The Teleputing Hotline And Field Computing Source Letter Volume 5 Number 18 Monday, May 4, 1992 215 Winter Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30317 FAX: 404-378-0794 Phone: 404-373-7634 MCI:409-8960 GEnie: nb.atl CompuServe: 76200,3025 Editor: Dana Blankenhorn European Editor: Steve Gold Asian Editor: Masayuki Miyazawa Sales Manager: Hiro Nakamura An Affiliate of the Newsbytes News Network EDITORIAL ANALYSIS Why the FBI doesn't like ISDN The world of audio, in case you hadn't noticed, is rapidly becoming digital. For the average telephone user this means the snap, crackle and pop of yesterday's phone calls, not to mention the delay between finishing dialing and hearing a ringing tone, have all but disappeared. Digital telephone exchanges in the US first began appearing in the 1960s. Since then, most exchanges have gone over to the new technology. Now it's the turn of the lines between the exchange and the phone in the office or the home. The technology to do this is known as integrated services digital network, or ISDN. ISDN may be good news for the phone user, but it's bad news for secret services and government agencies around the world. In the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is so worried it has begun lobbying the Government and the various telephone companies to slow down or even put a hold on the introduction of the technology, in the marketplace. The reason is simple -- ISDN lines are almost impossible to tap. ISDN lines transfer data at such high speeds and in such small packets that anyone tapping in to a single channel will find it difficult to decode the data into coherent speech in real time, unless all control information is tapped as well. Tapping the control channels, however, is a major step, requiring the complicity of the telephone company, not to mention a warrant. But the nature of the FBI's secret activities prevents the phone company of even being notified of all wire taps. The paperwork mountain associated with millions of taps carried out each year would be immense, say experts. In short, the legal implications of having to tap entire ISDN circuits are horrendous. The problem of tapping ISDN calls is made worse by the fact that, once the digital data streams reach the telephone exchange, they are mixed together (multiplexed) with other calls and sent around the world at high speed. Imagine the same problem in the postal system -- the FBI can easily keep track of parcels in a local office, but when they're shot at high speed around the country... Thus, the FBI wants the US telephone companies to modify ISDN technology to make it easier to tap. As if this weren't bad enough, government officials have ruled out any form of an R&D subsidy for the telecoms industry to modify the ISDN technology - the telecomms industry is expected to pay for the changes itself. The telecomms industry will simply pass on the extra costs to the telephone user in the form of increased costs. Needless to say, US civil libertarians are outraged by the whole affair. Tapping phones is one thing, they say, but asking the consumer to pick up the tab is out of order. One of the first telephone companies asked to implement the changes to ISDN - changes, incidentally, that the FBI has made a state secret - is the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company, which covers the Washington area. Officials have said publicly that the cost of implementing the FBI's required changes will be hundreds of millions of dollars, and it cannot link with other telephone companies with driving a bulldozer through the FBI's secrecy rules. AT&T officials, which control the US telephone network, are said to be horrified. They claim that only the largest telephone companies will be able to implement the FBI's changes, leaving the smaller companies bankrupt. Some companies are so petrified they have frozen their existing ISDN conversion programs, causing an uproar in the business community. The FBI, meanwhile, is putting pressure on President Bush to force the phone companies to comply through civilian rather than covert legislation. William Sessions, the director of the FBI, held a closed session with the Congress in which he has asked that legislation be passed without delay. Unless the legislation is passed, the FBI will find it progressively more difficult to track terrorists, kidnappers and other dangerous criminals. And with crime statistics such a political problem, Bush may bow to Sessions' requests, regardless of cost. Regardless of the politics of the situation, the real loser will be the consumer. And there's the shame - the technology is there, but companies are scared to offer it for fear of offending the FBI. ---Steve Gold U.S. FEATURES AT&T: Personal 700 Phone Numbers AT&T became the first long distance carrier to offer "personal phone numbers," which follow their owners around wherever they are in the US, with a service called EasyReach 700. The firm's long-distance switches now have software which can recognize the 700 area code and send such numbers to a database, which tells the switch where to send the call. EasyReach 700 offers a special type of call-forwarding, using a 4-digit PIN, so you can send some calls to an answering machine and take others. You may also decide whether to pay for incoming calls, or have callers pay. And new users can pick their own numbers. LA: Residents Asked To Stay Off Phones Two days of rioting and fires in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of 4 officers for beating motorist Rodney King, caused Pacific Bell to ask residents to restrict their calling to emergency use only, writes Linda