TELECOM Digest     Mon, 4 Apr 94 13:46:00 CDT    Volume 14 : Issue 163

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    New OTA Study on Wireless Technology (Todd LaPorte)
    Re: Alert! New CD-Rom Database a la Lotus: Household! (Les Reeves)
    Re: Alert! New CD-Rom Database a la Lotus: Household! (Scott Coleman)
    Re: Alert! New CD-Rom Database a la Lotus: Household! (Tarl 
    Re: Will Widespread Use of Cell Phones Reduce Crime? (Carl Moore)
    Re: Will Widespread Use of Cell Phones Reduce Crime? (Rob Boudrie)
    Re: Will Widespread Use of Cell Phones Reduce Crime? (H. Peter Anvin)
    Re: PC Pursuit Has Ended (Thomas M. Allebrandi)
    Re: PC Pursuit Has Ended (James Taranto)
    Request For Information on Voicemail Systems (Henry Sobel)
    Small Scale Voicemail Information Needed (Eric A. Litman)
    Can I Use my Cellular Phone in Turkey and Germany? (Yilmaz Cengeloglu)

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

From: Todd LaPorte <tlaporte@tct.ota.gov>
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 94 13:08:00 PDT
Subject: New OTA Study: Wireless Technology and National Info Infrastructure


     We are pleased to announce that the Office of Technology
Assessment+s study of the implications of wireless technologies for
the National Information Infrastructure (NII) was formally approved by
our Congressional Technology Assessment Board at its February 8th
meeting.  The texts of the request letters for the study, the press
release from Representatives Brown and Boucher, and the proposal for
the study, which outlines the issues we will be considering during the
next 14 months, are all available via ftp at otabbs.ota.gov.  Look in
pub\wireless\ for these documents.  Other study-related documents will
be posted as they become available.

     The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of 
the problems and promises of integrating wireless technologies into the NII. 
 Wireless technologies and systems--such as TV and radio broadcasting,
new personal communications services, and many kinds of satellite
communications -- will form an integral part of the NII, but the role
they will play and the implications of their widespread adoption are
not yet clear.  In particular, integrating the many wireless and
wireline systems that will comprise the NII will prove a difficult
challenge for Federal, State, and local regulators. Many factors,
including standards development, interconnection and pricing
arrangements, and differing industry regulation, must be addressed
before radio-based technologies and systems can become an effective
part of the NII.

     This study will: identify and discuss the various wireless
technologies that could contribute to the development of the NII,
assess the barriers to greater or more efficient use of radio-based
systems, and explore the economic, regulatory, and social implications
of the convergence of wireline and wireless technologies in the NII.
The study will also present policy options addressing relevant
wireless/NII issues.

     Over the course of the study, we will try to talk to as many
people as we can in order to understand the wide range of interests
and concerns surrounding these complex and difficult issues.  In
addition, OTA will also conduct several (as yet undetermined)
workshops that will address specific issues in more detail.  These
meetings will be announced as far in advance as possible. If you would
like more information, please feel free to contact the study team at
our project e-mail address, wireless@ota.gov.  Any suggestions you may
have for people we should talk to, or other sources of data and
information will be greatly appreciated.


David Wye, Todd La Porte, Alan Buzacott, Greg Wallace
Wireless Project Team
Telecommunications and Computing Technologies Program
Office of Technology Assessment  U.S. Congress
(202) 228-6760   wireless@ota.gov

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

Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 09:29:07 PDT
From: Les Reeves <lreeves@crl.com>
Subject: Re: Alert! New CD-Rom Database a la Lotus: Household!
Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access  (415) 705-6060  [login: guest]


David S. Greenberg (mgreeny@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu) wrote:

> If you recall, the only reason that Lotus dropped their moronic
> Household CDROM was because they received 20,000 letters/calls
> requesting removal from the database.  Lotus LEARNED THE HARD WAY HOW
> TO ALIENATE YOUR CUSTOMER BASE -- MAYBE THIS COMPANY NEEDS A GOOD KICK
> IN THE *&*(& AS WELL...

> TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The thing is, they *do* have the right
> to see compiled listings -- as did Lotus or as does anyone else -- if they
> wish to do so. If a telephone book containing alphabetical listings is
> not illegal then neither is a consolidated listing of several telephone
> books made into one.

 ......

> Why? Is it because the ease
> and availability in obtaining the information has become greater?  PAT]

Pat is correct.  The CD Rom has simply brought this well established
list business within reach of anyone with a PC.

The Direct Marketing Association will help you make sure your name is
not used by direct marketers.  It will not remove your name from
lists, but it will attempt to alert all direct marketers who are
members that you do not wish to receive unsolicited mail.

As for the ProCD product, if you have moved in the last five years the
information on the CD is probably wrong.  This company's products are
loaded with errors.  If you are going to complain to them, ask them to
improve their accuracy <G>.


