THE SECOND PRIVATE LINE E-ZINE! -- (private line #12 -- Vol. 3#3)

by Tom Farley

http://www.privateline.com

Thanks to Damien Thorn, Peter Shipley, Naftali Bendavid &
especially Nancy!

I. Editorial Page
II. Updates and Corrections
A. Cryptography article addition
B. Free payphone calling in the 916 -- the saga continues
C. More on the GTD-5
D. The Controlled Environmental Vault (CEV)
E. Canadian Telecom Part 3? -- Yes and No
III. Letters
A. Ruminations on phone books and phone outages
B. TWX is not a candy bar
C. A nice letter from Anonymous in Minnesota
IV. An Introduction to Prison Phone Technology -- by Tom Farley
A. A brief overview
B. Three different call processing approaches
1. Class of service approach
2. Generic switch utilizing custom software
a. Close up of one switch: NACT's 120LCX
3. Dedicated system using PC technology
4. Typical Call processors' anti-fraud features
a. Call blocking on a permanent basis
b. Call blocking on an as needed basis
c. Limiting long distance carriers
d. Flash hook prevention
e. Rotary dial acceptance
f. Limiting automated message attempts
g. Conference call prevention
C. The federal Inmate Telephone System (ITS)
1. Introduction
2. Letter from jail
3. Discussion and speculation
4. Federal Bureau of Prison (B.OP.) Time Line
5. Discussion continues
6. ITS Account Report
7. A report on ITS from Jail
8. Bibliography
V. A short history of independent telephony in America --
with an attitude! -- by John Hyde
IV. _private line_ Table of Contents & back issue order information

I. EDITORIAL PAGE

October 1, 1996

Greetings again from Isleton, California. The deadline for
subscribers to request refunds or back issues has passed. _private
line_ as it existed now fades into history. I'll still sell back
issues, though, and there is a list of these at the end of this e-zine.
Thanks so much for your consideration and support. I'm still trying
to find a publisher so don't give up hope on a hardcopy _private line_
just yet. Having said that, I am offering printouts of the _private
line_ e-zine for $5.00 apiece. It looks very sad compared to the old
magazine, however, it does keep me going as a paper publication;
fully protected under the First Amendment and it does give me
something to send to those without net access.

I've got lots and lots of new subscribers, by-the-way, to this
e-zine. Thanks much. Just as a recap, this e-zine was started to
mollify the former subscribers of _private line_, a way to give them
something to read since the magazine needed to fold. It seemed
logical then to freely distribute to anyone who wanted it, after all, I
started putting the text of my back issues up on the net in 1994. I've
always felt this material should be freely distributed. Check out the
etext archive at Michigan for _private line_ as well as
privateline.com:

etext.archive.umich.edu/pub/Zines/PrivateLine

It's my hope to get much more posted to privateline.com as
time permits. I'm also getting a t-shirt produced. The cost will be
$15.00 including shipping to U.S. residences. I'll e-mail you all
the details when I get the design up at the web site. The goal will be
to ship the shirts a few weeks before Christmas.

I wish you all the best. The electronic door is always open.

Tom Farley

II UPDATES AND CORRECTIONS

A. Cryptography article addition

A friend said encryption or cryptography should have been
defined at the start of Rich Adam's article last issue. Okay. Please
copy and paste, if you will, this standard definition into last issue's
text:

Cryptography involves methods to prepare cryptograms,
messages incomprehensible to everyone but "those with the
legitimate means to reproduce the original plain text." Cryptography
comes from the Greek words _kryptos_ meaning 'hidden' and
_graphein_ meaning 'to write.' Converting a plain text message into
a cryptograph is called encrypting, more specifically enciphering or
encoding.

B. Free payphone calling to the 916 -- the saga continues

I hedged a little last issue about free calling with Citizens'
Telecom payphones. Free payphone calling to anywhere in the 916
from Ryde, Walnut Grove and at a payphone west of Courtland still
existed when I wrote the article. These telephones use, respectively,
the 776 and 775 prefixes. Their C.O.'s were upgraded around
September 1, 1996, consequently, free calling, for the most part,
came to an end in the California Delta. Before those switches were
changed, though, I had a great experience that celebrates the
mysteries of the telephone system.

Several weeks ago I needed to call Isleton from Walnut Grove. I
hadn't done that before and I was curious to see what would happen.
Was it a local call? Could I call for free, like I did elsewhere in the
916? Or would it prohibit a local call, like it used to do in Isleton?
You see, the only exception to free calling within 916 was calling
another phone in the local prefix. Like calling the 777 prefix from a
Citizens payphone in Isleton. A little voice always came on the line
saying the call "requires a coin deposit, please hang up, deposit 20
cents . . ." etc., etc., etc.

Anyway, I tried calling in my usual way without putting in
any coins: 1-916-777-4420. I got prompted immediately to hang up
and deposit coins. "Oh, well," I thought "I do need to call Isleton so I
don't mind paying for it. No ACTS so it must be only 20 cents." I put
it my coins, dialed the number and guess what? It connected me AND
returned my coins! Can you believe that? I tried it several times
in the weeks after and it always returned my deposit. Isn't life
good? But strange. Got another payphone story? Send it in . . .

C. More on the GTD-5

Carl Navarro (cnavarro@wcnet.org) writes in to say that the 'D'
in GTD-5 stands for digital. Thus, the full name is General Telephone
Digital-5 (class 5 office) Electronic Automatic eXchange. Got it?
Carl goes on to note the one near him "is a 1984 or so vintage. No
ISDN ever, but caller ID was available 4 years ago. Rumor has it that
the district manager was the only one who had it since it was not
tariffed :).

"GTE Ohio hides number announcement in the xxx-1206
numbers. If you call LD to 419-353-1206 I think you'll get 1000HZ
tone, but locally you'll get number announcement. This also works on
285-1206 and 823-1206 (GTD-5 RSU).

"I got to see the RSU for a GTD-5 about 3 months ago. Wow! It
is large by today's standards, about the size of an OMNI PBX. I think
the architecture is 4 line ccts (stations) per card [the literature
below states 8, ed.] , and the cards were about 6x8 inches. It
seemed kind of strange, since the office it replaced was a Leich 100
(old Automatic Electric X-Bar). The Battery plant took up most of
the space the old Leich stood in, and the RSU took up 2 bays for 800
stations! It is T1'd to our main C.O. (which was built in our old
manager's office). Talk about a trip, here we went from an old step-
by-step toll office (with SATT*) to digital. The silence was
deafening :)

"I believe the GTD-5 is available for software upgrades only
and, perhaps, some limited additions. GTE-Ohio is using AT&T
switches. I think that AT&T bought the manufacturing rights to
the GTD-5, or something like that, but it is pretty obsolete. In our
area, they are not even putting RSU's to our toll center for an
exchange that is less than 10 miles away. Instead they went to an
AT&T 5ESS."

Thanks, Carl, for the informative note. I went back to the old
_GTE Automatic Journal_ and found some interesting stuff on the
GTD-5. Check out the article "GTD-5 EAX -- A Family of Digital
Switches" in the September, 1979 issue and "Architecture of the
GTD-5 EAX Digital Family" in the July, 1980 issue. Let's take a quick
look at this switch, based upon those two introductory articles.

The GTD-5 was an early digital central office switch designed
especially to take care of remote units. How early? Its control
architecture was based on a 8086! Automatic Electric offered a
large or small version. The larger unit, called _the large base unit_
or _LBU_ in A.E.'s crippled terminology, had a capacity of 1,300,000
CCS (one hundred call seconds), 360,000 call attempts an hour and
300,000 directory numbers. Serving 2,000 to 145,000 lines,
depending on configuration, it could also provide class 4C toll
service. The small base unit, by comparison, could serve 500 to 20,
000 lines, with 160,000 CCS, 65,000 call attempts an hour and host
up to 40,000 directory numbers. Toll service was not supported with
the SBU. Both base units could stand alone or serve a number of
remotes.

The RSU or Remote Switching Unit Carl referred to is a "small
switching system designed to serve outlying communities and as a
replacement for community dial offices." Installed at central offices
controlled by the GTD-5, each RSU could serve up to 3,000 lines with
a capacity of 19,200 CCS. I think two to thirty two RSUs could be
supported over T-1 links by one GTD-5. Each remote switching unit
could, in turn, serve up to 8 Remote Line Units (RLUs) and 4
Multiplexer Units (MUs). Don't choke on this alphabet soup just yet.

