This Friday at 1 p.m. in the New York time zone, right here at 99.5 FM, WBAI.
On Saturday, July 3rd, That Old-Time Religion will present a program celebrating the birthday
of Thomas Andrew Dorsey, considered by many the father of black gospel music.
This is Bill Canaday inviting you to share and paying tribute to Thomas Andrew Dorsey,
a giant in the field of gospel music, on Saturday, July 3rd, 3.30 to 5 p.m. on 99.5 FM, WBAI.
That's 10 o'clock on Wednesday night, time for Off The Hook.
That's 10 o'clock on Wednesday night, time for Off The Hook.
Do you know, that's the sound of four different calls to information going through at the
same time.
Actually, not going through.
Used to be, when you called information, they'd pick up right away, but those days are over.
And with that sad fact, we begin tonight's show of Off The Hook.
This is Emanuel Goldstein, together with Fiber Optic, here on this Wednesday night, and good
evening to you, Fiber.
Good evening, Emanuel.
We have a lot of interesting things to pass along tonight, some serious things, some not
so serious things.
Now, Fiber, I understand you've been doing some research as far as switches.
Last week, we devoted a lot of the program to the breaking news of the cutover of our
central office here at WBAI from, what was it, a 1A or a 1?
I believe it was probably a 1A.
A 1A ESS to a number 5 ESS, meaning that, well, it doesn't really mean much to most
people, but to us, it means that we can no longer call into the radio station and have
the phone ring and ring and ring.
Just eventually, we'll stop doing that after about 20 rings or so.
That's one of the sad, sad truths.
In fact, why don't we demonstrate that right now?
We can grab a line here, and we'll simply call in just like a regular caller, and you'll
hear...
In fact, I can see it coming up on the board now.
We're now calling into our own program here, and we'll just pretend that we're waiting
for the host of this program to pick up the phone and see how long it takes for that ring
to just go away forever.
Something new that didn't used to happen in the past, but now, because the phone company
can, it happens, for the same reason that if you dial information now, they don't stay
on the line to ask if you want a second number or perhaps a clarification or an address or
something like that.
They just hang up, and you have to call back and pay another however many pennies to get
through to them, but they add up after a while.
So while we're listening to the rings of our brand-new 5ESS and amazed that they haven't
figured out a way to charge us for every ring we listen to, now, you're going to tell us
the difference between a 5ESS and a DMS-100, a way of telling the difference without actually
being on the location.
In other words, by the ring or something, you can tell the difference.
More or less.
This stems back to a message that I had posted on Usenet a couple weeks ago on Telecom Digest,
for those that read Usenet, comp.dcom.telecom, and it was in response to someone who was
wondering what type of switch that not only served him, but served his friend across town,
and he simply described what he heard, for instance, if he heard a click before it began
to ring, and so on and so forth.
Now, it's not too hard nowadays to tell if you have a digital switch or not simply just
by listening, but say, for instance, you've narrowed it down that far.
You might have called your prefix plus 9901 and you got an announcement saying that it
was a digital switch, or say, for instance, you have at least gotten that far and determined
that much.
What kind of digital switch is it?
Hang on, I think we've been disconnected.
We've been disconnected, eh?
No, we haven't.
Okay.
False alarm.
So, okay, so you've narrowed it down that far.
Now, the odds are you're either going to be on a number 5 ESS from AT&T or a DMS-100 from
Northern Telecom.
Now, how do you tell the difference?
So, I came up with a bunch of ways that...
We have been disconnected because I see the light going out, have we?
I don't know why it's still ringing, because unless...
Oh, we must have popped in on the first line just when somebody else was being disconnected.
Someone else just got disconnected now, but we will be disconnected very soon.
That's something to look forward to.
Right.
Well, as I was saying...
Go ahead.
Sorry to keep interrupting here.
Okay.
But, yeah, basically I came up with a couple of ways, at least, that you could tell either
at your own dial tone or just by calling another exchange to determine what type of digital
switch that it is.
And maybe we can try some of these things and I could explain them too.
Now, the simplest way to tell that I've come up with so far is for people who subscribe
to call waiting, and it has to do with the way your disable call waiting sounds.
That's star 70 or 1170 for people with rotary.
And on a 5ESS, if you subscribe to call waiting and you dial star 70...
Okay, I think we...
Were we?
That sounded like a click to me.
No.
No?
You know, this is taking longer than I thought.
I hope it's not, you know, so if we call from the radio station to the radio station, it
never disconnects because that will make us look pretty foolish.
It's definitely disconnecting for most people.
Yeah.
But keep talking.
Okay.
Yeah.
As I was saying about call waiting, if you're a subscriber to call waiting and you dial
star 70, if you simply get back a stuttering dial tone that is do-do-do-do like that, then
you'd be on a 5ESS.
If you got two higher pitched beeps followed by a slight bit of silence and then a dial
tone, then you would be on a DMS-100.
Do you want to demonstrate those beeps for us?
You mean using my mouth?
Yes.
Okay.
They sound approximately like beep, beep, boop, like that, with the boop being the dial
tone following the two beeps.
And that remains to be...
There are some phone books, by the way, in Ohio that actually spell out the dial tone
in case people are confused by that.
They say, you know, I don't know exactly how they spell it.
I think it's with a D. You know, a do-do-do-do-do, if you hear that sound on your phone, that
means it's a dial tone.
All right.
So, you know, some of those primitive exchanges out there.
Yeah.
I'm wondering if this is going to hang up now at all because I see people that are being
disconnected after we called in.
Hmm.
Okay.
Well, keep talking.
Okay.