Les    lreeves@crl.com       Atlanta,GA      

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

From: genghis@ilces.ag.uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman)
Subject: Re: Alert! New CD-Rom Database a la Lotus: Household!
Date: 4 Apr 94 14:56:47 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana


mgreeny@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (David S. Greenberg) writes:

> Hi all, just thought I'd let everyone out there know that I just
> received in my daily pile of junk mail yet another company (which
> shall be named shortly ...) which has decided that they have the right
> to sell ****YOUR**** name and address AND PHONE NUMBER on CD ROM! 

[...]

> CALL NOW! Protect your right to privacy!  Stop the abuse!

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The thing is, they *do* have the right
> to see compiled listings -- as did Lotus or as does anyone else -- if they
> wish to do so.  [...] I think 
> what you will find in this case however is that the company in question
> is merely a list seller. They specialize in lists for other companies to
> purchase, and they are not going to be impressed very much one way or
> the other by consumers, per se. 

I'd like to add to these points that the above company is by no means
the first to offer residential listings on CD-ROM. Last summere at the
American Library Association annual conference there was a CD-ROM
reverse directory shown, and its booth drew quite a bit of attention.
What this means is the chances are good that you can walk right into
your public library and use, in addition to the standard printed cross
directory, a CD-ROM version, as well. The reference room here at the
University of Illinois has a CD-ROM workstation dedicated to searches
on a reverse directory disc. In short, your campaign, even if
successful, won't make much of a dent in the abuses telemarketing scum
make of our telephones. The information will still be available from
too many other sources, including Compu$erve (via their PHONE*FILE
service) and the 900 number which you can call and punch in a phone
number via DTMF tones and retrieve the directory information.

On the bright side, however, you *can* protect yourself. Call your
phone company and have your listing changed to "city only" - i.e. your
listing appears as "John Doe, Anytown USA." As others have noted, you
can also choose to be listed under an assumed name, provided it sounds
reasonable. There are scads of call screening devices, some designed
specifically to thwart telemarketers, coming on the market now. I use
one which I designed myself based on a PC voice mail card and a
computer CNID interface, but I've seen similar devices in such
catalogs as Home Automation Labs. Using these techniques, I have
managed to cut my junk calls down to near ZERO.

One other glimmer of hope is that the data sources used by these
CD-ROM producers may not always be up to date. I sometimes look up the
"unknown" numbers which show up in my caller logs to see who's calling
me. Much of the time the information simply isn't there. A friend of
mine who actually owns some of these CD-ROM cross directories laments
this fact. Unless the CD-ROM in question has as its source the telco's
proprietary directory assistance data, there's a chance your
information isn't there or is listed incorrectly.


Scott Coleman  tmkk@uiuc.edu
President ASRE (American Society of Reverse Engineers)
Ed Green Fan Club #005

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

From: tarl@coyoacan.dmc.com
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 94 22:04:00 EST
Subject: Re: Alert! New CD-Rom Database a la Lotus: Household!


In article <telecom14.156.6@eecs.nwu.edu>,  mgreeny@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu writes:

> to sell ****YOUR**** name and address AND PHONE NUMBER on CD ROM!  Not
> only are they doing this for your home, but also for businesses as
> well!  

The Lotus database was more than phone numbers. It included juicy
little details like annual income, credit history and marital status.
This new database sounds more like one large phone book, which is far
less irritating.

[and our Moderator follows:]

> All of a sudden because the medium has changed (from great
> big hardover books with several thousand pages each in several volumes)
> to CD Rom the complaints become more vocal. Why? Is it because the ease
> and availability in obtaining the information has become greater?  PAT]

Yup. As long as it took big money to get that kind of data on me, it
didn't bother me too much. Exxon and IBM have better things to do than
harrass me.  When the price falls down to a couple of hundred dollars,
the local Church of the Latter Rain can get that data on everyone in
town and target accordingly. That bothers me.


        Tarl Neustaedter        tarl@bostech.com      [work]
        Ashland, MA, USA        tarl@coyoacan.dmc.com [home]

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Tarl, where do you draw the line? I
mean, you do like this information superhighway concept and the ease
with which everyone can get whatever information they want don't you?
Funny part is -- really it is not so funny -- when Clinton talks about
the Information Superhighway, he is not talking about how easy it will
be for every home in America to access the Grollier's Encyclopedia online
at Compuserve or America OnLine. Certainly the ease of obtaining neutral
third-party non-specific information will increase ... but so will the
ease in obtaining information on anyone about anything. We as human beings
can employ some ethical standards and say that normally there are certain
inquiries we won't make about others without their permission or some
definite reason for doing so combined with a 'need to know' ... but to
the computer, its all just bits of data flowing down the wires. The
computer doesn't care what you ask about. Superhighways are designed to
make it easy to get from A to B ... and the church people have the same
rights as everyone else. 