An RLU is a "larger concentrating pair-gain unit with a
capacity of 768 lines." A multiplexer, in other words, for larger but
distant local loops. Finally, the multiplexer units or MUs served
smaller local loops. No more than 96 lines could be accommodated.
Common channel signalling circuits over T-1 lines tied all this
equipment together. Thus, one GTD-5 could serve a *very* large wire
center. (Read a little about Rural Area Network Design in _private
line_ Number 8 and about Community Dial Offices in P.L. #1.)

To summarize, then, the GTD-5 was a good example of early
distributed intelligence and switching in the telephone system. Its
time, though, has passed. GTE stated in 1979 the GTD-5 could "evolve
gracefully into the network of the 1980's and beyond." But it is
doubtful Automatic Electric engineers envisioned this switch
providing ISDN or full CLASS features. Most companies that can
afford to have replaced these switches and moved on. Roseville
Telephone, for example, finally pulled the last lines off a GTD-5 this
year, retiring the beast for another AT&T 5ESS.

*Carl Navarro went on to explain that "SATT stands for
Strowger Automatic Toll Ticketer. Picture a 23 inch relay rack 8
feet tall and that holds 3 ticketers. Remember, these are all relay
controlled! Now mount about 80 of these devices in 4 rows, add 200
rotary switches that make a 45 step by 5 contact spin every time
someone calls for a ticketer, let them dump to 8 paper tapepunches
and on a Wednesday night (the kids always called home before
drinking on Thursday!) and you have some incredible noise :)

D. The controlled environmental vault (CEV)

I wrote about controlled environmental vaults in _private
line_ Number 7 (Volume 2, Number 4, July/August 1995). A C.E.V. is
an underground structure that often houses telephone equipment .
The one I went into and took pictures of for that issue's Outside
Plant article housed a 5ESS. In effect, it is a small central office
underground. These inconspicuous, buried buildings allow companies
like RTC to distribute its switching capacity more equally around its
serving area. Your only clue to a C.E.V.'s location is its top -- a four
by four foot flat steel panel two or three feet off the ground, rising
out of the earth like a green, squarish mushroom.

It turns out that Roseville Telephone Company installed the
first C.E.V. in California back in 1986. Here's a history of that vault,
reprinted with permission, from Steve Chanecka's book, _The History
of The Roseville Telephone Company_:

"'The company is looking at the serving area west of Antelope
Road by using a controlled environmental vault which meets the
concerns of nearby residents since it is asethetically appealing. We
will use it to house a remote switching unit which will serve this
area. Plant from our central office to the 'CEV' will be fiber optics
and from the remote location to the subscribers will use normal
copper wire. Basically, this unit will serve the same function as a
mini-substation, but will be underground and therefore does not
detract from homes in the neighborhood.'

"Ned Kindelt explained the CEV in more detail in a late 1985
article in _Line Chatter_. 'A CEV is a central office located
underneath the ground. The equipment vault is 10 feet, six inches
wide and 24 feet long, and will contain a remote unit in Citrus
Heights for control. The remote switch unit will be wired for 4,608
lines.' In addition, the CEV had air conditioning, a dehumidifier, an
automatic sump pump and an alarm system.

"The use of CEVs was pioneered by Roseville Telephone in
California. The state's first one was placed on Lichen Drive in Citrus
Heights in late 1986. The engineering, splicing and installation was
a long, arduous process, according to project director, splicer Jim
Hood. He reported in the October 1986 _Line Chatter_

'Our first CEV is almost past history. This has been a very
difficult project for many departments. This vault is powered from
the Citrus Heights central office by our first fiber optic cable. Our
second vault, already a work-day reality for some departments will
be located on Antelope Road near the Foothill Christian Center. To
say that this has been a learning experience is being tactful.'

"That first CEV may have been challenging but the concept was
a lifesaver for Roseville Telephone. Faced with an aggressive
expansion of residential housing in the Antelope area of Citrus
Heights, the company's conduit capacity to run copper cable from its
Citrus Heights central office under Interstate 80 was insufficient
for the long term. Had there been no other option, the company would
have faced costly construction to increase its underground conduit
system.

"The CEV approach solved this. Rather than making the conduit
system larger, the use of fiber optics resulted in the cable bundle
running through the conduits being smaller in diameter. Thin, very
high capacity fiber optics connected the central office and the CEV.
The far thicker copper cable ran from the CEV to the customer. Fiber
optics enabled much more information to be transmitted through a
much smaller bundle of wires. Leon Bower, director of outside plant
engineering, explained to fellow employees why CEVs and fiber
optics made sense in the fall of 1985:

'If you read local papers, you are aware that the area roughly
north of Antelope Road, between the railroad and Watt Avenue in
Sacramento County, is about to be developed. They are projecting
between 13,000 and 14,000 new homes in the Antelope Urban
Reserve in the next 20 years. For the area west of the freeway we
are projecting a requirement of 16,000 lines for that 20 year
period.'

'To serve this area with conventional copper cables would
require an investment of some $3.5 million at today's cost in outside
plant alone. Underground conduit systems would have to be
reinforced, at a very high cost, to accommodate the fourteen 1500-
pair, 24 gage feeder cables needed. A fiber cable will cost us about
$102,000. . .'

"Since 1986, 12 more CEVs scattered evenly throughout the
company's service have placed impressive digital switching
power and data transmission capacity close to the users at
an economical price. Moreover, all but one of the company's 13
operating CEVs at the end of 1994 were located inside utility right-
of-ways. The company did not have to buy the site of the CEV or
obtain permits to put them in the ground. Most people are not even
aware of where the CEVs are placed."

It is my understanding that each vault is backed up with
alternative routing, that is, a separate fiber comes in from two
directions to the vault. A single accident will not cause any vault to
go down. The _History of the Roseville Telephone Co._, by the way, is
a fascinating read and an important contribution to independent
telephony. RTC is the 23d largest telephone company in America and
one of the most progressive. The book is over four hundred pages in
hardback. $20 in the U.S. plus $3.50 shipping. Call (916) 786-1117.
There's a discount for orders of five or more. Or order by mailing
from the following: Telephone Book, Roseville Telephone, P.O. Box
969, Roseville, CA 95678. And make sure to visit their telephone
museum at 106 Vernon Street in Roseville from 10:00 to 4:00 p.m on
Saturdays.

E. Canadian Telecom Part 3? -- Yes and No

Mark J. Cuccia (mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu), a frequent
contributor to Pat Townsend's Telecom Digest, wrote a great article
on Canadian telecom history and independent telephony that you
must check out. It's entitled 'History'. Check out Stentor, Bell
Canada, Independents - Some History' and it's over at the T.D. digest
under:

http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-
archives/archives/history/stentor.bell-canada

I reviewed Canadian telecom in _private line_ Number 8 and P.L.
Number 9.Those two articles focused on the current scene, with an
emphasis on the major telcos. I wanted to write Part 3 on Canadian
telecom history and the independents, however, I never found the
time. Marks' article is a better piece than I could ever write. It
includes a great internet resources list. I asked Mark about hardcopy
resources and he sent me this reply:

I just recently received a copy of the 1972 hardcopy book (out
of print) called "Singing Wires" which is about the history of the
telephone in Alberta. I don't know if the URL's given in the article on
Canada I sent to Telecom Digest are exactly still valid, and I did
have a follow up on the roles of Teleglobe and Telesat which
appeared in TD shortly after. Many of the Canadian telcos have a
brief history section on their webpages, too!

One of the 'larger' independent group owners in Canada, AGI,
Amtelicom Group Inc, now has a page,
http://www.knservu.ca/~jimc/index.html, and 'subpages'. This group
holds Amtelicom, Manitoulin Island Telco, and now Coldwater
Communications.

I haven't yet formatted it in ASCII (I originally did it as a Word
Perfect for Windows 'chart'), but I did a numerical and alphabetical
listing of the 'non-Stentor' telcos and their serving exchange
locations and (NPA)-NXX codes for those telcos in Ontario and
Quebec. I want to eventually send it to Dave Leibold in Toronto,
http://www.io.org/~djcl/phoneb.html, for his pages of Canadian (and
elsewhere) numbering and code information.

Some of the early dates in my submission to TD might not have
been exactly correct. Some of the info in there was written from
memory, particularly reading an article in a 1950's issue of Bell
Telephone Magazine, on the Trans-Canada Telephone System. In that
AT&T journal, I remember reading that Bell Telephone of Canada had
extended as far west as Alberta in the earlier years of this century.
I had thought that the three prairie provinces had 'socialized'
telephone service in their respective provinces 'by' the 20's, but it
was actually a bit earlier. AGT was formed in Alberta by the
province government to take over telephone service away from Bell
Canada, around 1908. It had been a while since I had read the 1950's
article on TCTS in Bell Telephone Magazine.