Well, it seems kind of odd that every so often it seems to cut the ring off.
Well, that's...
No, that's us talking over it.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, it's...
Oh, there we go.
That was a definite click there.
Yeah.
Okay.
And we should see the light go out in a second.
That's weird.
Oh, there it goes.
It's fading away.
The light is fading away.
It's gone now.
We have been disconnected.
That's how long it takes.
That's a bit longer than I thought, but still, you know, when you have 10 lines that are
ringing...
I mean, there's people ringing now.
And this...
I can tell you right now, there's no hope.
There's no hope.
We won't get to you before you're disconnected.
There's just no way.
Anyway.
Okay.
So, you're on a switch.
There are certain ways to tell what kind of switch it is if you get a dial tone on that
switch, but you're saying there's a way to tell just by calling in.
By calling, you mean as if you were dialing someone else.
Right.
And you wanted to tell what they were on.
Exactly.
Yeah.
There's a couple of simple ways I found out with that as well.
And...
Well, tell me.
Do you want to...
Can you tell from a busy signal?
Can you tell from a ring?
Yeah.
I found that it's easier to tell from a busy signal.
I don't know if we'll be able to tell on the air.
But from dialing around in the city, I found that if you get connected to a busy signal
on a 5ESS, there's a very faint hum in the background, whereas on a DMS-100, it's completely
silent.
Okay.
Do you mind being put on the spot right now?
Because I do have a DMS busy signal, and I do have a number 5ESS busy signal, and I'd
like to try them both.
Okay.
I'll see how well I can hear it over the air.
Okay.
In the headphones.
Let's give this a try.
I won't tell anybody which one I'm calling first.
And in fact, I won't even...
Well, yeah, you won't know this exchange, so I think I can do this.
Bear with me one moment.
Okay.
Okay.
There's our dial tone.
We're just going to call up a number.
Here we go.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I was wrong.
That's not a busy signal.
Let's try something else.
There's way too much noise on there for me to tell.
All right.
Let's try that one more time.
Too much noise.
Too much noise?
Yeah.
There's way too much static over it.
There is an awful lot of static.
Yeah.
Let me try another number and see if that fares any better.
Any better?
No.
Okay.
But those are two different switches.
That much I can tell you.
Do you think if we call something more local, you might be able to tell?
Well, I hear the static just in the room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think the static is inherited in our system here.
It's coming over the mics.
Yeah.
But what would you be listening for then?
Okay.
If it was a 5 ESS and you were to call the permanent busy number, the test number, and
prefix plus 9970, which works in most places, or just a busy number, on a 5 ESS, if you
listen closely, you will hear a very low hum behind the busy signal.
It's the faintest hum, but it is there.
And if you know what you're listening for, you'll hear it.
And if you do that and compare it with that of a 5 ESS's busy signal, you'll hear complete
silence in between the busy signal and the permanent busy number.
Let's try our local number.
279, which we know is a number 5 ESS.
Oh, that's the only exception.
What do you mean that's the only exception?
I found that when I was at home and I called in my office, you couldn't hear the hum.
Really?
Well, you know what?
It's not going to go through.
The number you have reached, 279-9970.
The number you have reached, 279-9970.
Please try your call again later.
What?
She didn't give a reason.
She didn't give a reason.
279-9970.
Please try your call again later.
That's great.
Okay, we're going to have a little fun here.
We're going to have a little fun here.
Hold on.
Let's get one of our trusty operators online.
Do you think that's a one-time thing?
Do you think that will happen again?
That's kind of strange.
I don't know.
I've never heard something like that before.
No reason.
Uh-oh.
We're sorry.
Your call cannot be completed as dialed.
Oh, you're supposed to dial 0212.
Is that right?
Are you?
Yeah, I think you're supposed to do that.
Let me just make sure that that happens again.
Before I get mad at you.
Okay.
Before I get an operator involved in this.
The number you have reached, 279-9970.
Please try your call again later.
I've never heard anything like that before.
This goes to show that you can find this by dialing out at random.
I mean, we had no idea this was here.
Okay, we're going to call an operator now.
Yeah, I think when you're getting operator assistance into New York City,
you have to dial 0 plus 212.
I don't know why.
It's just the way it is.
Dial 0 for the operator.
I dialed 0 already.
I'll try it again.
Please hold for operator assistance.
Mr. G, may I help you?
Yes, hi.
I'm having some difficulty getting through this number.
I'm getting a recording I don't understand.
All right, hold on, please.
Thank you.
The number you have reached, 279-9970.
Please try your call again later.
Oh.
Yeah, that's a new one, isn't it?
Hey.
See, they want to do away with us, right?
They want all these tape recorders to do these things for you.
Wait, let me try that again because it left something out.
Yeah, they sure did.
Ooh.
The number you have reached, 279-9970.
Please try your call again later.
Wait a minute.
There's something missing.
Yeah, I don't know why.
I hear voices in the background.
All right, but hold on a second.
Turn my mic up a little bit.
The number you have reached, 279-9970.
Please try your call again later.
It's just the tape saying, please try your call again later.
Yeah.
It may be checked for trouble.
If you want, I can actually repair it.
Maybe they can check the number for you.
You know, somehow I don't think they'll help.
It's my experience with them in the past.
I don't think they'll do that.
But is there a way to report this?
That's repair.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Well, connect me to repair then.
I'll try it.
No problem.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah, telephone repair.
Good evening.
Yes, hi.
I'm trying to report a number that, well, it's giving a recording and it's not telling
you why it's giving you the recording.
It's saying the number you have reached and it's not saying why it won't connect you.
Okay, what is the area code and telephone number?
