TELECOM Digest     Tue, 7 Jun 94 15:22:00 CDT    Volume 14 : Issue 276

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    New Player in the 800 Game (TELECOM Digest Editor)
    Does MCI Have Answer Supervision? (Philip J. Tait)
    High-Speed Serial Boards For PC's Wanted (Joseph Kruckenberg)
    Digiboard Takes the Place of PBX? (David Wuertele)
    Motorola Offers Baseball Pager (Dave Leibold)
    Advanced Features for Lesotho's Phones (Dave Leibold)
    v.35 Interface For PC Wanted (Joseph Kruckenberg)
    Moving to DC From the UK (David Wigglesworth)
    LAMA Equipped Exchange (Dimitri Vekris)
    Cellular ESN Change (Robert S. Helfman)
    Looking For a Voice Mail/Auto Attendant System (Eduardo Tribaldos)
    Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Mike Wilcox)
    Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Richard Cox)
    Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (dsd@aol.com)

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

From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor)
Subject: New Player in the 800 Game
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 1994 14:50:00 CDT


I had a very pleasant conversation earlier today with Steve Betterly
about a new 800 service available to small and medium size users. It
sounds so exciting in fact, I thought I would discuss it here and let
the readers know about it.

There are residential and small business 800 services aplenty. They
are all over the place, and of course the Big Three also offer various
toll free inbound calling plans.  The only one until now which offered
*immediate* call forwarding of 800 numbers was to the best of my
knowledge the service from Cable & Wireless. 

The company is called Call America and the 800 service is called 'My
Line'.  Like the others, you get your own 800 number which is set up
as a DID  (direct inward dial) number on the Call America switch in
San Luis Obispo, CA. Now the fun begins:

At anytime you wish, you control where the number is routed to. Your
caller hears a precorded message in your own voice which says, "Hi
this is Patrick, please hold while your call is transferred to me"
(or whatever phrase you wish to use).  The call is then redirected 
to wherever you have indicated, and that could be your cell phone,
your home phone, your office, a payphone at the bus station or
whatever. If you prefer, you can route calls to a pager or to
voicemail. If you are staying in a hotel, your greeting might say
"Hi this is Patrick, I am at the Hilton Hotel, when the operator
answers ask for room 3212."

You control where the calls are forwarded by calling your own 800
number and punching in a security code while the greeting is being
played. Entering your code take you out of the greeting and into a
menu on the Call America switch where you then manipulate things as
you want them. Likewise, there is a method where your caller can
enter a priority code during the greeting (if he has been tipped off
to do so) and his call will be transferred to your 'priority number'.
For example maybe you are forwarding all calls to voicemail, but
the caller who enters a priority code will be routed to your cell
phone instead.  Changes in where calls are routed take place right
away; there are no delays.

You can use 'My Line' as a calling card for outgoing calls also.
You dial your 800 number, enter your private code and are then
extended to dial tone. The rates are much cheaper than calling cards.

Speed dialing is part of the package (for example your repretoire
of numbers where you would be routing your calls from time to time
can be put on speed dial). Also, wake up and reminder service is
available along with time and charges notification.

Here is the pricing structure:

Basic service is $8.50 per month. That gets you:
  
    A personal 800 number;
    Unlimited call forwarding to wherever you route it;
    Priority call screening (take some calls direct if the caller
       knows to enter the priority code during the voice greeting,
       otherwise call is sent to 'regular' number or voicemail);
    Calling card features; 
    Wake up/reminder calls;
    Time and charges when requested on outcalls, etc;
    Date and time.

If you want voicemail from Call America, add another $9.50 per month.

Additional options at this time include an expanded speed dialing
arrangement (more numbers can be stored) and scheduled call forwarding.
What this does is automatically routes calls to your home or your 
office or wherever at the times you specify on a daily basis, etc.
These extra features are $2.00 per month each.

You can also have a DID number in San Luis Obispo if desired. I do
not have all the details on that service.

So monthly, figure $8.50  plus $9.50 if you want their voicemail.