One thing I like about the 'net' is that from now on, when there
are current ownership changes in telephone co's or just about
ANYTHING, it will be easy for ANYONE in the world to access the
more recent histories, without having to leave their home or desk! I
can find out about new area codes, or histories of telephone co's,
etc. just by going to the proper websites, rather than cranking rolls
of microfilm at a public or private library halfway across town (at
least I live in a 'big ugly' city... some of New Orleans is very nice and
historical, but other areas look bombed out; but I don't have to travel
from 'the country' to the 'big city' to do most old-style research)... I
don't really have to 'wait' for photocopies to come thru the post
office mail on things I am researching... I can get some faxes or now
even e-mail or clicking on a link on 'the web'...

BCEs "Northern Telephone" (their URL is mentioned at the end
of my Canada article in TD) mentions a history book of some kind, as
does the telco of Cochrane Ontario in their webpage (I think I
mentioned their URL), but I haven't purchased their books yet.

Take a look at http://www.sciencetech.com/EN/FR.html for
info on the French version of "Invisible Empire", published in 1993. It
is supposed to be published in English eventually, I've been told 1995
or 96 or 97... The full table of contents is on that website. It is a
TWO VOLUME HARDBOUND deep history of Canadian Telephony!

Nigel Allen (and Dave Leibold) have been active on the Internet
(or its predecessor including Bulletin Boards) for quite some time.
They also supply info to comp.dcom.telecom (Telecom Digest), and
both live in Toronto. Their personal webpages have a lot of good
pointers to various other internet reference sites on telephony,
Canadian & US, and other parts of the world!

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

III. LETTERS

A. Ruminations on phone books and phone outages

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the zine - I've read it with interest. One of your
articles [about the telephone books] sounded quite familiar. Same
here. 5x7 book, 69 white pages of actual phone numbers with 50
pages preceding it with general informational garbage and another
70 pages of yellow pages - all the numbers for GTE's section of
northeast Missouri,which comprises 17 towns and the surrounding
areas, utilizing 17 prefixes. Monroe City is the largest single-prefix
geographic region in GTE's local area and it has a population of 2,700
and probably not too many more phones.

Best I can tell, it's the same here for most of GTE's
northeastern Missouri area all the way down to Wentzville, which is
about a half hour outside of St. Louis and is where GTE's toll center
is for this area. FYI, Wentzville is about 1:45 drive from here. GTE
has a fiber that goes down to there, but from all appearances, it's a
series-run too.

[As far as Isleton loosing long distance for a day], it was
August 16, 1996 here - and at least three times before that this
year alone. Someone down near Wentzville cut the fiber yet again,
and for nearly six hours this time (due to lightning in the area of the
cut -usually it's more like four) all we could dial were numbers in
Monroe City's 735 exchange. Our company has a tie line between our
PBX in our Monroe City plant and the one in our Palmyra plant which
doesn't follow that fiber line, so I could dial through to the Palmyra
side and observe the same problem there, only it was 769 numbers
that they could dial. I suspect it was the same throughout all of
GTE's local area.

Our FX [foreign exchange] line to Hannibal (Southwestern Bell
territory) also ran over the fiber down to Wentzville and back up
(even though there's a fiber directly between here and there - only
20 miles away.... grrr...) and it was down too. I found out about it
because I was on the internet and had just composed a response to
an e-mail that I had gotten half an hour earlier, and got a
"Destination Host Unreachable" error. After doing some pinging, I
figured that the 56k line that our provider had running to Monroe
City went down, so I tried to get hold of him. Since he's in Hannibal,
I first tried dialing into our company's switch and dialing out the
Hannibal FX trunk. I got a reorder tone.

That was odd, since normally the worst I'll get will be a
expensive route warning tone... I then tried getting a trunk directly
- same thing.Then I decided to spend some money and dial from home.
Same reorder tone. I tried an 800 number. Reorder tone. By this
time, I knew what had happened, having went through it before. The
difference is that this time it had happened at night and knocked out
my internet connection, so I was pissed... I decided to go into work
and spend my now free time composing a letter to the Missouri
Public Service Commission regarding GTE's poor (or non-existent)
emergency routing, and composed a side-letter saying that I
wanted our T1 to our new Hannibal plant routed directly to Hannibal
and not over that fiber so that whenever GTE went down, we could go
out Southwest Bell. (I'm sure that made GTE happy... <g>). Yesterday I
got a call from GTE's local area supervisor, who (quite politely and
diplomatically and supportively) relayed GTE's corporate position to
me. To paraphrase, and to use different words than the supervisor
used, they basically said "Complaint acknowledged. Status Quo will
be maintained. Thank you for calling.". Grrr...

So anyway, thought you might like to know you're not the only
one... Cya, Fred

fmcclint@nemonet.com" "Fred McClintic"

B. TWX is not a candy bar

Hi:

Do you have any info (which may have already appeared in Private
Line, or may be appearing later on in Private Line) regarding the old
(1960's/70's era) of TWX and 800?

I know that the special TWX area codes have been 510, 610,
710, 810, 910. TWX back in the 1960's and 70's, using these area
codes, was actually switched over to the Bell System Telephone
Network. There was also '3-row' TWX back in the 60's and earlier
70's, using their own telephone area codes, and there were 0XX/1XX
codes used in routing TWX.

TWX in Canada (which doesn't exist at ALL anymore) used 610.
Other Canada services which also began to use 610 have all been cut
over to 600, as 610 became southeast PA's additional area code in
1994. TWX in Canada always remained a part of the Telecom-Canada
telephone network, until TWX in Canada was discontinued in late
1994, although 600 continues to be used for ISDN and caller-pays
cellular.

TWX had an assistance operator dialed as 954-1212, 910-954-
1212 (for a 4-row assistance operator in the US) and 610-954-1212
(for a 4-row assistance operator in Canada). There was also '130'
and '140' used in the network for routing something to a TWX
Assistance Operator.TWX Directory was reached with 555-1212,
910-555-1212 (for TWX directory in the US) and 610-555-1212 (for
TWX directory in Canada).

The 510 thru 910 codes were 'flipped' to 015 thru 019 for
routing 4-row to 4-row calls, so as not to force them thru a
'converter', although I was told that the 'flipping' of the code was
done only on routing 3-row to 4-row calls, so AS to force them thru
a 'converter'. This code flipping was done in the switching network,
not dialed by the TWX customer.

Prefixing a geographic POTS telephone area code with a '0' (i.e.
0212) was to be used for 4-row to 3-row calls via a converter. This
code prefixing was done in the switching network, not dialed by the
TWX customer.

There was also 013, and for Canada, 014. I don't know what
these 0xx codes were when used for TWX, nor how they were used. I
could GUESS that they were used for TWX directory operators, but I
don't know for sure.

And I've been trying to compile a complete numerical listing of
the OLD (1960s/70's) TWX N10-NNX code assignments, and what
'POTS' NPA-NNX they corresponded to.

For old 1960's/70's 800, I do have a list of the old geographic
assignments of the 800-NNX interstate inward WATS codes, and I do
know which were the original 1966 codes. But there were some
additions made throughout the late 1960's and the 1970's. I don't
know what year any particular code would have been added. And 800-
261, one of about three 800-NNX assigned to the Toronto (416) area
for their inbound 800 calls was 'cut' over to 800-387 sometime
around 1980. I don't know the exact year nor the reason why!

And while I do have a general understanding of the old 800
(interstate) switching and routing, using the 1NB codes (and 08B)
codes, I am trying to find *WHICH* '1N' codes were used for which
800-NNX codes or cities! Do you happen to have some of this old
obsolete numbering and routing information on TWX and 800 as it
was in the 1960's and 70's?

I've tried asking people at Bellcore about the history of TWX &
800 numbering, but they don't have the time to go through the
records, with all of the new area codes being planned for, these
days, all the time! And AT&T's Archives charges a lot of money for
them to look up info, and when I inquired (also asking for an
estimate of how much it would be), I got a cold response, "We are
unable to supply you with the information you requested".

The old 800 & TWX numbering/routing information was in the
old AT&T Long-Lines "Traffic Routing Guide"... 800 (Inward WATS) in
section 2; International (IDDD) info in section 12; TWX info in
sections 13 (4-row <==> three row machine conversions), s.14 (info
on TWX "Switching Plan" US, 710/810/910), s.15 (TWX US 510), s.16
(TWX Canada 610). The only thing is to FIND an intact Traffic Routing
Guide from the 1970's (or later 1960's)....