Public information is becoming easier and easier for the *public* to
get their hands on ... and I can see where to some people it might get
sort of scary. The time is going to come -- I think in the lifetimes
of most of us -- when there are no hiding places left; no secrets are
hidden; everyone's soiled underwear on display at the laundromat; when 
we no longer have privacy to count on to hide our peccadillos. Then the
computer will have metamorphosed from being our trustworthy tool to
being our master instead. When the church people aren't getting after
you, the government will be or your ex-wife or your former husband, or
your parents or your neighbors. Forget Grollier's Academic Encyclopedia
or the Fruitcake Recipe Database ... now the real lookups are getting
underway! Come one, come all, serve yourselves.   PAT]

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

Date: Mon, 4 Apr 94 10:15:10 EDT
From: Carl Moore <cmoore@BRL.MIL>
Subject: Re: Will Widespread Use of Cell Phones Reduce Crime?


When the timing belt went bust on my car on March 19, I waited 3 1/2
to 4 hours on the route 33 expressway in Northampton County, PA.  No
one stopped to inquire (at LEAST someone needed to contact police).
Although it had gotten dark, I had to leave the car and walk 1 1/2
miles, along a shoulder that was VERY narrow in some places, to an
exit ramp on my way to a phone.  I was honked at twice or so, but
still nobody made a move to stop me.

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

From: rboudrie@chpc.org (Rob Boudrie)
Subject: Re: Will Widespread Use of Cell Phones Reduce Crime?
Date: 4 Apr 1994 10:32:08 -0500
Organization: Center for High Performance Computing of WPI


In article <telecom14.147.4@eecs.nwu.edu> howard@hal.com writes:

> A friend suggested to me that, sometime in the future, almost everyone
> will carry around a cellular phone almost all the time.  She thinks
> this will significantly reduce the amount of crime, because it will be
> very easy to report a crime or other suspicious behavior that one
> observes.  I'm skeptical, but it seems like an interesting topic for
> discussion.

Or it can increase it ...

A few months ago, someone in Framingham, MA was held up for their
Motorola flip phone at (I think knife point).  The agressor then
demanded that the phone be unlocked before he would leave.

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

From: hpa@eecs.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
Subject: Re: Will Widespread Use of Cell Phones Reduce Crime?
Reply-To: hpa@nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin)
Organization: Northwestern University Electromagnetics Laboratory
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 00:21:10 GMT


In article <telecom14.154.11@eecs.nwu.edu> of comp.dcom.telecom, rs2510@
dice.nwscc.sea06.navy.mil (Rhett Salisbury) responds to TELECOM Digest
Editor:

>> Sorry Pat, this is the kind of crap that keeps things the way they
>> are.  If you are not willing to get involved you have no right to
>> complain about how screwed up things are.  We will not have an end to

>      -- good stuff deleted --

>> Back to the original question, will the proliferation of cell phones
>> reduce crime?  The answer is: no, but your use of one might.

> In total agreement with Sean Slattery -- Pat should excercise a
> certain measure of responsible judgment.  When someone flippantly
> tells an international community that not only we live in a extremely
> dangerous country, but also that it is dangerous to become 'involved',
> someone will be injured due to your inaction.

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But it is true. Ask the few honest
> people who work for the CTA. I see it happen over and over again.
> And if you witness a crime and report it, you'll spend the next six
> months or a year in court getting harassed by the defendant and his
> attorney. My advice is don't get involved unless you like being a
> martyr. Criminals are given so many rights, *you* will be made to be
> the villian instead.  PAT]

How about asking the two brave young students in Evanston recently who
stopped a rape and made a citizen's arrest on the perpetrator?  They
got a medal for it.  America has problems largely *because* people
don't get involved, and by saying "it is better not to", we are
exacerbating the problem.  Have some guts.


hpa
INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu               FINGER/TALK: hpa@ahab.eecs.nwu.edu
IBM MAIL: I0050052 at IBMMAIL       HAM RADIO:   N9ITP or SM4TKN
FIDONET:  1:115/511 or 1:115/512    STORMNET:    181:294/101
Linux system administrator (3 systems on the net, one off)


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Certainly, and that kind of thing (giving
a medal) happens occassionally in Chicago also. I will never forget the
instance a few years ago of the woman who slipped on the ice and fell
in the Chicago River and the kid about fifteen years old who jumped in
and pulled her to safety. The next day in a rather unusual twist to the
news of the day the {Chicago Sun Times} put a large picture of him on
the front page with a headline, "<his name> is a hero". Mayor Washington
gave him a medal and recognition as well. Now if that kind of thing
happened more often, I might agree with you. Citizen's arrests are very 
dangerous things to do however and I have simply seen too many cases 
where the police harrassed the person(s) who tried to stop the crime
while doing nothing to the person who *did* commit the crime.   PAT]

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

From: tom@MCS.COM (Thomas M. Allebrandi)
Subject: Re: PC Pursuit Has Ended
Date: 3 Apr 1994 17:30:05 -0600
Organization: MCSNet Subscriber Acct, Chicago's First Public-Access Internet!