Per minute usage charges:

Calls forwarded to you are 25 cents per minute. 
Calls forwarded to your voicemail are 15 cents per minute.
Calls *from* you to retrieve voicemail or change the forwarding, etc
   are 15 cents per minute.

If you use 'My Line' as your calling card arrangement on outgoing
calls the rate is 55 cents for the first minute and 25 cents for
each additional minute on your outgoing calls. After the first minute
minimum, additional minutes are in six-second intervals.

For this you dial your 800 number, override the voice greeting with
your PIN, get dial tone and dial your number.

One other kink:  *at any time* in a conversation forwarded to you,
hit the pound key and some other digit (as per the literature they
will send you) and the call is plucked away and transfered to voice
mail or transferred to some other number. What this means, as an
example, is let's say you have the 800 number set to ring your home.
But you are out with your cellphone and your roomate answers. Instead
of taking a message, he can tell the caller, "just a minute, I will
transfer you to voicemail (or transfer you to where he is at)" and
press certain keys on the phone ... poof, the call is lifted back
by the switch and transferred to (a) voicemail or (b) your 'priority
number' or whatever ... 

Calls that are not answered after a certain number of rings are
automatically defaulted to voicemail if you have it set that way, or
you can skip their voicemail entirely and arrange for it on your own
so that if you have voicemail on your home phone now or your cell
phone or whatever, calls routed to that phone will eventually fall
into your own voicemail if you prefer.

Overall, this looks like an excellent and very flexible 800 service
even though the price is a little higher than the others we have
bandied about in our discussions here.

Contacts:

     Call America 'My Line' Customer Service   800-549-3500
     879 Morro Street  San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
     
Digest readers should contact:  Steve Betterly  betterly@callamer.com
                                800-549-3500  or 805-547-6464  fax

Tell him you read about the 'My Line' service in TELECOM Digest.

Experiences will be welcomed; we can open a discussion here on it once
a few of you have had a chance to try it out. 


Patrick Townson

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

From: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait)
Subject: Does MCI Have Answer Supervision?
Date: 7 Jun 1994 19:27:33 GMT
Organization: AlliedSignal Engines
Reply-To: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait)


My latest phone bill seems to indicate that unanswered LD and International 
calls that are allowed to ring for > one minute get billed as a one minute
call.

I call elderly relatives, who get a little upset if I hang up just as
they answer :-), so I let it ring a good while.  When I used to be
with Sprint, I got tired of calling Customer Service for refunds --
when I changed to AT&T, I was gratified to see the problem cease.

An MCI rep. mumble-spoke about not getting the proper signals back
from the other telco (BT in this case).  He could not explain why AT&T
never had the problem, and it doesn't explain why this recently happened 
on some domestic LD calls.

Is this one more reason to change back to AT&T?


Philip J. Tait         AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az        +1 602 231
7104
GED::B12635         pjt@pelab.allied.com        
tait@venus.research.allied.com

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

From: kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu (Joseph Kruckenberg)
Subject: High-Speed Serial Boards For PC's Wanted
Date: 7 Jun 1994 16:15:48 GMT
Organization: University of Utah


I am trying to connect a high-speed (56kb - 115.2kb) serial port to a
PC (running Linux) from a partial-T1 DSU/CSU, and I'm wondering what
options I have. I know we could go with a 16550-based board, but is
the 16550 going to be able to handle this kind of speed without
dropping characters or seriously loading down the CPU? Is anyone using
Linux for high-speed connections like this? If so, what are you using?

Does Linux support the Hayes ESP board in its enhanced (non-16550-
emulation mode), or is there a similar board that supports these
high-speed rates and is supported by Linux?

Thanks for your help.


Pete Kruckenberg   kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu

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

From: dave@sparc4-5.gctech.co.jp (Dave)
Subject: Digiboard Takes the Place of PBX?
Organization: Graphic Communications Laboratories (GCL)
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 03:01:18 GMT


I recently heard (from a friend who heard from...) that a peripheral
called the "Digiboard" can take the place of a PBX for large voicemail
projects.  The rumor is that the Digiboard plugs into your WS/PC and
allows you to receive and drive up to 100 simultaneous DTMF voicemail
calls.