Thanks. If you can find anything more, I'd be most appreciative!

MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel:
CHestnut 1-2497WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710
Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-
865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to
Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865 5917) LA
(70128)|cellular/voicemail

Anyone have an intact Traffic Routing Guide from the 1970's to
loan mark? TWX or Teletype Writer eXchange was a AT&T teletype
switching service that placed calls automatically to any other
teletype machine. An early data network, in other words, in fact,
some of the first computer time sharing was conducted in the mid-
1960's over the TWX network. The genesis of TWX began when AT&T
bought the Teletype Corporation in October, 1930. The TWX system
started operating in 1931. Teletype made the equipment while AT&T
leased the teletypewriters and sold the service. Calls were placed
over AT&T's direct distance dialing network. All calls were manually
dialed at until TWX switching became automatic in the United States
in 1962 and extended into Canada into 1963. AT&T sold TWX in 1972
to Western Union.

For more information, look up this URL over at
the Telecom Archive: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-
archives/archives/history/western.union For now, here's a little
excerpt from the mid-sixties _Grollier's Encyclopedia of Popular
Science_. It details how a telegram, an important teletypewriter
application, was sent:

"In automatic transmission by the printing method, a device
called a teletypewriter, or perforator, is used. It looks like a
typewriter with three rows of keys. As each key is pushed down in
turn, it punches a certain number of holes, forming a distinctive
pattern, in a narrow paper tape passing through the machine.
Sometimes the tape passes directly into the transmitter from the
perforator; sometimes the operators feed it in at their convenience
when a certain number of messages are to be sent.

"Little pins in the transmitting machine press lightly against
the tape paper. As the pins come to the holes in the tape, they move
down into them just enough to operate small electric switches. The
switches cause current impulses to be transmitted over the
telegraph wire; the impulse pattern corresponds to the arrangement
of holes in the tape. The impulses operate an automatic typewriter,
called a teleprinter, at the receiving end of the line. The messages
appear in capital letters on long strips of paper, which are then cut
and pasted on telegraph blanks.

"In preparing a message, the operator types a routing signal at
the beginning of each telegram. After she has typed the message on
the perforated tape, it passes through an automatic transmitter. The
coded symbol causes an 'electric brain' at the high speed message
center to route the message to its destination area. Here the
automatic teleprinter receives the message and typewrites it.

"Many industrial firms and public agencies use some form of
teletypewriter or teleprinter exchange service, such as Western
Union Telex. Each Telex subscriber is provided with a teleprinter, an
associated dial unit and a nationwide directory of other subscribers
with their Telex numbers. A subscriber can get in touch with another
subscriber by dialing his number; the connection is completed
automatically in eight seconds anywhere in the United States.
Canadian and Mexican subscribers can also be dialed. Subscribers in
seventy nine countries overseas can be reached through
interconnection with overseas Telex networks that are compatible
with Western Union Telegraph transmission speeds."

C. A nice letter from Anonymous in Minnesota

Dear Tom,

Thanks for your note of September 16, 1996 which just
happened to be my birthday. You remembered it despite that being
impossible. Anyway, it's sure great to hear from you again. I still
think you got a rough deal from your distributors and newstands. I
was really hoping your publication would succeed and prosper. You
put your whole heart into it and your publication had a high level of
quality. I also appreciated your sensible and positive attitude. You
showed yourself to be a person of quality.

_Blacklisted!411_ dropped the ball on you. But then I felt taken
by them also. Upon missing issues, I wrote to inquire and they sent a
subscription renewal form for which I sent $20.00 on 6/17/96. I
have not heard from them since. They cashed my check but sent no
magazines. It's probably just as well as I noticed they were quickly
turning from a technical magazine into a "sovereignty" magazine and
I didn't appreciate that. Never-the-less, if they aren't going to
publish, I think it would be thoughtful of them to return the $20.00.

I did manage to put in a phone-line system throughout my
house. (Six rather than four wires to accommodate power to my old
Trimline Phone lamps. I installed the transformer in the basement
ceiling. So now I have extensions all over the place with a variety of
old phones and new phones and answering machines plugged in. Even
a timer to turn the whole system off for three hours when I get tired
of hearing my phone ring. And I installed a country mailbox (cedar
slats on a cedar post) in front. I needed it for the many magazines
I've receive.

I'm really happy to hear about your engagement plans to that
lovely lady. I'm happy to hear that you two are madly in love with
each other. When you get around to setting the marriage date, let me
know and I'll send you a white covered wedding Bible. It's a good
foundation for building a happy life together. I always give them to
folks getting married that I run into my Lutheran Ministry work. I
like to give Bibles away.

I'm running out of paper. Thanks again for writing,

The Reverend Anonymous In Minnesota

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

IV. AN INTRODUCTION TO PRISON PHONE TECHNOLOGY-- by Tom Farley
A. A brief overview
B. Three different call processing approaches
1. Class of service approach
2. Generic switch utilizing custom software
a. Close up of one switch: NACT's 120LCX
3. Dedicated system using PC technology
4. Typical Call processors' anti-fraud features
a. Call blocking on a permanent basis
b. Call blocking on an as needed basis
c. Limiting long distance carriers
d. Flash hook prevention
e. Rotary dial acceptance
f. Limiting automated message attempts
g. Conference call prevention
C. The federal Inmate Telephone System (ITS)
1. Introduction
2. Letter from jail
3. Discussion and speculation
4. Federal Bureau of Prison (B.OP.) Time Line
5. Discussion continues
6. ITS Account Report
7. A report on ITS from Jail
8. Bibliography

A. General Overview

The prison phone business is big and getting bigger. At least
50,000 inmate phones now exist with more being added all the time.
By comparison, colleges account for 60,000 public phones and hotels
and motels 80,000. [1] Phone companies pay big commissions to
states and counties to service the rapidly growing prison market.
The decades old practice of letting inmates call collect to any
number they wish is now being replaced by allowing collect calling
or direct dialing to pre-selected numbers. Just how that is
accomplished is the focus of this article.

Prison phone systems come in a bewildering number of shapes
and sizes. County, state and some Federal prisons configure their
operations for their requirements, consequently, there are no
standards, much like all PBX's vary widely in features and operating
methods. But like PBX's, there are some features common to all
"inmate call control technologies."

At the very least, a prison phone system uses a call processor
to approve and place the call, surveillance equipment to monitor it,
and recording equipment to archive the conversation. Only smaller
counties and, curiously, the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice, "the largest state prison system on earth, still unlock
the cells and let prisoners use a phone on someone's desk, a la
Barney Fife." (2) In past years prisoners could call collect to anyone
they wished. The new trend, though, is toward allowing direct or
collect calls to pre-approved numbers. The most controversial
approach is a pre-approved number scheme, as practiced by the
federal Inmate Telephone System (ITS). But before we look at ITS,
let's look at the technology state and county prisons use to process
automated collect calls.

B. Three approaches to call processing

While line based call blocking is an effective solution for some
facilities, most county and state prisons use a call processor to
approve and place calls. There are two approaches. The first method
employs a pre-existing switch using custom software written for
the prison industry and quite often for the individual facility itself.
Switch based platforms excel at supporting the greatest number of
ports (sometimes to 8,000). The other approach uses a dedicated
system based on PC or microprocessor technology. PC-based
platforms shine at providing flexibility. Figure on stand alone
switches costing from $160,000 to $700,000, compared to PC-
platforms starting around $60,000 with only 96 ports or 48
channels. [3] Let's first look at what a telco can do and then we'll
look at call processors.

1. Class of service approach

Large and small telcos offer many kinds of call blocking to
institutions. The advantage is simplicity. Order from your local
phone company and pay by the month. Pacific Bell calls their two
offerings the "COPT (Customer Owned Pay Telephone) Inmate Line"
and the "COPT Inmate Collect Only Line." [4] The COPT Inmate Line is
a low security offering, with only 900/976 and international direct
distance dialing (IDDD) permanently blocked. 'O+' calls are screened
for collect only. All other calls, including local, '411', '611' , '911'
'0-' (operator dialed) and so on must be blocked with customer
owned equipment. Their COPT Inmate Collect Only Line, by
comparison, costs more but blocks all of the above calls, at least
over Pacific Bell's network. Line based call blocking may be good to
have, however, it can't replace a prison's call processor.