It's area code 212-279-9970.
Thank you.
Just a moment.
It's a very unusual problem.
279-9970?
That's right.
Sean, that number is disconnected.
It's coming up as disconnected?
Well, it's not saying that when you call it.
When you call it, it just says the number you have reached and it stops.
Yeah.
But it is a disconnected number.
Well, I think the machine that says it's disconnected might be disconnected.
It may be.
Yeah.
So, I just figured I'd let you know.
Yeah, okay, fine.
Thank you.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Always help the phone company out whenever you can, you know.
Notice if something's unplugged or unlocked or whatever.
Just tell them and then they'll fix it.
They could have fixed it by now.
You realize that?
I mean, I don't want to be too hard on them, but let's just check.
Whoops.
I hit the pound sign by accident.
Just one more time.
The number you have reached, 279-9970.
Nope, haven't gotten to it yet, so.
Well, that's something.
Okay, so we were trying to find out the busy signal, the local busy signal,
and you said there was an exception to that.
Yeah, if you call the permanent busy test number in the same office as you,
then you will not hear this.
You won't hear the hum.
You won't hear the hum, no.
I see.
Now, do you know a technical reason why you hear this hum?
For the hum?
I couldn't really come to any conclusion why it would give you a hum.
Mm-hmm.
It really doesn't make much sense.
I don't think they intended on there being a hum there.
Uh-huh.
Well, that certainly is, as long as it's consistent, it's a handy way to tell the difference.
Uh-huh.
Now, when you're on the actual system, you can tell various ways, too.
When you're dialing, is that right?
Yeah, that's what I was saying before about star 70.
Apart from star 70, I mean, I noticed on a DMS-100, when I hit a touch tone,
that the dial tone remains a half second after I hit it.
Yeah, that's true, and also, the other thing I noticed by comparing and contrasting
is when you first pick up the telephone,
and if you're on a cheap phone or a cordless,
you're not going to be able to detect this as well,
so if you want to try it, your best bet is to use a normal desktop phone,
like an AT&T desktop phone.
And you'll notice on a 5VSS that when you,
the best thing to do is pick up the receiver and hold it to your ear
and then press the switch hook down
so you could hear it as soon as the dial tone comes on.
Then let the switch hook go, and you'll notice on the 5VSS
that you'll hear a loud click immediately followed by the dial tone.
Immediately.
On a DMS-100, what'll happen is that you'll hear a much lower click
followed possibly by some silence,
and then the dial tone will come on clean.
There's a definite separation between the click,
the initial click, and the dial tone.
Now, is there any reason why anybody would want to know this,
as far as...
As far as being able to tell the difference?
Is there a difference between the two switches?
Well, technically there is, if anyone's interested, I don't know.
Is one better than the other?
As far as phone service goes, really no.
I mean, they're the two top switches on the market today
as far as digital switching goes
in the public switch telephone network.
They're two companies in direct competition with each other
as far as it being the top product,
the 5VSS and the DMS Supernode.
But as far as service goes, they're pretty much the same.
Do they cost the same?
No, actually, from what I recall,
depending on configuration, that is.
But I've heard that the DMS-100 is probably slightly cheaper
than the 5VSS.
Actually, I heard it was a lot cheaper, but...
Well, it all depends on the configuration.
Yeah.
All right, well, that's fairly interesting to...
But I just want to note something.
Yeah.
A plug for Northern Telecom is that
I've noticed just from reading that the DMS-100,
the Supernode, seems a lot more flexible a switch
than the 5VSS does
in that just it's...
the way it's put together basically
makes it a lot more flexible
in what it could be configured to do.
And so it is.
I'm looking at something else right now.
These notes are being handed to me
as far as various things.
I've been told on numerous occasions
that we're far too serious on this program
and that we need to, you know, branch out a little bit more
and put some of the fun back into the telephone.
So, actually, for that particular reason,
I have some numbers that I want to read
to some people.
Those of you that have pens and paper
can write these down.
Federal agents out there
that also like to write these numbers down,
go ahead as well.
Everyone's welcome to write these down.
Now, let's see.
This is going to come in the...
in the form of several numbers
and then there'll be a pause,
several more numbers, another pause,
several more numbers.
I think there'll be four sets of numbers altogether, okay?
So, if you have pens and paper,
write these down.
Okay, here comes the first group right now.
321-321-045.
Now, I wasn't repeating that.
That's the number.
I'll repeat it one more time.
321-321-045.
Okay?
Now we... now we pause
and now we have 6842.
6842.
Okay?
And then we have a slight variation
on the first number.
We have 321-321-945.
That's 321-321-945.
And then the final set of numbers
is 654-224.
That's 654-224.
All right.
Now, what will those numbers get you?
Well, they'll get you all kinds of things
if you know how to use them.
And let's see if...
if we can demonstrate how to use them here.
Well, it's supposed to be
way down upon the Suwannee River.
I don't know.
It didn't sound like that to me.
Did it sound like that to you?
No.
No.
That was...
All right, let's try this one.
Let's try this one.
8444-684-891-439-pound
Well, that was a long song.
You know, I think a lot of this
has to do with timing.
Yeah.
And I don't really get you
the timing in this.
For instance, Olympic Fanfare.
Yeah, your timing's way off.
My timing is way off, yes.
So I never was musically inclined.
But anyway, that just goes to show
what kind of fun you can have
with a touch-tone phone.
And you don't need to pay
for touch-tone service
to have that kind of fun.
All right, we have a letter
from a listener.
And, in fact, our listeners
are encouraged to send us letters
at off-the-hook, care of WBAI,
505 8th Avenue, New York, New York,
10018.