Has anybody heard of this product?  It sounds too good to be true,
from both a load perspective and a communications perspective.  First
of all, timesharing a workstation between 100 users even for as simple
a task as reading mail can render the workstation useless.  Secondly,
can you really fit the electronics to interface with multiple T1 lines
on a single thing called a "board?"

I would be grateful if someone could provide me with details about
this product (or others like it).  Most importantly,

 1.  Who makes it, and what's their phone number?
 2.  What platforms does it work with?
 3.  Can it handle even a single T1 connection?


Thanks a bunch,

David Wuertele

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

From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold)
Date: 07 Jun 94 01:51:41 -0500
Subject: Motorola Offers Baseball Pager
Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway


Motorola is selling a form of display pager that can track baseball
games as they are being played. The Sports Trax units will indicate
the teams involved, score, outs, which bases have runners, which team
is at bat, and even the start time of the next game. The pager unit
will even make noises according to game activity (runs, start of game,
end of inning, etc).

The units are being sold in Canada, and will cover all games played by
the Toronto Blue Jays of the American League. The service costs $149
for three years. This includes capability to receive Sports Trax data
throughout Canada in areas covered by Motorola paging.

Too bad the Jays seem to be having minor league results so far this
year :-(


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I cannot imagine anyone bothering to
purchase one to follow the Chicago Cubs this year!   PAT]

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

From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold)
Date: 07 Jun 94 01:30:23 -0500
Subject: Advanced Features For Lesotho's Phones
Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway


I had a chance to look through a 1990 phone book for the nation of
Lesotho yesterday. There appeared to be extensive deployment of
digital switching, as of that edition (no doubt things have improved
even more during the past four years). Some areas require manual, or
at least less than automatic access, though.

International dialing was also available to many subscribers, using 00
plus country code and national number format. Strangely enough, they
listed such places as Tillsonburg, Ontario and Tilney, Saskatchewan
(Tillsonburg has a but few thousand residents; Tilney is a place I'm
not familiar with, but it is certainly not one of the major
Saskatchewan centres like Saskatoon).

They also have familiar digital exchange calling features such as call
forward, which are activated by commands that resemble those used with
the AXE switches. The most interesting feature is a "lock" feature
that can disable a telephone from placing calls, such as during a
vacation. Dialing *33*<code># locks the phone, and will only unlock it
when the password <code> is dialed in the sequence #33*<code>#. This
means of preventing phone misuse is not too common in North America
(if any telcos offer such a feature at all).

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

From: kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu (Joseph Kruckenberg)
Subject: v.35 Interface For PC Wanted
Date: 7 Jun 1994 14:48:53 GMT
Organization: University of Utah


I'm trying to find out how I can connect the v.35 output of our Codex
box to a PC so we can gateway TCP/IP through our T1 to the Internet.
If you know of an interface that would do this, especially one that
will work with the freeware Unix version, Linux, I'd love to hear from
you.


Pete Kruckenberg     kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu

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

From: David Wigglesworth <wigd00@wrksun1.wrk.dupont.com>
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 09:03:03 GMT
Subject: Moving to DC From the UK


I will be moving from the UK to Washington DC in a couple of months.
Please could someone tell me what my options for phones are? My
requirements are quite simple, I want cheap and reliable service, I
won't be making many long distance US calls although I will probably
be making a few to the UK and possibly Hong Kong.


Thanks,

David Wigglesworth
Offshore & International Telecommunications
Conoco (UK) LTD    N2 Conoco Centre
Gallows Hill   Warwick CV34 6DB.  UK
Internet wigd00@wrksun1.wrk.dupont.com       Voice +44 926 404863

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

From: Dimitri Vekris <DVekris@TORONTO.delrina.com.gatekeeper.delrina.com>
Subject: LAMA Equipped Exchange
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 19:30:00 -0400


My situation is this. I have the use of an (800) voice mailbox number.
On my telephone line at home, I also have call forwarding with the
intent that when I am not home, I can forward or divert those calling
me to my voice mailbox so that they can leave me a message.  The
advatage to this is that if I am travelling (or on holidays) and I
wish to retrieve my messages, I can do so toll-free.

