 747 NEWS []
ericw@seanews.akita.com

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

From: bovik@eecs.nwu.edu (James Salsman)
Subject: Guatemala Calls Canada Looking For Love
Organization: BRI
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 09:11:38 GMT


The {Los Angeles Times} reports that in the past few months,
Guatemalan callers have placed 70,000 calls to Canadian phone-sex
lines at $2.95 per minute.  Basic phone service in Guatemala can be
under $1/month.

That is one call per every 2.8 telephones, according to my statistics.
(Guatemala has about 800,000 people and 2% have telephones.)

There was no disclosure of fees as is required by law in the U.S.A.
The calls made so far are over one million U.S. dollars.

I hope the $2.95/minute was an international tariff fee and not a
Dial-IT/900 style fee.  In a country already troubled by civil unrest
and strife left over from the 1982 collapse of the Central American
Market, that a big, wealthy country like Canada was trying to make
money off of the overactive coffee-fed libidos of an impovrished
people would be disgusting.


James Salsman    Bovik Research


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the same story as it appeared
in the {Chicago Tribune} said that the people in Guatemala making the
calls were finding out too late that the cost (of the call) was rather
high and that many people were protesting the charges when they saw
them on their phone bill. Apparently it is not entirely clear to
people what they will be paying for the service. But the thing to
remember is that it is not a 'big weathy country like Canada' which is
making money off the people in Guatemala, it is whoever is running the
service who made the arrangements with the (Canadian and Guatemalan)
telcos who is making the money.

What about here in the USA where some numbers in the 201 (New Jersey)
area code which connect with horoscopes, astrologists and practioners
of Tarot are being heavily promoted in advertisements in newspapers in
Spain, Haiti, Jamaica and other similar countries?  The people in
Spain/Haiti/Jamaica are getting the same message delivered to them that
the Guatemalans are getting from Canada and that the gay guys in the
USA are getting from the Netherland Antilles: **call for a good time**.
No premium fees; just toll charges apply. We've covered here before how
the payments get divided up among the folks responsible; making lots
of money by taking advantage of the human frailties of others is nothing
new: just the technology has changed. Years ago people went out to some
certain place in their community where they knew they could find what
they wanted for a price. Now they use the modern international phone
network instead.  PAT]

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

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 12:36:09 EST
From: Carl Moore <cmoore@BRL.MIL>
Subject: Dialing in Area 601 (Mississippi)


I received the following on 23 December):

 ... we currently do not have to dial the area code within Mississippi.
However, this will change this month (December) when we will be
required to enter the whole 1 + 601 + seven digits.

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

From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin)
Subject: Re: Details of AT&T's Divestiture and the MFJ - Ten Years Hence
In-Reply-To: devalla@astra.tamu.edu's message of 25 Dec 1993 18:26:24 GMT
Organization: Surf City Software/TBFW Project
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 06:21:41 GMT


On 25 Dec 1993 18:26:24 GMT, TELECOM Digest Editor noted:

> A feature I used to do occassionally was called "Ten Years Ago in
> the Digest" and perhaps a few readers would enjoy some of the
> comments from the readers who were on our list back then during the
> final days of the old Bell System and the first few days of the 'new
> way' of doing things.  PAT]

Yes, it can be interesting to go back in the archives.  I remember
seeing a note from the Moderator at the time, Jon Solomon, saying
something to the effect that now that AT&T's breaking up, we can't
have any political commentary in the Digest because of the AUP for the
various nets.  He also said the Net was about to convert from NP to
the newfangled TCP/IP ... amazing how much technical progress there's
been in the Internet in such a short period of time.


Robert L. McMillin  | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com
13442 Wilson St.    | Garden Grove, CA      | 92644
     voice: 714-638-2459 | fax: 714-638-2384
I'm only a guest at surfcty.com; THEY certainly wouldn't have these opinions!


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The Acceptable Use Policy has changed
quite a bit over the years also, and I think Jon Solomon was somewhat
mistaken in wanting to totally rule out 'political commentary'. He
later changed his mind on this when I pointed out to him that so much
of what is available today in telecommunications, and the way the
industry implements what is available is due to politics. How can you
therefore separate the 'political commentary' at times from a pure
technology discussion?  The classic example of this is Caller-ID.

Yes, the changes in network technology have been occurring at a
expotential rate. It took how many thousands of years to invent the
telephone and learn to control electricity for our convenience? Then
in the next hundred years ... wow! Computers were 'invented' in the
late 1940's and early 1950's ... 25-30 years later 'home computers'
first began to make an appearance in the late 1970's. Now 15 years
later, more computational resources sit on the desk in my office than
existed at Harvard University in 1960. Several years passed between
the 110/300 baud modem and the 1200 baud modem. After a couple years
2400 baud became available, and then 9600 and 14.4 came through almost
immediatly thereafter. The {Chicago Tribune} in an editorial comment
in 1900 commenting on 'all the tremendous inventions of the past
century' (meaning 1801-1900) asked, "how long will it be before we
run out of things to invent ...". It boggles my mind to think of what
kinds of things we will have at our disposal twenty years from now.
That is, unless we 'run out of things to invent'... :)   PAT]

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

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 19:37:50 EDT
From: Michael Jacobs <JMT0@LAFAYACS.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Details of AT&T's Divestiture and the MFJ - Ten Years Hence


Regarding the question about why the divestiture and how the terms of
the Modified Final Judgement came to be, the best source I have seen
is a book titled "The Deal of the Century," which should be available
in any larger library.  It includes relevant historical data,
analysis, and interviews with all the major players.  Contrary to
popular belief, top AT&T executives got exactly what they wanted from
the MFJ, namely a lifting of information services and other
restrictions from AT&T.