And also, I should point out,
we're going to be taking phone calls
in just a moment.
So if you want to get online
and race with the phone company
before they cut you off,
212-279-3400.
Give us a call now.
Due off-the-hook,
I tried to call in
when the subject was being discussed
some shows ago.
I couldn't get through,
and I still can't.
I'm sorry.
The number you have reached, 279-9970.
Please try your call again later.
That is incredible.
You know, I used to call a number like that that had been changed to itself.
You know, imagine hearing the number you have reached, 212-279-9970 has been changed.
The new number is the exact same number again.
I've heard all kinds of bizarre recordings, but I think this is the most out of order
one I've ever heard.
And, you know, anybody can call it right now and get that exact same recording.
Okay, let's go to our telephones here.
Hopefully we can get through to people before they get cut off.
Good evening.
Yeah, hi.
I'm about to buy a telephone.
Would you recommend any brand like Radio Shack, Panasonic, Sony, any of those?
Oh, it's hard to recommend a phone.
I mean, get a phone that has good sound quality.
How do you know before you can't usually try it at the store?
Yeah, well, you know, the best way to do that is to see what your friends have,
see what kinds of phones they have.
I mean, for instance, Panasonic makes great phones, great systems,
but the mouthpieces are always terrible.
I don't know why that is.
They always sound bad and muffled.
But, you know, that's one thing.
I would say, you know, go with AT&T, but I can't say that
because the quality is nowhere near as good as it used to be.
That's what I have now.
What kind of phone are you talking on now?
It's not AT&T, I believe, yes.
It has the bell symbol there.
How old is it?
Actel.
It's like about 8 years old.
Yeah.
You see, that's a fairly good, you know, you have good sound on that,
but that's no guarantee that you'll have good sound on a future model.
But, you know, ask around, you know, listen to how people sound on certain phones.
If you hear somebody that sounds terrible,
make sure you find out what phone they're calling from.
And, you know, open up to the listeners as well.
What's your favorite phone?
All right.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Okay, thanks for calling.
Bye.
Let's see who else is out there.
Good evening.
Hi, I have questions.
You do?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
What are your questions?
My question is that I get phone calls sometimes from a recording saying,
you have just won a prize.
You must call 550-prize or something like that.
Probably 540.
540 or something like that.
But you have to, like, call within ten minutes.
I don't know why,
but you have to call the 540 number within ten minutes that they're calling you.
And how do you stop that?
First of all, that's nonsense.
They'll be happy if you call that 540 number any time of the day or night
because it probably costs about $10 to call it.
Now, another thing I wanted to mention is there's a number called 1-800-328-7448,
and it spells something that I can't mention on the air.
Okay.
1-800-328-7448.
All right, whatever, yeah.
And what you do is you enter.
They have your number, so they have ANI,
so they ask you to enter the last four digits of your phone number.
Then they'll give you a special sort of calling card number.
And you could just charge this.
Like, you could do it from your home,
and then if somebody happens to either get that number from you or you use it,
you could charge it to your home or something.
How does that work?
If you could do that to anybody's phone, you know, I could go into somebody else's house.
Well, I'm not familiar with the service.
It sounds like, as you say, they're using ANI to verify your phone number,
and by you entering those digits,
it's seen as sort of you granting them permission to do whatever it is they do,
yet I'm not exactly sure what it is they're doing.
But then they're giving you a special number.
Are they billing you?
Well, I don't know.
You tell me.
You've called it.
Well, I have to get my billing.
And now, why does 1-0, why when you have call waiting and you try and call,
all right, if you have call waiting, somebody tries to call you while you're on the phone.
Like, if I was calling you and it was ringing, somebody tries to call me,
they would get a busy signal until somebody, you understand what I'm saying?
Say that again slowly.
Okay.
I am calling from my house to, let's say, you, the radio station.
Okay.
And you haven't picked up yet.
You're on the phone.
You're saying that while the phone is ringing, if somebody calls you,
they will get a busy signal instead of coming into your call waiting.
That sounds to me like integration of different switches.
I don't get that.
You don't get that?
No.
I have gotten that.
I've gotten call waitings while the phone was ringing.
On a local call?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Okay.
Well, then again, it's configuration.
But I am familiar with that happening in some cases,
usually on an internal system such as a PBX of some sort.
But I think we're going to start seeing a lot more internal PBX features being
seen on our telephone network.
Basically, what I suspect it is is they're waiting for an answer before they
will assume that your phone is able to accept another call.
Because if you flash while you're ringing.
Yeah, it will hang up.
Well, I don't know what will happen.
I think it depends on the configuration.
But there is no call there.
So it might get confused.
Why when you're making a call, like if you dial 1-0 on a pay phone,
you dial 1-0-777 for Sprint and then 1 the area code or number,
it will just default to AT&T to ask you for the money.
Why don't Sprint or any of these other long-distance companies ask you for money?
Well, no other phone company has the ability right now to process pay phone calls.
You can process 0-plus, but all 1-plus default to AT&T.
You don't know why?
I don't know why and I don't know if the other phone companies are particularly eager
to get involved in the pay phone business.
What manual detection is?
What manual detection is?
Yeah.
With regards to what?
Pay phones.
Are you talking about listening to the tones?
I guess.
Well, I imagine what you mean is that an operator would come on
and listen to make sure you're depositing quarters?
In GTE land, they don't have the X recording that asks you for the money.
They have a live AT&T operator.
Well, they have a live GTE operator probably.
Well, no.
If you're making a long-distance call, I'm talking about.
They transfer you.
Upstate, if I make a long-distance call, I get an AT&T operator.