The problem I run into is this: Those calling me from a local number
(either seven or ten digit number) will be forwarded with no problem.
However, those calling my home telephone number from a long distance
number (or a local cellular phone oddly enough) will get a recording
that says "The number you have dialed is out of service. Please check
the number and dial again or ask your operator for assistance". When I
called the phone company about this (Bell Canada), they were hesitant
to describe or explain the reason behind this, most likely because
they person at the other end didn't know. After a lengthy hold, she
came back to me to say that the reason behind this is that my exchange
is not LAMA equipped.

What does this mean and why should it make a difference whether
someone calls me from Texas or from down the street?


[)imitri Vekris

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

From: helfman@aerospace.aero.org (Robert S. Helfman)
Subject: Cellular ESN Change
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 15:22:51 -0700
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA


I recently purchased a Motorola PC-550 flip phone. Since I was already
a PacTel cellular customer (using a transportable Motorola), this was
a very easy switch. I just called PacTel Cellular, gave them some
personal identification and the new ESN, and in 20 minutes they had
made the switch.

My question is (and I suspect this has been answered before):

In what form is the ESN stored in the Motorola phones? Is it a
removable ROM? A PROM? What would be involved in changing it? I
clearly understand the prohibition of two phones with the same phone
number being on the system at the same time. But being single, and
having no reason whatever to use both phones at the SAME time, there
ARE times when I would like to use the transportable (say, while
driving on a long trip where the added range and battery life would be
useful).

PacTel's central folks said there is no problem switching ESN's any
time I want to. They have no company policy that discourages this, and
it only takes a phone call and about 20 minutes to an hour to make the
switch. BUT, it would be a lot easier if I could diddle the ESN on my
transportable to match my flip phone. Then, whichever one happens to
be powered up will be the one that the systems 'sees'.

Just how big a job is this? Does anyone have the technical details?
[Yeh, PAT, I know YOU have probably seen this before, and I'm sure you
think it's some kind of mortal sin to consider the possibility.]

I am sure that some of the 'gangster' cellular phone stores along
Crenshaw Blvd would be delighted to do this for me, but I feel certain
that when they were through, half the cellular phones in the area
would be charging to my account.

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

From: etribald@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx (Eduardo Tribaldos P)
Subject: Looking for a Voice Mail/Auto Attendant System
Date: 6 Jun 1994 23:58:56 GMT
Organization: ITESM Chihuahua


Hello,

   I am looking for a Voice Mail/Auto Attendant System that can run
with a Mitel SX-200 (analog) PBX.  There is one I know of called
COMPASS that looks pretty good, but it is also very expensive, so I
wonder if somebody in the NET knows of another such system that we can
use in our PBX.

   Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Eduardo Tribaldos
ITESM - Campus Chihuahua   Mexico

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

From: mwilcox@frx401.fm.intel.com (Mike Wilcox )
Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere"
Date: 6 Jun 1994 23:27:55 GMT
Organization: Intel Corporation , Folsom


In article <telecom14.271.10@eecs.nwu.edu> Ken Stone <ken@sdd.hp.com> writes:

> In article <telecom14.268.10@eecs.nwu.edu> is written:

>> I saw in a news report about a new service from Pacific Bell called
>> "ISDN Anywhere."  When I called up Pac Bell, they had no idea what I

>> Does anybody else have any ideas about what is so different about "ISDN
>> Anywhere?"

> Well it does exist and it is different and it does work!!

> With ISDN Anywhere, you get just what they say.  Right now, I am
> having a repeatered Centrex line installed that I could not get
> before.  I also have several people that we could not serve due to non

However you cannot get ISDN Anywhere everywhere. Tried to order an
ISDN line for one of my customers. Pacific Bell said they couldn't do
it. I said "What about ISDN Anywhere?" They said that it isn't
everywhere yet.  Try again in late July.