2. Generic switch using custom software.

Switches like the Summa Four, Excell, Harris 20/20 are often
used to managing prison calls. National Applied Computer Technology
(NACT), for example, sells a switch called the LCX 120C switching
system. [4] It's a tandem digital switch, often used by long distance
carriers, prepaid calling card sellers, payphone route handlers and
other service providers. The 120C is a medium to large trunk switch,
capable of putting long distance traffic out to the toll network
without going through the local central office first. It's a generic
switch, therefore, with software making the difference. NACT is
heavily involved in the correctional industry. Let's look a little more
closely at this switch, since it is so often used in prisons and other
high fraud locations.

a. Close up of one switch: NACT's LCX120C

Although I do not have the name of the operator, a NACT
LCX120C is currently operated by a company which manages or owns
over 2,500 COCOTs in New York City. 1+, 0+ and 0- calls are
processed through the switch and all traffic is scrutinized by
NACT's proprietary Control and Validation Unit (CVU). Most software,
by the way, is developed in "C". NACT claims fraud losses will drop
from 20% on average to 0.5 percent and the return on investment for
this operator was only six weeks. Perhaps.

The cabinet housing the switch stands three feet tall and two
feet wide. A clear plexiglass door covers the electronic bay housing
the electronics. Two 125 cfm fans keep the air moving. The control
and validation unit (CVU) stands at the top of the assembly. The CVU
is the primary processor, equipped with dual 330/520 MB hardrives
and a 250 MB cartridge tape drive. Using older but serviceable
technology, the processor is an MC680x0, utilizing 8 megs of ram
and drawing on a 400 watt power supply. The CVU does validation
and controls the trunk control unit (TCU) below it.

Up to four trunk control units can be supported, each TCU
controlling 120 ports (60 talk paths). The TCUs contain "processor
and trunk control cards to handle line signalling, send/receive
digits, and interface with the CPU." Each TCU utilizes a "realtime
industrial processor", 128 Kb of RAM, 80 KB of ROM and a 300 watt
power supply. An uninteruuptible power supply sits below the TCU
and a remote diagnostics system, with a modem, of course, sits
below that.[5] Add an administration workstation and a printer and
you're ready to roll.

2. Dedicated system using PC technology

a. Introduction

The other approach to prison call processing uses a dedicated
system, often based on PC or microprocessor hardware. Such a beast
will use a 486 processor or a Pentium, typically running under DOS
rather than UNIX. TELEQUIP, CPDI and others use this approach. [6]
TELEQUIP's ACP-4000 (Automated Call Processor (R)) is marketed
just to correctional facilities. That might make it simpler to install.
TELEQUIP boasts that "ACP installation is the easiest in the
industry. No wall space or card racks! Simple plug-and-play is
standard. Set the ACP anywhere on-site, connect one cable to a 66
block, plug in the power and your ACP is processing inmate calls!" [7]
Wonderful. N.A.C.T., by comparison, says six weeks are required to
install their switch. TELEQUIP says their equipment services 8,000
prison lines and six state contracts. That's a pretty large slice of
the prison pie. Let's take a look at CPDI's offering, though, to get an
idea of a PC-platform based switch.

b. Close up look at a PC-based switch

CPDI's PC-switch approach is typical. It relies on a file server,
a card processor, a workstation, Dialogic telephone interface cards,
a Novel local area network, a hub and some proprietary software. [8]
The file server is actually a souped up PC, a computer with file
management software, utility programs, rate files, call detail records, and
a report generator program. The disk drives and CPU's range from 635 MB to
9 GB and 486/66 to Pentium 133 respectively, depending on system
requirements.

Call processing takes place with the cards. C.P.D.I uses Dialogic DTI/211,
D/121B and D/240sl T-1boards are used in their card processors. Voice
files, backup log files and application programs reside in the individual
card processors. Each card processor has 48 ports, allowing 24 simultaneous
calls. voice boards for prompts and a big hard drive. Add a card processor
and handle more calls, 48 ports at a time. T1 lines usually terminate
directly into the card processors.

A tape backup and a hard drive backup are usually standard, indeed, a
redundant file server is often used in case of failure. Hard drives range
from 635 MB to 9 GB. The administration workstation does system
maintenance. It has a modem and a dial up remote access port, allowing one
"to retrieve call detail records, add or delete cards, change features,
change voice files, add upgrades or access any part of the platform."

So what do these two kinds of systems have in common?
Plenty, especially when it comes to anti-fraud features.

3. Call processors' anti-fraud features

Many state and county prison calls are dialed collect from a
pre-approved list. Allowing and supervising calls from hundreds or
possibly thousands of prisoners at an institution requires a fraud
resistant automated collect calling system. Everett Castor, switch
operations manager for N.A.C.T says "You can't possibly simulate in a
lab everything an inmate can think to do." [9] Here's a list of
features a modern processor may have:

a. Call blocking on a permanent basis -- Most
inmates are not allowed to talk to a live operator
of any sort. In addition, 700, 800, 900 and 950
services are all permanently blocked. "Country codes,
information digits, NPAs (area codes), third party
numbers" can also be shut down.

b. Call blocking on an as needed basis -- Inmates
and their compatriots are notorious for their
ability to find home phone numbers of guards,
wardens and family members of same. Witnesses,
judges and many others are also targets. Most systems
accommodate nearly limitless amounts of non-dialable
numbers. This does not prevent a third party, though,
from manually bridging a call.

c. Limiting long distance carriers -- Most systems
now use one carrier, keeping inmates from switching, for
better or worse, to another LD provider.' [10]

d. Flash hook prevention -- keeps inmates from
breaking out of of a call and dialing a new number.
[11] This was a problem with older analog
processors which were built along PBX lines.

e. Rotary dial acceptance -- Some systems allow a
rotary dialed party to signal collect acceptance by
holding the line, however, this normally requires the
switch to be programmed for this ahead of time.

f. Limiting automated message attempts -- Like many of
us, inmates try to send coded messages with an
automated collect system. This feature limits attempts
to a certain number within a certain amount of time,
keyed to the inmates' account number.

g. Reverse battery supervision -- Disables keypad after
destination number is dialed. Prevents fun and
games and possibly getting a new dial tone.
Pressing different buttons on the keypad while an
automated collect system worked may have
allowed an unrestricted dial tone in older systems.
[12]

h. Three way call prevention -- TELEQUIP claims near
100% 3-way call prevention with their patented ACP
processor. They go on to say that AT&T's Inmate
Processing System deters only 93% of such attempts. I
do not see how manually bridging a call can be stopped.
It is also possible that call forwarding or foreign
exchange circuits could circumvent this.

i. Call limitations -- allows an institution to limit calls
by length, billing type, dollar amount and so on. May
prevent a huge bill from being placed to a subscriber who
has no intention of paying.

D. The Federal Inmate Telephone System (ITS)

1. An introduction

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (B.O.P.) incarcerates
approximately 100,000 prisoners at 84 institutions across the
country. Fully a quarter of that population are foreign nationals,
willing and often able to spend big bucks to call home. This captive
market might seem ideal for private competition, with hundreds of
long distance companies bidding for a Federal contract. Oddly
enough, though, the U.S. still carries calls themselves over the
government's normal FTS2000 network. That's composed of,
essentially, heavily discounted Sprint lines. (Local telephone
companies handle local calls). [13] A new contract, however, will be
awarded for this traffic due to a court settlement, indeed, a whole
new inmate telephone system will be developed in the next year or
two. For now, though, the B.O.P. continues to manage things their own
way. So what's going on here? And what kind of technology do the
Feds use to process these calls? Before we answer those questions,
though, let's take a break and look at the letter that got this article
started:

2. Letter from jail

March 12, 1996

private line journal
P.O. Box 1059
Isleton, CA

Re: A "Beseeching", of sorts . . .

As may be evident, I am currently incarcerated within a federal
correctional center in Coleman, Florida. I have been placed in this
hell hole due to ideas run-afoul . . . I am here for wire fraud. It
seems that I may have gotten ahead of myself in that I "accidentally"
wired money from a corporation's account that I neither worked for,
nor had the authorization to be meddling with. Never-the-less, some
funds, as I said before, "accidentally" ended up in my account (which
was opened in another name, by the way -- I am not totally lame!).

Anyhow, I would hope that I may be able to convince you to send me a
couple of your back issues, or better yet, a subscription to your fine
journal? I await your reply with high hopes.

name withheld

3. Discussion

Damn that wire fraud! Turns out our man is the author of,
appropriately enough, _Credit Card Fraud and Toll Fraud Issues_, a
slim tome detailing how "scam artists can take advantage of you
without your knowledge." Great. In any case, I sent him a copy
of _private line_ and he replied with all sorts of interesting
information on the Inmate Telephone System.