And on a New York telephone pay phone upstate, I get a regular AT&T X recording.
Well, some GTE areas, and they merged with Contail fairly recently,
they're still pretty primitive.
No equal access, no direct overseas dialing.
This month, I'm going to be going out to Colorado and Wyoming and touring that area.
I'd like to find a primitive pay phone.
I'd like to find a step switch pay phone or a step switch system.
I don't know.
Do you know anywhere in that region of the country that I could visit that will have?
Well, the thing is, the more you know of places,
the less likely they are to have a system like that.
The systems you want are in places that nobody knows about,
so you have to go into the wild somewhere and look around.
They're still there someplace, but you've got to look around for them.
Okay?
All right, 2600 meeting this Friday.
That's right.
I'll fill the folks in on that.
Thanks for calling.
Okay.
Yes, 2600 meeting this Friday at City Corps Center, 5 to 8 p.m., I believe.
And that's just on the ground-level area with all the pay phones.
And meetings all over the country, in fact.
You can check page 46 of 2600 for information on other meetings as well.
Let's go back to the phones.
Good evening.
Hello.
How are you doing?
Is this BAI?
Yes, it is.
You're on the air.
Okay.
I'd like to know, you were talking about phones, a previous caller.
What year did the phones that had pay phones that had, like, a bell,
when you put the 10 cents in, were they discontinued, phased out?
Well, you know, if you watch TV programs, you'd think they were never phased out.
That's because they're so far behind the times they don't bother to check.
I haven't seen a phone like that since, I don't know, the 60s, maybe the 70s.
Farber, have you ever seen a phone like that?
The ones that ding with the bell, to my recollection, didn't have automatic coin detection either.
You had to put nickel, dime, or quarter into a specific-sized hole.
Yeah.
I've seen those, but they don't always go ding.
Or they didn't always go ding.
And also, I'd like to know, the type of system you're using there at the station,
where can I get a similar system to that?
You know, like, hook up different tape recorders to the phones
and play music with the line and record from the phone line as well simultaneously.
Well, I don't think you want a system like ours because it doesn't do virtually any of the things you mentioned.
But what you want is a system that integrates into the phone lines.
And, you know, you have to shop around for those kind of things.
I mean, would large companies like AT&T and others have those?
Yeah, but you're probably best off not going with large companies
because, you know, they'll rip you off as far as that kind of thing goes.
You know, I would shop around and, you know, there are telephone stores,
places that, you know, know what they're talking about.
Do they go by a certain type of name?
You'd probably want a key system if you could buy one used somewhere.
Yeah, go to a flea market or, you know, one of those computer shows.
People are always selling things like that.
Okay.
And you can usually get them pretty cheap.
Well, Panasonic makes a fairly good system.
As I said, the mouthpieces are terrible.
Okay, keep that in mind. Thank you.
Okay.
Bye.
You can always, you know, swap out a different mouthpiece, I suppose.
But, you know, it's just something so basic.
I don't know why they don't do that from the beginning.
Okay, 279-3400. Good evening.
Hi, great. Hello?
Yeah, go ahead.
Have you ever seen a magazine called Nuts and Bolts?
Yes, I have. In fact, I just got a copy of that recently.
They're talking about going behind the scenes.
Look at the new MTSO cellular system in someplace out in California.
They have a whole story on that.
Anyway, the reason I called is that the problem with the lines and the phones ringing,
I think that you have missed the totality of the diagnosis here
because I've noticed that calling with the 10-NJB number from New Jersey,
it rings 20 times and hangs up.
Calling with Sprint, it rings about 30 or 40 times and hangs up.
And when I was in Manhattan last week calling into BAI,
it rang for like seven or eight minutes.
I got through, and I never found out, you know, why it didn't.
So apparently what happened with you happened to me, too.
If it had gone on much longer, it would have hung up.
And I think that it depends on where you're calling from.
It seems to.
You see, what I suspect we have here is we have different limits imposed by different entities,
whether they be New Jersey Bell, AT&T, or a New York telephone.
In the latter case, the case that you and I just experienced,
we're seeing the longest possible extension of that ring,
which is determined by the central office, the local 279 exchange right here in New York,
and that puts a limit of seven or eight minutes on it.
And if you call from New Jersey Bell, they put a 20-ring limit.
AT&T puts their limit on as well.
Everybody's putting limits on things that didn't have limits before.
So the net effect of that is that people calling BAI from Manhattan have the greatest advantage of getting through.
It would appear that, once again, being in 212 is advantageous.
One other thing about that issue, I see it as a free speech issue.
I really feel that people who call talk shows ought to complain to the carrier and to the FCC in writing
because the effect of this is to restrict your capacity to get through and get your voice heard on the air,
and that's a violation of free speech.
I think the reason the carriers do that is to restrict the amount of time that their network can be wasted,
from their point of view, on just the phone ringing.
But they don't save themselves any time because the result is that you just keep on trying to dial and to get through,
so that instead of being on the line with the phone ringing for maybe 10 or 12 minutes,
you end up being on the line for an hour because you keep on redialing.
So you're tying them up even more than they would have been tied up otherwise.
Especially if you use Pulse.
Absolutely, if you redial.
The thing is, I can tell you exactly what they're going to say if we tell people to do that.
They'll just say, well, the radio stations should have the capability of simply picking up the line and putting them on hold
so everybody can hold on for as long as you want and pay for all that time.
They're going to throw it back in our court and make it seem as if we're just trying to get a free lunch out of this,
but in actuality, all we're trying to get is exactly what we've had for the last 50 or so years.
Let me ask Farber, do you think there's any major income we're talking about for the phone company
in not allowing these calls to keep going through?