But hey, at least they don't have a little girl in a black outfit
spouting off about a road that goes Anywhere but not everywhere.


Mike Wilcox  mwilcox@pcocd2.fm.intel.com   Intel Corp.   
Folsom Information Technology   Telecomm and Network Services


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Aren't they precious! Anywhere but not
everywhere. Any other company would be slapped with a false advertising
suit ... as usual, telco's advertising gurus and front line business
office people are not in contact with each other. Each is in their own
orbit and like Haley's Comet maybe once every 71 years they pass in
proximity of the other. But hey, Mike ... you are lucky you found
someone in the business office to talk to about it. Usually when there
is something they have not heard about (as often as not) they just write
the customer off as some sort of crackpot or dingbat and let it go at
that. I'll bet when you used the phrase 'ISDN Anywhere' the person you
were talking to had to put you on hold and go inquire about that from
a supervisor of supervisors or something. Next time you talk to them
ask if they know what the phrase 'competition in local dialtone' means.
Most of them have heard of that and don't like it at all.   PAT]

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

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 16:32:09 -0700
From: richard@mandarin.com
Subject: Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s


Clive said:

> WHItehall (note the capitalization) was indeed the exchange for much
> of the Civil Service, and many government offices still have
> 071-944-XXXX numbers. 

Aarrgghh !  There are no 071-944 numbers.  WHItehall numbers moved to
071-930, with the exception of New Scotland Yard (Metropolitan Police
HQ) which changed to 071-230 to get the necessary capacity to handle
their Direct-Dialing-In to extensions. In fact "The Met" had been
using 071-230 prior to conversion of the all-figure numbers: 230
translated to WHItehall exchange but the charging signals were
suppressed when 230 was dialled.  That facility has gone now - it was
believed to be the first (primitive) example of automatic 800 service
in the UK - but there are, ahem, a few other codes outside London that
behave similarly.  Other famous-named exchanges in WHItehall area are:
TRAfalgar (now 071 839) and ABBey (now 071-222).  WHItehall exchange
did in fact have quite a few out-of-area (translated: FX service)
lines on it so the scenario is not implausible.

> this was before the days of DDI

DDI was *just* beginning to appear around this time; apart from the
Post Office's own systems, which were really modified non-director
exchanges, I clearly remember calling DDI numbers on TABard exchange
(01-822, as it then was - now 071-822) in the late sixties.  Even if
telling you that does reveal more about my age than I would like.

> the GPO operator, then she would have had a major effort to organise
> a redirection (WHItehall was almost certainly a Strowger exchange).

On any other exchange this would have been true.  Facilities on the 
WHItehall AMB (Auto-Manual Board) were, perhaps, slightly non-standard. 

campbellsm@lish.logica.com (Peter Campbell Smith) added:

> you called the operator (by dialing 100 or maybe 151, which was and 
> is the repairs number) to have it turned on or off.  

You would have called 191, the "enquiries" or "supervisor" number.  This
would have also served as the fault report number until the separate 151
was introduced a few years later.

>>  I imagine it was implemented by plugging and unplugging a hardwired 
>>  connection between the two outgoing subscriber loops.

In fact it was a complex relay set, remotely activated.  It was
important that restoring the diversion should not interrupt any calls
in progress at that time: and so the system had to hold if there was
an incoming call that had been diverted, but release if the incoming
call at that time was dialled direct to the receiving number without
being diverted.  Heavy stuff in terms of the technology of the day.
Full details are of course in copies of the "Post Office Electrical
Engineering Journal" published at that time.

And the TELECOM Digest Editor noted, in connection with a case of nuisance 
calls to Queen Elizabeth: 

>>  investigators in the UK were using WHItehall 1212 and the offender in 
>>  the States was calling from WHItehall 6211, then and now (944-6211) 

Whereas Her Majesty was, and still is, on WHItehall 4832.  The number
has always been published under "Buckingham Palace" in the London
Phone Book.  When the London phone book was split into "business" and
"residential", the Buckingham Palace number was moved across into the
"business" section.  That did always strike me as a little odd!