ITS is a switch based system controlled by a UNIX workstation
at 41 federal penitentiaries. I doubt a switch sits at each facility,
however, that is certainly possible. But remember, a switch like a
N.A.C.T. can sit anywhere in the United States and take calls. The
traffic simply has to be routed to it. You could even own a switch
and have it located at N.A.C.T.'s headquarters in Utah, just so that it
gets around the clock attention. It would be natural, though, that
some sort of G.T.E. switching is employed since G.T.E. helped develop
I.T.S. Maybe in Texas? Collect calls that are authorized use AT&T's
automated collect call program. [14]

In accordance with a settlement last year, "prison officials
have now agreed to tie their rates to those of state prisons, which
are controlled by state utility boards."[15] That might cut down on
complaints about high costs, especially overseas calls. Rates like
$9.99 a minute to Vietnam were not uncommon. Even domestic calls
are sufficiently high that a foreign exchange circuit may be less
expensive to arrange rather than paying for direct dialing. (I've paid
as high as 61 cents a minute to accept an ITS call from Florida in
the middle of the day.) Whether the ITS officer in each prison would
allow this is a whole different question, since the whole system is
in flux and because each facility is allowed a great deal of leeway in
deciding its rules. As an example 38 facilities allow only direct
dialing to pre-approved numbers, 28 still provide direct calling only
and 18 provide both. The settlement does allow 120 minutes of
collect calling to all inmates, no matter what the policy is at a
particular institution.

Anti-fraud features are basically the same as noted under '3'
above. 3-way calling is definitely frowned upon. As one prisoner
notes "the ITS system (through GTE/OPUS's proprietary specialized
programming) detects such calls in real time, cuts off the inmate-
caller, flags the inmates PAC and records the telephone number the
inmate was connected to during the 3-way calling attempt."[16]

The Bureau of Prisons originated the Inmate Telephone System
in 1990, implemented part of it through 1993 and watched as it fell
apart in 1995. ITS lingers on at many institutions, but only until the
entire system is scrapped after a new contract is awarded. That may
take another year to let. Maybe two. The cornerstone of the system,
direct dialing to pre-approved numbers has been heavily modified.
The funding method, whereby the B.O.P. raided an inmate welfare
fund to install the system, without having to officially publish their
rules or intent, has been crushed, with Federal officials having
returned $4,000,000 in mis-appropriated funds. What a mess. Take a
look at the time line that follows:

4. Federal Bureau of Prison (B.OP.) Time Line

Pre-1973 -- Each institution's warden sets phone policy
1973 -- B.O.P. sets uniform national phone policy
6/29/1979 -- B.O.P. issues final Rule (44FR 38249) for policy
6/1/1983 -- 1983: B.O.P. amends 1979 rule (44FR 24622)
1990 -- B.O.P. conceives Inmate Telephone System
1991 -- GTE & OPUS begins installing ITS at certain prisons.
4/1992 -- B.O.P. starts charging AT&T rates plus 75 cents a call.
7/1993 -- An anonymous LD carrier sponsors class action suit
against B.O.P.
8/1993 -- B.O.P. stops installing ITS after 41 facilities due to
court injunction.
4/1994 -- B.O.P. admits official policy not often practiced.
4/1994 -- AT&T submits unsolicited bid to develop new system.
4/1994 -- Final rule published in the Congressional Record.
5/1995 -- Mediation begins, seeking to resolve problems.
8/2/95 -- Settlement reached.

5. Discussion continues

ITS was supposedly implemented to provide better security
and to enable prisoners to better account for their money. The
security angle seems spurious in light of existing call processors
that offer excellent results. Money management seems odd as well.
Direct dialing meant that prisoners needed to pay for calls out of
their prison accounts. Yet B.O.P. officials would often take money
sent by relatives and friends to cover phone expenses, in order to
recover other debts owed by the prisoner. Endless arguments and
excitement followed. Prisoners thought long distance costs were too
high. Long distance companies felt shut out and the courts were also
unhappy. Without going further into the history and machinations of
all of this, [17] let's look at how ITS works in practice. Before we
get an account from a _private line_ reader in jail, though, let's look
at what a typical account report looks like, just so we get familiar
with the terms. A register number, by the way, is like a prisoner's
serial number . . .:

6. ITS Account Report

Inmate Telephone Account Report
FCI LFREEH

Page 1of 1 Report Date Jan. 12, 1996 12:12 /dev/ttyi1f

Register Inmate Phone Access Date
Number Name Code Entered

03496823 Louis Freeh 478274228 25-FEB-96

Inmate Dialing Instructions

Inmate Telephone System (ITS)

To place:

-- A Local Call:
1. Listen for the dial tone.
2. Enter the seven digit telephone number.
4. Enter your Phone Access Code (PAC).
Example: 555-1234-478274228

-- A Long Distance Call:
1. Listen for the dial tone.
2. Enter 1, area code and telephone number.
4. Enter your Phone Access Code (PAC).
Example: 1-202-555-1234-478274228

-- An International Call:
1. Listen for the dial tone.
2. Enter 011, country code and telephone number.
4. Enter your Phone Access Code (PAC).
Example: 011-24-335937-478274228

To obtain your ITS account balance and the cost of your last call:
I. Listen for the dial tone.
2. Enter 118, then enter your Phone Access Code (PAC).
Example 118-478274228

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

7. A report on ITS from Jail

A hacker at Lompoc writes _private line_ to say:

"ITS is pretty crappy. All my phone numbers have to be
submitted to my counselor prior to calling (up to 30 numbers). In a
few days the numbers are verified and put on my phone list. Each
inmate is assigned a 10 digit pin when they first arrive.

The phones are like those information phones at airports.
They're all in a row, about 25 of them with the small partition
dividing each phone. I don't know if it's important but the handsets
all smell like shit. When the handset is lifted you are greeted by a
standard dialtone. After you dial the number you get a second
dialtone. Then you enter the PIN and wait for validation.

The whole system is pretty Mickey Mouse and the cross talk is
almost unbearable. Throughout your conversation you can hear DTMF
tones from the neighboring phones. Each call is limited to 15
minutes but you can call back immediately if no one is waiting. When
you get down to your final minute they drop carrier for a split
second to warn you have 15 seconds left.

If a foreign dialtone or ring is detected you are dropped
immediately. This is to prevent people from three-waying phone
calls. It's easily corrected if the receiving party places a call, waits
for an answer and then bridges the call. All calls are monitored,
most likely recorded, in case you conspire to commit another crime
over the phone. The Feds are always looking for a new indictment.

Everything is handled by a machine they have on the compound.
It's some UNIX box that treats each phone as /dev/???. [18] The only
numbers you can dial are those on your approved phone list. Thereby
eliminating the problem of people stealing kodez!, or dialing any
unauthorized numbers. ("O", 911, 800's, 700's, etc.)

Basically, it's run by a script . . . a person can pretty much
write the whole ITS in modem commands.

The system's primary concern is security with inmate's phone
calls as a secondary function. The rates are similar to calling card
rates, a call to L.A. costs me $3.75 for 15 minutes. Interestingly it
costs the same to Sacramento . . ."

8. Real short conclusion

ITS seems like some bureaucrats 'better idea' gone seriously
astray. B.O.P's Request will be interesting to watch for in the next
year or so. They'll need to specify what kind of system they want so
that companies can bid on it. Lots of technical details should be
included. My guess is that they will go with more conventional
equipment and techniques -- I'm unsure if they can build on ITS
technology, no matter how well it works, since GTE and OPUS's
approach is proprietary. Hmm. Got any more information or personal
experience with prison phones? Send it in and I'll print it here.

9. --Bibliography--

[1] "Long Distance Runaround" _New York Newsday_ Michael Moss,
May 14, 1995

[2] 'Dialing For Dollars: Taxpayers Could Win Big With Prison Pay
Phones' _John Sharp Opinions and Editorials_ Undated :( John Sharp,
State Comptroller of Public Accounts
http://www.cpa.texas.gov/comptrol/oped/oped18.html (5k)

[3] "Calling Card Platforms -- The Intelligence Behind The Cards" Ed
Metcalf _Premier Telecard_ December 1995-January 1996 28
(+1(805) 547-8500 for Premier)

[4] Pacific Bell. For questions, try +1(415) 452-7455

[5] National Applied Computer Technology, 744 South 400 East,
Orem, Utah 84058 (801) 225-6248 FAX (801) 224-8456

[6] TELEQUIP Labs Inc., 1820 N. Greenville Ave., Suite 100
RIchardson, TX 75801 1(800) 329-3290; Communications Product
Development Incorporated 915 Broadway, Suite 100 Vancouver, WA
98660 (360) 694-2977 FAX (360) 694-2553

[7] TELEQUIP advertisement _Public Communications_ Volume 11,
No. 4 April, 1995 49. This ad extols the virtues of their patented
switch. This means you could do a patent search and read all about
it. Consult _private line_ No. 4 (Volume 2, No. 1 January/February
1995) for my lengthy article on patent searching.