No, and I think it's kind of interesting how our callers turned into a free speech issue,
since from the phone company's point of view, it's clearly going to be a traffic engineering issue
and just freeing up a circuit that would otherwise be tied up not doing anything except ringing.
The net effect of that is that they should offer people who call talk shows the option of maybe paying a reduced fee
for the time the phone is ringing, because it really has restricted my capacity to get through on a lot of New York talk shows.
I think that the net effect of it is a violation of my right to free speech, to access the public airwaves.
Unfortunately, the human factor doesn't enter too much into traffic engineering.
However, if enough of you humans say something about it, it just might.
All right, thanks very much for calling.
Take care.
All right.
It boils down to human beings speaking out, whether it be being disconnected with information,
being charged for information, being disconnected when you try to call in to this program.
It's all a question of how loudly you speak up and who you speak to.
So, yeah, it's one thing, tell us about it.
We already know about it.
Tell your legislators.
Tell the PSC.
Tell your newspapers.
Write some letters.
Let's get this out there.
This does affect us all.
And, you know, every time something like this happens, we never go back, you know.
It just keeps advancing in one direction, and the consumers are the ones that wind up paying the price.
We get less and less.
It used to be, remember when information didn't cost anything, didn't cost a penny?
Then they said, okay, well, too many people are calling information too often,
so we're going to set a limit of, you know, five calls, you know, five free calls.
Five free calls.
After that, you've got to pay, okay?
So then it was four calls.
Then it was three calls.
And, of course, all the time, the cost to call information beyond that kept going up and up and up.
Finally, now it's down to zero calls with high-priced information that costs more than the phone call itself.
And nobody's complaining because they haven't known anything else.
That's the way things always fall apart.
You get people used to it.
Back to the phones.
Good evening.
Hello?
Yeah, go ahead.
You guys are apparently not aware of this, but there's a major phone outage.
There's a trunk cut in Mount Vernon, Yonkers,
and all your calls that go from Manhattan to Westchester, 914, or vice versa, don't go through.
Wait, all calls to 914?
I think so.
And I was in Manhattan at 116th Street, 9 o'clock,
and I couldn't call 914-969, which is North Yonkers.
And when I got home, I can't call 212.
Also, dialing zero here gives a fast busy.
Dialing, calling stuff from 212 to 914 gives all circuits busy,
but trying to call stuff from 914 to 212 gives a fast busy.
So does calling 211 or 611.
Now are you in 914 now?
Right, yeah.
So how did you call us?
AT&T, which is interesting because I didn't used to be able to do that.
You did 102-88?
102-881-212-279340.
That probably wouldn't have gotten cut off.
Yeah, I've been noticing that recently,
that calls that didn't used to be handled by AT&T you can now allow AT&T to handle.
In other words, if you call back to your local area code,
you get a recording saying you can't use AT&T for this call,
and now all of a sudden you seem to be able to do that.
And it costs up to three times as much.
It does cost more, yes, but for some people, well, cost doesn't matter.
By the way, Fiber, you were a bit about the 5ESS and the DMS-100.
The 1A ESS pretty much behaves the same way as the 5ESS and probably the other ESSs too.
No, that's not true.
Since it's an analog switch, if you're calling it from a digital office,
you can hear definite clicks before the ring, before the person answers the phone.
At any rate, with respect to the call waiting stuff, dialing star 70.
Oh, yeah, yeah, the way it sounds when the stuttering dial tone comes on, sure, that sounds the same.
But if someone were to come in on call waiting,
the other party could hear that there's a call waiting and so on and so forth.
If someone answers the phone, you can tell that you're coming in on their call waiting.
Oh, how are you?
Okay, well, I guess that's all you wanted to say.
Thanks for calling in and thanks for showing us that bit of information.
Now, what I'd like to do is check that out, what he just told us.
If that's true, then it's pretty apparent from what he's saying that there's a tandem office,
the Mount Vernon Tandem Office, which is either going to be a DMS-200 or a 4ESS, depending on what they chose.
Hey, you know, I just realized, why don't we leave the style tone going?
I'm not sure what exactly will happen.
Different offices do different things.
We've never done it before in this particular office.
So, let's see what happens.
Might get a recording.
Or it might just hang up. You know, I think it just hung up.
Yeah, it just hung up on us. How do you like that?
Okay, let's try calling to that 914 exchange and see what happens.
Seems to have gone through.
I'm calling a number that should be busy.
Ah.
We're sorry. All circuits are busy now.
Will you please try your call again later?
Well, it looks like he was right.
Let's see if the operators can help us on this one.
How do you like that, a tandem switch down during our program?
There's something poetic about that.
New York Telephone.
New York Telephone.
Remember when they used to answer with no ring at all?
You know, they'd just be there when you hit zero.
Operator, how can I help?
Ah, yes, hi. I'm trying to find out if there's a problem.
I'm calling up to 914.
Um, yeah.
What kind of...
I'm having cable failures.
I'm sorry, what was it?
Cable failure.
Do you know where the cable failure is?
376 Exchange and 966.
I see. How about 969?
Um, no, I don't have a report on that, but it could have been affected, sure.
Uh-huh. And do you know how long it's going to be before it's restored?
No, I don't.
You can call repair service in the 914 area and see if they can give you that information.
Okay, how do I reach repair in 914 from 212?
Get their information and they'll give you the number to repair.
Okay. All right, thank you.
Oh, you know, that's so sleazy.
They connected us to a number that's going to charge us now.
Uh, yes, I'm trying to find the number for repair in 914 area code.
What town, sir?