Richard D G Cox

Mandarin Technology, P.O. Box 111, Penarth, South Glamorgan, Wales:  CF64 3YG
Voice: 0956 700111 Fax: 0956 700110  VoiceMail: 0941 151515 Pager 0941 115555
E-mail address: richard@mandarin.com - PGP2.6 public key available on request


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's because I think Her Majesty's residence
is actually Windsor Castle, not Buckingham Palace. What a tragic fire that
was which destroyed so much of Windsor. You might check the Windsor listings
and see how things are listed there, i.e. business or residence.   PAT]

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

From: dsd@aol.com (DSD)
Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose
Date: 6 Jun 1994 22:46:02 -0400
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)


In article <telecom14.274.12@eecs.nwu.edu>, ronwrigh@hebron.connected.
com (Ronald L. Wright) writes:

> That is very true. I am a Network Technician for US West Communications
> in Washington State, and have seen that happen a few times. Using our
> state of the art test gear, there will be no physical trouble at all, and
> noise and transmission readings will be picture perfect. The difficulty is 
> that there has really been very little training on data communications
> problems, so the average technician uses his equipment and tells you
> that everything is fine, while you are only getting 2600 bps out of a
> 28.8 modem :(

Ron,

I'm a Customer Service Tech over here in Spokane and I'll try and shed
some light on this subject. I'm not an expert, but learning more on my
own every day.

First off DATA usually runs at 1200 HZ - 1800HZ.  I deal primarily
with data and voice circuits over carrier; hence we do what is called a
3 tone slope. 400, 1000 and 2800 HZ tones are sent each direction over
a 2 wire or a 4 wire circuit. The reading are taken in DB's and are
based upon a 4.0 db at 1000 hz. 2800 Hz levels can go as low as -6.0
db from the 1000 hz reading. This is based over carrier from one C.O.
to another and then to the subscriber. You'll notice we never take
reading at the critical data freq's.  I don't know why!

The reason these reading are crucial is that in a perfect telephone
pots world every thing is designed and built correctly. Voice
transmission will allow so many digressions in the telco plant.
Missing loads, customers placed between loads and end section too
long, or too much bridge tap.

Doing a freq run is the only way to find these things. Sending tones
from 400hz to 3200hz at 100hz increments will allow you to see how
the cable is made up.

NORMAL properly loaded cable will result in almost flat db respone
from 300-3000 hz, then it will take a dive to the cellar after 3000
hz.  Normal UNLOADED cable will take a gradual drop from 300-3000hz.
It will start at anywhere from 2.0 db upto 8.0 db and fall gradually
in the minus column upto the 3000 hz level. If it falls suddedly and
then starts back up there is a problem. And if the valleys are at the
1200 or 1800 hz level, well it doesn't take a rocket scientest to
figure out what happens to the data! :)

I don't remember the USOC code, but the name of this test is called
"Transmission Analysis Test". I've done this twice so far this year on
a pots line and a centrex line over carrier. Unfortuanetly, the test
came out good for US and bad for the customer.

I'm not saying this is the resolution to every situation, but it does
point out a possibilty of an item overlooked by far too many companies.

One other item I thought I'd point out was a trouble call I once took
from a Net Tech. Customer would get this woderful music over his
internal mode speaker every morning at 10 am and it would go away at
10 pm. SAme time this AM station down the road would keep broadcast
hours.  I checked the bonding and such, looked for physical trouble;
nothing clicked. I removed the yellows from the ground connection, but
no go. Last thing I tried was disconnecting the yellow black at the
jack. Voila! Seems the modem uses all 4 wires in the jack and the
yellow-black were just a perfect antenna. Obviously, the modem is the
culprit here and by just changing the line cord from a 4 wire to a 2
wire would have solved the problem as well without me having to climb
under and around his desk.

Just a little food for thought.


Scott

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

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #276
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