[8] "Calling Card Platforms -- The Intelligence Behind The Cards"
ibid.

[9] "LCX 120C A Success In Camden County Correctional Facility,"
_CCQ-Correctional Communications Quarterly_ April, 1994. I have a
reprint of this article, as supplied by N.A.C.T., however, I have no
further information on _CCQ._

[10] "Letter from Prison" _2600_ Winter 1992-93 (Volume Nine
Number Four )13

[11] CCQ ibid.

[12] Letter to the Editor by C. Rebel _2600_ Autumn 1990 (Volume 7,
Number 3) 29

[13] "Federal Prison Telephone Plan Stuck on Hold" _Legal Times_
Naftali Bendavid May, 22 1995 Well researched and balanced article
on ITS issues. +1(202) 457-0686, 1730 'M' Street N.W., Suite 802
Washington, D.C. 20036

[14] Each time I've accepted a collect call from ITS the automated
voice announces "AT&T".

[15] "Plaintiffs, Feds Connect in Settlement; Inmates Laud Deal Over
Prison Phones" _Legal Times_ Naftali Bendavid August 14, 1995
Follow on to the article in 13 above.

[16] name withheld -- Personal correspondence

[17] B.O.P.'s point of view is contained in the Federal Code of
Regulations: 28 CFR 540 -- Telephone Regulations and Financial
Responsibility. Or look it up in the April 4, 1994 Federal Register.
It's the Big Kahuna of ITS documents, as far as rules, regs and
explanations go. Not much technical info, however, you may want to
look it up under this candidate for the longest URL:

http://www.gpo.ucop.edu:80/cgi-
bin/gpogate?waisdoc=1&4=gpo.occ.uky.edu;1994_register/TEXT/100
384/3=0%201003840%20/diska/wais/data/1994_register/fr0ap94
dat022.txt;

[18] Peter Shipley offers this explanation of /dev/???:

A /dev/ is a path to a device kind of like COM1, COM2 and LPT1
under DOS. Think of COM1 as \dev\COM1 on your DOS box and if you do
a dir or c:\dev you will see a listing of cards and services you have
on your system, eg: (I made this list up)

c:> dir \dos

COM1 0 09-09-96 5:47p
COM2 0 09-09-96 5:47p
LPT1 0 09-09-96 5:47p
SOUND BST 0 09-09-96 5:48p
MOUSE MS 0 09-09-96 5:48p
SVGA 0 09-09-96 5:48p
KBD 0 09-09-96 5:48p
SCSIDISK 1 0 09-09-96 5:48p
SCSIDISK 2 0 09-09-96 5:48p
SCSITAPE 1 0 09-09-96 5:48p
SCSIROM 1 0 09-09-96 5:48p
FLOPPY 1 0 09-09-96 5:48p
FLOPPY 2 0 09-09-96 5:48p

V. A SHORT HISTORY OF INDEPENDENT TELEPHONY IN AMERICA --
With an attitude!

by J. Edward Hyde

Editor's note: This comes from _The Phone Book: What the telephone
company would rather you not know_ published by the Henry Regnery
Company in 1976. Although telephone historians may disagree with
some specific points, I think the following account is substantially
correct . . .

The Independents [Section 1: The Company, page 21]

If the telephone industry is represented by the face of a clock,
9 hours and 50 minutes constitute the Bell System's share. The
remaining 2 hours and 10 minutes belong to the other 1,832
telephone companies.

Background

The Phone War of 1878 resulted in the formation of two
nationwide communications monopolies: Western Union's telegraph
and the Bell Company's telephone. Although Western Union's
monopoly survived almost unchallenged until Bell's attempted
takeover in 1910, Bell's telephone monopoly lasted less than a year.
Most competitors disappeared as soon as the Bell Company filed suit
against them for patent infringement, but at least 1,730 telephone
companies were organized and operated during the period when Bell
was supposed to have an exclusive mandate. When the original patent
expired in 1894, this number quadrupled. In its charming history of
the telephone industry [An Introduction to the Bell System, Chapter
3, Page 1] as it sees it, the Bell System states that:

Independent companies sprang up everywhere, often in towns
where Bell companies operated. Speculators started companies on
shoestrings, selling stocks of dubious worth and offering impossibly
low rates in order to steal Bell Customers.

While it is true that some of these independents were started
"on shoestrings" and offered low rates, let it not be forgotten whose
shady dealings with the unscrupulous Jay Gould had to be stopped by
the Supreme Court. From all available evidence, the birth of the
independent telephone industry was due more to the Bell Company's
mismanagement than to the greed of shady speculators. Even in the
early days, Bell & Co. envisioned a nationwide telephone system. In
1878, the farsighted Alexander Bell wrote: . . . I believe that in the
future, wires will unite the head offices of the Telephone Company
in different cities, and that a man in one part of the country may
communicate by word of mouth with another in a distant place.

Bell's use of the words "Telephone Company" leaves little
doubt that he saw his small company as becoming the sole provider
of telephone service in the nation, if not the world. With patent in
hand and its almost incredible record in the courts (600 wins-0
losses), the Bell Company set out to fulfill Alexander's prophecy.
But it did so with a soon-to-be characteristic disregard for
customer demand, and this proved to be its undoing. Because the
Bell Company had no legally recognized competition, it could go
where profits were greatest to set up companies. For its services it
could charge any rate the market would bear. Marginally profitable
areas could be ignored until the company was ready to enter them.
The singular worship of profits so disgusted Theodore Vail that he
left the Bell Company in 1887. As a parting shot, he wrote:
We have a duty to the public at large to make our service as good as
possible and as universal as possible, and that earnings should be
used not only to reward investors for their investment but also to
accomplish these objectives.

Bell management thanked him for his comments and wished
him a happy retirement. Those he left behind had neither his
visionary business sense nor his sensible principles of customer
service. Ignoring the protests of customers regarding exorbitant
rates and the pleas of rural areas for service at any price, Bell's
leadership plundered selected profitable areas during the remaining
years of their exclusive ownership without realizing that they were
pinning a target on their own chest in the neglected regions.
Undoubtedly Bell's management suspected that bad times lay just on
the other side of the initial patent expiration. Incredibly, they did
nothing to prevent the deluge. In the cities where the Bell had its
biggest stake, competitors appeared on nearly every corner.

In 1894 and 1895, some 6,000 telephone companies were
established in cities where Bell was already providing service.
Nearly all hoped to capitalize on the Bell Company's high cost of
service. Most of these rebel companies had brief lifespans simply
because capital requirements were larger than their capabilities,
and they were rapidly consumed. Those independents able to
accumulate capital reserves and operate on a regular basis were
also consumed, only it took a little longer.

The Bell Company would first offer to buy these small but
solvent enterprises. Not surprisingly, quite often the offer would be
refused. If this happened, Bell unmasked its big guns. The most
widely used tactic was to start a price war the little company could
not hope to win. The reason it could not win was because the Bell
Company's idea of a price cut was to offer free service for as long
as it proved necessary. Since these small companies had no way of
matching Bell's nation wide financial base, they vanished like a
lamb in a ravenous wolfpack. In those rare instances where the
small company could join the free-service-for-all-comers game, the
Bell Company resorted to other measures: refusing to share line
right-of ways, publicly denouncing the competitor's service and
equipment, and, if all else failed, sabotage.

Although both sides were guilty of destroying equipment
belonging to the other, we can't hear both sides of the story today
because the only surviving party flatly denies that any such
activities took place. Just about the only souvenir we have of such
battles is a short paragraph in the Bell System Code of Conduct
pertaining to the responsibility of every employee to protect
company equipment. Although it is supposed to apply only in times of
war; it was first printed in an era when Bell was at war with its
competitors, when mysterious fires and broken lines were daily
occurrences in the battle zones. The Bell System fought well if not
cleanly in the urban sectors and retained control wherever it had
already been prior to the patent expiration.