Uh, gosh, I don't know. I guess the 966 Exchange, whatever town that is.
Mount Vernon?
Mount Vernon, probably.
Actually, it's Yonkers. Are you trying to report that the phone's not working?
Uh, well, there seems to be a cable failure of some sort.
I'm just trying to find out how long it's going to be before it's restored.
Can I be honest with you?
Sorry?
I can tell you what they told us.
Okay, that'd be fine.
You don't want to hear this, though.
No, go ahead.
The projected date was Friday at 5 p.m.
Friday?
That's what they said to us. When we asked earlier today, they told us Friday at 5.
Wow. Do you know where this cable split is?
It's in the Bronx. Somebody cut a cable.
Someone cut a cable in the Bronx and it's going to take until Friday to replace.
I can't guarantee you that, but that's what they told us.
I don't know if that's really true, but they told us Friday at 5 p.m. is what they're giving these people as complete dates.
How do they tell you these things? Is it through a memo or something?
Through the computer.
No, we called the repair department when people started telling us they were having a problem with their phones.
Uh-huh.
We wanted to find out from other people, because people had said, well, we can't get through. What's going on?
Right.
We had no idea, so we called repair, and that's what they told us.
Uh-huh.
They go faster. It could be done before tomorrow morning, but they're not saying anything's guaranteed until Friday at 5.
I see. Okay, well, thanks for the information, then.
Wow, that was actually an informative information call. What do you think of that?
Yeah, that was quite informative.
But, you know, I don't like being switched to something that's going to...
Company itself.
Yeah.
Okay, and is there a way that people can get a hold of them that you can give us?
Uh, there is a phone number listed at the, of all things, the first page of the phone book, and I don't have it offhand.
Okay.
That's required by law that they do that, but that's a good point.
That's where you can find that 800 number.
Right.
At the beginning of your phone book.
Yeah.
Okay, anything else?
That's all for tonight. Thanks.
Okay, thanks for calling.
You know, the Public Service Commission is the way to get answers, or the Public Utilities Commission in another state, perhaps.
But, yeah, the phone company does pay very strict attention to whatever they say.
If you really get angry with them, just, you know, rat on them.
Call the PSC and they'll be trembling in their boots.
But make sure you're right. That's the important thing.
Good evening.
Hi, BAI?
Yes, go ahead.
Uh, well, listen, your show is enjoyable. I know we just have a few seconds left.
My question is, I have two questions.
One is, how many people is it possible to call the same number at once if it was some number that could allow the optimum number of callers?
Well, it depends, you know, it depends on the capacity of that particular number, how many lines you have.
For instance, here at BAI, we have, you know, seven lines and a link to the first line.
So seven people can call 279-3400 at the same time without any problem.
There's other companies, other organizations that have hundreds.
And it's really a question of the limit of your endpoint and also a limit of the central office, which, I don't know.
What do you say, Fiber, as far as the central office limit?
Yeah, it would be a multi-line hunt group and it's directly dependent on how many terminals are in the hunt sequence.
I think the limit is on the order of 2047.
Per hunt group?
Per hunt group.
What about the central office? How many people can call a single central office at the exact same moment?
Oh, that all depends. It depends on a lot of things.
It depends on probably too many things to get into than we have time for.
All right, they link up a lot of different units.
They could probably, you know, keep the master switches open for that kind of flow.
Do you have something specific in mind?
Well, primarily I was interested in getting, when you call someone, what kind of call progress can you detect to determine if someone has call waiting,
to determine if they have, if you're using their call forwarding or something.
Is there any way to detect that kind of signal?
Yeah, there is.
You can tell if someone is forwarding their calls because there would be a slight delay before their ringing starts.
But you'd have to know what the normal time period for the ringing to start for that particular number would be.
Right.
What about when you ring someone?
How can you tell if you're ringing them on their second line, their call waiting line?
You can tell easily on an analog switch, like a 1 or a 1A ESS.
When they come on, you'll hear sort of like a double click, and you'll know that they're answering you on their call waiting.
Other than that, it's a lot harder to tell on a digital switch, on the DMS-100 or 5ESS.
Socially, I could just tell by the way they answer the phone.
Right.
But as it's ringing, you kind of sometimes like to know, are you interrupting them or not?
There is something on the DMS-100.
I don't know if they fixed this, but at least a couple of years ago, if you called somebody and they had call forwarding on,
you would hear very loudly and distinctly MF tones that would signal the number that they were forwarding to before they answered,
which is about the stupidest thing you can imagine, but that's one of the things that they did.
Anybody on a DMS-100 switch that has call forwarding, try that out and see if it still works.
I'm sure that wouldn't happen anymore.
It was only a few years ago.
Yeah, MF tones.
They corresponded to the number, and if the number was unlisted, you got the number that way.
The other thing I was going to ask, is or isn't ISDN?
Is or isn't what?
Is or isn't it happening?
Is it going to be, I mean, when are we going to start seeing more video phones?
Oh, you will.
You will.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Call AT&T and say, okay, when?
When am I going to tuck my baby in from the airport?
Is it going to be a Northern Telecom device?
It's going to be both, offered from AT&T and Northern Telecom.
In fact, there are businesses in Manhattan currently who can subscribe to ISDN,
provided their central office has a digital switch in it that's capable.
Right.
To get a T1 line or something?
Well, no, they'd get your 2B plus D service,
which would be two 64-kilobit lines and a 16-kilobit line for signaling.
Right.
But it takes three lines, right?
Well, sort of.
All right.
We are out of time, so I have to cut everybody off.
Okay, great.
You should have a show on ISDN in the near future.
Okay, well, we're considering that.