Rohrbaugh of Newsbytes from LA. The problems were blamed on basic network congestion, and full service returned after the riots ended. At its peak, there were delays of minutes in getting basic dial tones. PacBell also restricted its repair work in the affected area to emergency repairs only. MICROAGE: Enters Field Computing Market MicroAge Computer Centers became the first retailer to announce a wireless strategy in support of Field Computing. The chain created a network of relationships with AT&T EasyLink's e-mail service, SkyTel's paging service, Hewlett-Packard for its HP 95LX palmtop computer, Motorola and its wireless networking schemes, NCR for its notebook and pen-top computers, and Xircom, a software vendor. MicroAge will now sell "bundles" of computers and services, combining the Safari notebook computer with SkyTel paging, for instance. CORPORATE NEWS: Giant Joint Ventures for New Markets IBM and Time Warner want to combine the former's multimedia and compression technologies with the latter's library of film and published software, and its cable TV business. BellSouth said it will invest real dollars in a joint-venture with Dow Jones, seeking new markets for its videotex and audiotex services. The two firms are testing an audiotex service for Los Angeles cellular phone subscribers. Dow Jones also has agreements with NYNEX and Pacific Telesis, and its newspapers have editorialized frequently in favor of the Bells' entry into the information industry, an entry which made possible these agreements. CREDIT CARDS: Fraud Victim Rips Industry Security William Murphy of Creative Computers, allegedly victimized by teenagers arrested on April 22nd in New York City, told Barbara & John McMullen of Newsbytes the lack of security in the credit card industry is abysmal and "the merchant who bears the brunt." Murphy, a mail-order computer vendor, said his own people look for fraud, but the hackers had a fake account with a proper address used for shipments, making it undetectable by him. A "hacker," speaking anonymously, agreed with Murphy's assessment of security at the credit bureaus, saying, "Anyone that knows what they are doing can get any information they want out of them. Trans Union is somewhat less abused that the others because of the terseness of the query commands but they all have problems. TRW, for instance, is wide open." On-line Service For Internet Access Without Unix Commands Information Access Technologies (IAT) started a new on-line service, Holonet, which it says can meet demand for "Public Unix Access" through a menu-based on-line system, writes Linda Rohrbough for Newsbytes. Holonet members are assigned Internet e- mail addresses, and local access members are available via Holopacket (San Francisco), PSINet (Worldwide), Internet (Worldwide), and BT Tymnet services (US and Canada). While the service is now text-based, plans are in the works to provide FIDO echoes, as well as programs and graphics for IBM PCs, Amigas, and Macintoshes. Graphics will be in GIF and JPEG formats. INTERNATIONAL REPORTS Japan: Nifty-Serve Cellular Service, NTT Break-Up Nifty-Serve started a 9,600 bps data service via mobile phones May 1. Service will be provided through Fujitsu's FENICS net, and can be accessed via various VAN nodes. It runs under V.32 and MNP Class 10 standards. Nifty has had ISDN connections since last July, and will lower their cost. Nifty and PC-VAN also agreed to exchange e-mail with each other, forming the Japan Electronics Mail Association to support the MHS standard. Other firms which will join include NTT, KDD, Fujitsu, Intec, and the Network Information Center. NTT will spin-out its mobile phone division in July. NTT Mobile Telecommunication Network itself will be divided into eight firms in July 1993. Each will be assigned a geographic territory in Japan, and offer car phones, mobile phones, ship phones, aircraft phones, and pagers. Capitalization is estimated to be 15 billion yen ($100 million), paid by NTT. A total of 1,800 employees will be transferred. IBM Japan developed a a motion picture TV telephone for its PS/55. The TV phone, developed with GC Technology, is designed for linking to NTT's ISDN and can transmit 12 screens per second. IBM Japan wants to release it by the end of this year at around 1 million yen. IBM Japan also hopes to make its TV phone PC an industry standard, and creating The Research Association For Personal Communication Graphics Communication under Haruhisa Ishida of Tokyo University to share the technolgy, backed by NTT and the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication. UK: BT Expands Packet Net, Modems Slow Down ISDN, Husky and RAM British Telecom announced plans to expand its packet data networks. Plans call for the net to be rolled out to 39 new countries by 1995, many in Eastern Europe. The idea is that multinational companies will be better served, and subscribers to line systems linked to the BT PDNs will be able to access services on a near-global basis. The network expansion will coincide with a push to upgrade access points to support 9,600 bps. US Robotics' Miracom unit announced a UKP 100,000 campaign to promote the V.32Bis 14,400 bps modem standard, saying the price and performance of V.32bis will make companies think twice before moving to ISDN. The lower price, with competition from Hayes, could make the argument valid. Husky Computers, which claims to be the leading supplier of rugged handheld computers, has become one of the first UK firm to demonstrate links to the new RAM Mobile Data network. Major customers include British Airways, which is testing it at Heathrow International Airport. Unlike