For more information regarding technical consequences of the MFJ
terms, see "The Rape of Ma Bell" by Kraus and Duerig, who give an
insider's perspective (with some emotional bias) to the subject.  Many
of the technical problems have been worked out since 1984, and a lot
of the horror stories are exaggerated, but the book does point out
some areas still of concern ten years later.


Personal Opinions Only,

Mike Jacobs, JMT0@lafibm.lafayette.edu,
Service Technician, Bell Atlantic-Pennsylvania

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

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 09:39:29 -0500
From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson)
Subject: 500 Channel Cable Television


Several people have written:

> A. Padgett Peterson writes that he thinks that there is not much of a
> logical reason for a 500 channel system.  Specifically:

and they have all missed my real point - not that there is not a
*logical* reason but there is not a *logistical* structure to support
it and this would be necessary.

There have been several good suggestions. Personally I favor a
built-in computer that could accept a [weekly|daily|hourly] listing in
the background that would be stored in the home.

Several people have suggested that they might be able to edit out
everrything except what is wanted. I doubt that the companies will
offer this since they are interested in selling *more* so will have to
tell you about things you did not select.

Personally, I *want* everything I can get. Just this week some people
overseas mentioned some nuances and it was nice to be able to tune
into "HOBOCTH" on channel 43 and see what was being released
publically.

The real stumbling block is liable to be the old NTSC/PAL/SECAM one
(why foreign shows often are "boxed").


Hippo Hoppidays,

Padgett

PS: I wonder how the Brits licence PC-television boards and multi-channel
    displays.

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

From: mgcapuano@delphi.com (Michael G. Capuano)
Subject: Re: TDMA vs. CDMA = Betamax vs. VHS?
Date: 28 Dec 1993 03:42:01 GMT
Organization: General Videotex Corporation


Brendan,

    What is up with E-TDMA.  Has that been thrown in the toilette.
This posting is after reading your analysis of the San Diego "ideal"
CDMA trial.


Mike Capuaon

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

From: goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein)
Subject: Re: The Superhighway and Telcos
Date: 28 Dec 1993 05:47:20 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA


In article <telecom13.837.8@eecs.nwu.edu> darmy@symantec.com (Donald
Army) writes:

> Are there any news groups on ATM??

comp.dcom.cell-relay

That should do it.


Fred R. Goldstein  k1io  goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com
Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission

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

From: martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu (Martin McCormick)
Subject: Re: Unique(?) Problem With Voicemail Prompts
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 16:28:41 GMT


In article <telecom13.839.16@eecs.nwu.edu> dave@westmark.com (Dave
Levenson) writes:

> A human voice typically generates only one frequency at a time, and
> the components of the touch-tone signals are pairs of non-harmonically-
> related frequencies, so this problem does not occur very often.

 The human voice may produce only one fundamental at any given
time, but it also produces lots of harmonics which contain all of the
intelligence in speech.  It can happen that certain Howell sounds may
produce a harmonic pattern that contains two frequencies which just
happen to produce a valid duel-tone signal.  The question is not
whether this will happen, but how often.  Male and female voices both
produce lots of harmonic output and the possibility for a false
trigger is always there.  The first amateur radio automatic telephone
patches used resonant tuned circuits and phase locked loops to
"listen" for tones and frequently heard them in the harmonic content
of voices.  This caused the systems to frequently malfunction and
either drop calls or randomly do other control sequences at
inappropriate times.  Now, we have digital signal processors which can
be programmed to run more tests on a suspected DTMF signal to see if
it is really a DTMF tone or just somebody's musical voice.

 A good source of basic information plus a lot of very
interesting reading can be found in the "Benchmark Papers on
Acoustics" series by Bell Laboratories.  These research papers
describe the quest to understand how human speech is generated so as
to design machines which could artificially produce it and even
understand spoken words.  Some of the pre-computer era hardware was
truly cleaver and did wonders to aid in understanding even if it
didn't ever have any practical use.


Martin McCormick WB5AGZ   Stillwater, OK
O.S.U. Computer Center Data Communications Group

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

From: thale@Novell.COM (Todd D. Hale)
Subject: Re: TDD Software Wanted
Organization: Novell, Inc., Provo, UT, USA
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 16:35:54 GMT


In article <telecom13.839.13@eecs.nwu.edu> peltz@cerl.uiuc.edu (Steve
Peltz) writes:

> Why don't they start releasing dual-mode TDD machines, that can handle
> ASCII and "standard" modem standards, and eventually phase out Baudot-
> only machines?

I know that ASCII/BAUDOT TDDs are available, and have been for several
years.  But, the transition has been very slow.


Todd D. Hale    thale@novell.com   halet@ernie.cs.byu.edu
Unofficially speaking, of course.

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

End of TELECOM Digest V13 #840
******************************


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