As soon as there's more to talk about as far as what's actually being handed out to people,
we'll let you know.
Thank you.
All right, thanks for calling.
And that's going to do it for us tonight here on Off the Hook.
We'll be back again next Wednesday night at 10 o'clock.
Stay tuned for the evening news here on WBAI New York.
This is Emanuel Goldstein for FiberOptic.
Good night.
Good evening.
In the news tonight, NAFTA's on the ropes.
A judge wants to know if it's friendly enough to the environment.
A good sign from the Haitian talks in New York.
They're still at it.
A setback for gays and lesbians in Oregon.
And in New York, it's down to the wire on the rent control debate.
With these and other stories, I'm Laura Seidel in New York with Verna Avery-Brown in Washington.
And this is the news for Wednesday, June 30, 1993.
First to Verna Avery-Brown.
The House has voted 255 to 178 to bar spending federal monies for abortions,
except when the life of a woman is in danger or in cases of rape or incest.
Republican Henry Hyde of Illinois, sponsor of the amendment, says it's not true that abortions seldom occur.
Rare, not if you subsidize it, you're going to get a million more abortions.
And you know we have in this country 1,500,000 abortions every year, legally.
Isn't that enough? Isn't that enough that we have to force people to pay for a million more?
But Democrat Carol Maloney of New York wants to change the policy of the Reagan-Bush years.
They denied federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to a mother's life.
That effectively put abortions out of reach for millions of American women.
Because for poor women who cannot afford abortion services,
the right to choose is meaningless without the means to choose.
Again, the House has voted to maintain the 12-year-old policy preventing federal funding of abortions.
Earlier in the day, Republican Phil Crane of Illinois tried to delete all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
a move the House rejected.
Two Gulf War veterans say their units were attacked with chemical weapons.
Testifying today before a Senate subcommittee,
the two maintained they kept silent because they were so ordered by their commanders.
But the Navy reservists say they're now talking because they can't get government medical care
for health problems they blame on the chemical attack.
The Pentagon has maintained that there's no evidence that chemical weapons were used in the Gulf War.
In Somalia, U.S. Army helicopters have attacked and destroyed a suspected weapons compound in Mogadishu.
It's the site of fighting earlier this week that killed two Pakistani U.N. soldiers.
The city of Miami has decided to settle a lawsuit involving excessive force by a police officer.
The agreement could end up costing over $34 million.
Dan Stewart has details from Miami.
24-year-old Antonio Edwards was left severely brain damaged in a coma
when Miami police officer Carl Seals placed him under arrest 13 months ago.
During that arrest, handcuffed and lying face down on the ground,
the cop put Edwards in a chokehold and minutes later he became comatose.
The city admitted it was negligent and almost 13 months later has awarded the Edwards family
just over $7 million and has also agreed to cover his medical costs for the rest of his life.
His attorney, Stewart Grossman, says he's glad the book has been finally closed on this case.
For now, police have stopped using the chokehold technique pending a review.
For Pacifica News, this is Dan Stewart in Miami.
Bowing to public pressure, the major television networks have agreed to alert parents
about high levels of violence in their programs.
Starting this fall, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox say before some programs this message will appear.
Quote, due to some violent content, parental discretion is advised.
The networks say they have developed guidelines and will decide which programs merit the warning label.
A federal judge has ruled the North American Free Trade Agreement
violates the National Environmental Policy Act.
Judge Charles Ritchie finds that NAFTA will have significant environmental effects
and forbids the Clinton administration from submitting NAFTA to Congress
until an environmental impact statement is prepared.
This could delay action for several months, maybe even years.
Newsday is reporting President Clinton's haircut on Air Force One
did not significantly affect passenger flights at Los Angeles International Airport.
The newspaper cites Federal Aviation Administration records
that show only one unscheduled air taxi flight was delayed for a total of 17 minutes.
And those are the stories topping the news.
♪♪♪
The North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, is on the ropes.
A federal judge today ruled the Clinton administration
must file an environmental impact statement on the treaty.
Environmentalists are applauding the decision, as Mark Bevis reports.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Ritchie has ruled the North American Free Trade Agreement
violates the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.
That law requires environmental impact statements on all major federal actions,
and in this case, NAFTA is considered a major federal action.
Environmentalists have been working on this effort for two years now,
and Joan Claybrook, with Public Citizen, one of the plaintiffs in the case,
is delighted with the decision.
We're looking forward to working with the Clinton administration.
The Clinton administration has indicated great sensitivity to the environment.
They're talking about side agreements dealing with the environmental issues,
and so we're hoping that this will be treated as a positive event by the Clinton administration.
Nevertheless, Claybrook fully expects that U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno
will prepare a response, since both the Bush and Clinton administrations
had argued that NEPA does not apply to the free trade accord.
Environmentalists have long been warning of the dangers of unregulated free trade.
Michael McCloskey is chair of the Sierra Club.
There is the problem of whether, if NAFTA is implemented, is presently drawn,
it's going to increase pollution along the U.S.-Mexican border particularly.
There is the question of whether it will cast a cloud on various U.S. laws,
whether it will cast a cloud on our laws that now allow us to tightly regulate
pesticide residues, among other problems, in imported food.
There's the question of whether it will cast a cloud over the ability of states
and localities to have strong environmental regulations.
The purpose of the environmental impact statement is to provide some answers to those questions,
answers the public and Congress need when deciding whether to support the treaty.
Alan Morrison was one of the attorneys arguing the case before the district court.
The environmental impact statement is not a substantive law
that determines whether treaties can go into effect.
It is an information-producing requirement.
It is designed to assure that the