in the US, where Mobitem radio modems are being sold alongside the Mobitex network, RAM is acting as a network supplier, leaving it to third-party suppliers to equip users with hardware. Finally, Mercury signed Hong Kong Telecom to its new toll-free telephone service in the UK. Phone users dialing 0500 890 852 will be linked free to a HK Telecom operator who speaks English, Cantonese, or Putonghua. Callers can then request a collect call or charge their conversation to a HK Telecom calling card. While other deals are in the offing, Mercury faces the problem of using the 0500 area code rather than the internationally recognized 0800 code, since 0800 has been reserved by BT for its network. Many subscribers are unaware that 0500 is toll-free. MOSCOW: More Banks Join SWIFT, IBM Net Kirill Tchashchin writes from Russia that the Society Worldwide for Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) is starting a massive effort to bring Russia's banks to its network. Eleven Russian banks are already SWIFT members, although just four are connected to the network. The rest await regional access points, hopefully by December. Although many Ukrainian, Baltic, and Caucasian bankers want to join SWIFT, no details have been made available on the procedure for these foreign countries to join SWIFT. Moscow access will be via SovAm Teleport, with secure links to the West and 32 leased lines to local banks. SWIFT is also working to implement connections with Romanian and Albanian banks, which are not yet SWIFT members. IBM announced plans to expand its IBM Information Network into Estonia and other Baltic countries from Finland. A center will be put into Tallinn, Estonia by mid-summer, linked via a leased line to Helsinki and offering X.400 e-mail, EDIFACT document exchange services and access to 100+ information providers. The service will cost 4500 Finnish markka (US$1000) in advance yearly with added usage-related fees. Finally, the annual Telecommunication Systems and Services Exhibition was scheduled for Moscow June 21-26. Unlike other shows, there will be no attendance by the general public, a measure which guarantees a qualified audience, and Western telecom companies are likely to have booths on the exhibit floor. MIDEAST: Improvements Continue In Saudi Arabia, demand for phone lines is rising smartly throughout the kingdom, due to the elimination of tolls on local calls and a 53 percent cut in installation and subscription fees. The number of phone lines in the nation's Eastern Province, along the Persian Gulf, will rise from 160,000 to over 220,000 over the next two years, the government said. The United Arab Emirates is now offering its citizens video telephones, and Iran upgraded its microwave relay network with equipment from Alca-Tel of Italy. Microwave relays are often used in rural parts of the Third World in place of wires. COLUMBIA: Strike Ends It is one again possible to call Columbia, and for Columbians to call the world. The 14,000 workers at Telecom, the state-owned phone company, who went on strike over privitization, signed a deal with the government. Under the deal the strike ends, and the union gets to review a planned privatization of the company. A tribunal will also be established to look into government accusations of sabotage against union members. CAMBODIA: Cellular Service Coming TelecomAsia of Thailand has approached the Cambodian government about a cellular phone concession. A unit of the Charoen Pokphand Group is currently setting up a trunk radio system for United Nations workers in the country, under contract from Motorola, and TelecomAsia would hire it to engineer a cellular system on the US AMPS standard. TelecomAsia has a contract to install millions of phones in Thailand, but has said it wants international expansion. FACTOIDS: AMERITECH put in a bid for part of Centel. But the phone and cellular company, which put itself up for sale in January, is likely to stay independent. DATAMATICS of Bombay will re-engineer the STOBI funds transfer system of Banque Worms in Paris, France, so it can accept input directly from electronic channels like SWIFT, Sagittaire and Teletransmission, instead of paper documents. MURATA released a low-cost fax machine equipped with an auto- sheet cutting feature. The Muratech M11 will be released in mid- May at 130,000 yen ($960). The picture is also said to be quite sharp. SPECTRUM CELLULAR announced an intelligent interface for hand- held cellular phones which gives such phones a standard RJ-11 plug, like those found on wired phones. SPRINT added Israel to the countries on the Sprint World discount calling plan. You can link with that country, and 39 others, at discount rates for $3 per month. CONTACT: Ameritech, Steve Ford, +312-750-5205 AT&T, Mark Siegel, +908-221-8413 BellSouth, Tim Klein, +404-249-4135 Dow Jones, Roger May, +212-416-2601 Holonet, Arthur Britto, +510-704-0160; FAX +510-704-8019; BBS, +510-704-1058 IBM Info Systems, Jorma Piispa, +358 90 459-4724 IBM Japan, +81-3-3586-1111 MicroAge, David Lucas, +602-968-3168x2243 Miracom, +0753-811180 Murata Machinery, +81-75-672-8137 NEC PC-VAN, +81-3-3454-6909 Nifty-Serve, +81-3-5471-4857 NTT, +81-3-3509-5035 Pacific Bell, Linda Bonnikson, +714-284-2140 RAM Mobile Data, +081-990-9090 Spectrum Cellular, John Rule, +214/630-9825 Sprint, Robin Pence, +202-828-7454 SWIFT, Bruno Coessens, +32 2 655-3111; FAX +32 2 655-3226 Telecom Show, Yuri Andrianov,+7 095 198-1341 AN INVITATION TO SUBSCRIBE The Teleputing Hotline has become, in the last 4 years, a leading voice in covering telephone-connections worldwide. 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