In rural areas where Bell arrived after the competition was
well established. the victory column was markedly shorter. The
Bell Company had nonchalantly ignored the rural areas with good
reason-there was not enough money to be made there. Consequently,
rural telephone companies had an easier time than did their city-
based brethren. It didn't take much to get started, either. In some
instances, two orders and $100 were all that was needed for the
village blacksmith and the horse doctor to become founders of the
first local telephone exchange. By 1897 more than 1,000 rural
telephone exchanges had been organized to fill the void left by the
negligent Bell, then heavily engaged in the aforementioned urban
price war. Once the Bell Company overcame its city-based
resistance, it directed its energies to the destruction of the weaker
farm systems. Apparently it never occurred to Bell that there might
be a difference between competitors motivated primarily by profit
and competitors concerned solely with providing service. Or that
tactics designed to eliminate one might cause the other to flourish.
In farm areas, the Bell found that price slashing didn't work.

Farm telephone systems had two inherent qualities that
worked against Bell no matter what Bell did. First of all, rural
exchange pricing was more than reasonable before the Bell Company
got into town. Having little else to go on, most rural telephone
systems were organized on a cooperative basis guaranteeing low
consumer prices. The second advantage was a by-product of the
first: loyalty. No matter how low Bell prices were, loyalty and
kinship to the local telephone masters overcame the lure of cheaper
service. Nor did sabotage work as it had in the cities. In
communities where everyone knew everyone else, the Bell System's
bullyboys were notably conspicuous. In one community where Bell's
terror tactics were employed, a retaliatory fire in the local Bell
office raged out of control while the Bell representative wrung his
hands. In response to his call for help, one thoughtful soul handed
him a water pail and told him where the community well was
located. Meanwhile, the Bell System goons languished in the local
jail on charges of vagrancy and missed all the excitement.

In a final effort to eliminate these durable opponents, the Bell
System prohibited them from using Bell's lines. In practical
terms, this meant that the farm companies would have to string
their own wire if they wanted to connect their phones to those in
the adjoining county. Knowing that these co-op companies had
limited sources of capital, the Bell hoped that this ploy would
effectively kill them off. It didn't. In fact, the restriction on line use
had the opposite effect; it forced the small independents to band
together for mutual survival.

By 1900, the year in which the Bell Company officially began
its rural telephone program, the combined effect of low rates and
familism kept the Bell share of the rural market extremely small. It
has remained so. Although the Bell System provides service to
eighty-two percent of the available phone market in this country, it
has only thirty percent of the available territory and nearly all of it
is in metropolitan areas.

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

IV. _private line_ TABLE OF CONTENTS & BACK ISSUE ORDERING
INFORMATION

Here is a list of _private line_ table of contents. Back issues
are five dollars apiece including shipping in the United States.
Complete text of each issue will be posted to privateline.com during
October. There is no substitute for the real magazine, of course,
and you are encouraged to buy the back issues to take advantage of
all the photographs and diagrams. _private line_ is a normal sized
(8.5 inch by 11 inch) publication on good paper. The best issues are
5-10. At this time I can only take checks or money orders made out
to private line. My address is:

private line
P.O. Box 1059
Isleton, CA 95641-1059 USA

+1 (916) 777-4420 Voice & FAX
Hours: M-T-Th-F 9:00 to noon

Thank you!

Tom Farley (privateline@delphi.com)
................................................................................

Volume 1, No. 1: June/July 1994 (private line No. 1)
Well done photocopy with cardstock cover. 28 pp.

I. The Front Cover and The Inside Front Cover
II. The Editorial Page
III. Telco Payphone Basics, Part 1
IV. The Post Pay Coin Line
V. A Conversation With Motorola
VI. The GTE RTSS Phone
VII. California Toll Fraud Law
VIII. Ad rates and Miscellaneous Information
.............................................................................................

Volume 1, No. 2: August/September 1994 (private line No. 2)
Well done photocopy with cardstock cover. 24 pp.

I. Editorial Page
II. Update and Corrections
III. Telco Payphone Basics, Part II
IV. The Coin First Coin Line
V. The Dial Tone First Coin Line
VI. Tip, Ground and Ring Explained
VII. California Cell Fraud Law
.....................................................................................

Volume 1, No. 3: October, November, December 1994 (p.l. No. 3)
Well done photocopy with cardstock cover. 24 pp.

I. Editorial Page
II. Updates and Corrections
III An Introduction to Local Scanning
IV. Def Con II Review: Fear and Hacking in Las Vegas
V. Road Trip to Vegas
IV. A Few Thoughts on EMS and 911
......................................................................................................

Volume 2, No.1: January/February 1995 (private line No. 4)
Photocopy of printed original. Cardstock cover. Numerous line
drawings of patents. 32 pp.

I. About The Front Cover
II. Editorial Page
III. Updates and Corrections
IV. Hacking Patents -- A How To Guide
A. Introduction
B. Sidebar -- Quick Start Guide
C. Patent Numbering and Classification
D. Sidebar -- A Tale of Two Classes
E. The Patent Document
F. Patent Bibliography Example
G. Tools and Resources
H. Background and Summary Example
I. List of Patent and Trademark Deposit Libraries
J. Class 379 -- Telephonic Communications
V. Who's Bugging You?: An Interview With Chris Hall
VI. Federal Toll Fraud Law: Section 1029
..................................................................

Volume 2, No. 2: March/April 1995 (private line No. 5)
5 b&w photographs. Several large diagrams. 32pp.

I. Editorial Page
II. Updates and Corrections
III. Cell Phone Basics, Part 1
IV. The Roseville Telephone Museum
V. Telecom Related Magazines and Newsletters
VI. Exploded COCOT Diagrams
...................................................................

Volume 2, No. 3 May/June 1995 (private line No. 6) 32 pp.
Six charts and diagrams.

I. Editorial Page
II. Updates and Corrections
III. Letters
IV. The Internet Bridge
V. Cell Phone Basics, Part II
A. Toll Fraud
VI. An Interview With Damien Thorn
VII. The entire Digital Telephony Bill
VIII The Text of 18 USC 1029
IX. The Text of 47 CFR 22.919 (The regulation prohibiting cloning)
...........................................................................................

Volume 2, No. 4 July/August 1995 (private line No. 7)
31 b&w photographs and seven diagrams. 32 pp.

I Editorial Page
II Letters
III Updates and Corrections
A. Magazine List
B. Cloning Regulation 47 C.F.R. 22.919
C. Misc. Stuff
IV. A Quick and Dirty Guide to EIA/TIA Standards
V. Class of Service and Payphones
VI. The Payphone Corner
VII. Payphone Statistics
VIII. Outside Plant Part 1 (Illustrated)
IX. A Few Thoughts on the Telecom Digest
X. Book Reviews
A. _Old Time Telephones_
B. _The Straight Scoop_
C. _ISDN: A User's Guide To Services, Applications and
Resources in California_
XI. Debit Cards, Past, Present and Future
XII. Telephone Repair Column
.........................................................................................

Volume 2, No. 5: September/October 1995 (private line No. 8)
9 b&w photographs. 18 diagrams. 32pp.

I. Editorial Page
II. Updates and Corrections
III. Letters
IV. Canadian Telecom Part II
V. Outside Plant Part II
VI. Telephone Historical Societies
VII. Cellular Test Mode Scanning by Damien Thorn
A. Accessing Diagnostic Modes
B. Oki Test Mode Commands
C. Motorola Diagnostics
D. Motorola Test Mode Command Summary
...........................................................................................................

Volume 2, No. 6: November/December 1995 (private line No. 9)
16 b&w photographs. 13 diagrams. 3 page index to Vol. 2. 32pp

I. Editorial Page
II. Updates and Corrections
III. Letters
IV. Def Con III Review
V. Cable Station Operations
A. Point Arena California -- From Lighthouse to Lightguide
B. An Interview with Stephen J. Novotny
VI. The First Transatlantic Telephone Cable
VII. Book Review -- _Understanding Fiber Optics_
VIII. Canadian Telecom Part 2
IX. Index to Volume 2
.............................................................................

Volume 3, No. 1: January/February 1996 (private line No. 10)
Color cover, 13 b&w photographs, 6 diagrams, 32pp

I. Editorial Page
II. Updates and Corrections
III. Letters
IV. Rules or Revenue: A Cellular Fraud Case
V. Fraud and Countermeasures, Part II Clones 11
VI. British and Irish Payphones (Illustrated)
VII. Book reviews
A. _In Direct Touch With the Wide World_
B. _Tune In On Telephone Calls_
VIII. Service This!
IX. Manahawkin Cable Station