Steven H. Lichter (co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) wrote:

> PC Pursuit has now gone into The Information Highway history books. As
> of 9:00 PM Pacific Time it went down; that was three hours earlier
> then it was supposed to on 3/31/94. Many paid for a full month of
> $30.00 for 30 hours and got cheated for at least three hours. The talk
> among the many users of the service was Sprint killed the program by
> not advertising a service that could have made money.

PC Pursuit was originally intended as a way to make some money off of
the unused network capacity that Sprint had after business hours. They
were already providing remote outdial capabilities for thier business
customers who went home at 5:00PM. Overnight, this gear sat their
gathering dust.

Enter PC Pursuit - $15.00 per month for unlimited use of the outdial
network between 6:00PM and 7:00AM weekdays and all hours on weekends.
The growth was incredible, it was not very long until the demand far
outweighed the capacity.

It got to the point that the costs of operating PC Pursuit at the
level required by the demand was significantly greater than the costs
of operating the daytime service for businesses. A way of making some
extra money was turning into a full blown business entity.

Sprint piddled around putting up with the complaints, made a lot of
people mad, and then decided to meet the demand with significantly
higher rates. That's when $30.00 for 30 hours was introduced. (There
may have been a couple of steps before that, I don't recall.) This
made a lot of people mad and there were massive defections. The
problem was that there was no place to go and so people starting
getting into other things like UUCP.

I was using PC Pursuit in '87-'88 as a cheap way to get to Portal who
at that time was $10.00/month. In 1988, $25.00/month for Internet Mail
and USEnet news was a great deal. By the end of 1988, I had UUCP on my
machine so I no longer needed Portal and hence no longer needed PC
Pursuit.

What exactly killed it in the end I canot say. But it would not
surprise me that Sprint was simply tired of dealing with it.


Tom


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I signed up with PC Pursuit about 1982
during the first week or so of its operation when they were using the
'dial us, we call you back' method of connecting callers to the network.
At the time, no one really thought PCP would gain any real popularity.  PAT]

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

From: taranto@panix.com (James Taranto)
Subject: Re: PC Pursuit Has Ended
Date: 4 Apr 1994 06:33:43 GMT
Organization: The Bad Taranto


In article <telecom14.160.1@eecs.nwu.edu>, co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu
(Steven H. Lichter) wrote:

(I am commenting only on the writer's signature):

> Sysop: Apple Elite II -=- an Ogg-Net Hub BBS 
> (909) 359-5338 12/24/96/14.4 V32/V42bis Via PCP CACOL/12/24
                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Huh?


Cheers,

James Taranto  taranto@panix.com


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Steve, want to explain it?  PAT]

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

From: eccobbs@crl.com (ECCO BBS)
Subject: Request For Information on Voicemail Systems
Date: 4 Apr 1994 10:55:45 -0800
Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access  (415) 705-6060  [login: guest]


We are a small software development shop looking for a good voicemail
package that we can set up ourselves.  We need about five lines and
will be purchasing all the handsets and hardware.  Any suggestions
would be much appreciated. 


Henry Sobel

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

From: elitman@proxima.com (Eric A. Litman)
Subject: Small Ccale Voicemail Information Needed
Date: 4 Apr 1994 11:32:18 -0500
Organization: Proxima, Inc.


I'm interested in purachasing a voice mail system for my company. I've
always been impressed by the features of the Octel line, but my last
investigation (maybe five years ago) revealed only relatively high-end
systems. Audix and its offspring are OK.

What are some recommendations for a system which will need to support
between ten and fifty users? I'm not at all familiar with costs or
administrative features, only with the systems from a user's perspective.

I appreciate any information -- vendors welcome.


Eric Litman         Proxima, Inc.    vox: (703) 506.1661
Systems Engineer    McLean, VA       elitman+@proxima.com

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

From: cengelog@sunny.dab.ge.com (Yilmaz Cengeloglu)
Subject: Can I Use my Cellular Phone in Turkey and Germany?
Date: 4 Apr 1994 12:28:01 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway


I use my cellular phone in FL, USA. I would like to know if I can use
that phone in Turkey and/or Germany.

If I can not use it, do you know any phone that is compatible with
cellular system in Germany, Turkey and USA.
 

Thanks in advance,

cengelog@dab.ge.com

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

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #163
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