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TELECOM Digest V2 #138

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Dec 17, 1982, 12:53:22 AM12/17/82
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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
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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
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Date: 14 Dec 1982 1341-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
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.

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Date: 14 Dec 82 17:26:36-EST (Tue)
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@BRL>
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 (" <store name>
called, your order is in") from switchboard operator.

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Date: 13 Dec 1982 0656-PST
From: Gene Autrey-Hunley <Autrey-Hunley at SRI-KL>
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

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End of TELECOM Digest
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