------------------------------ | | | Misc. Telephony Part 1 | | | -------+:by mechanic:+-------- _________ Contents: ^^^^^^^^^ 1.) Forward 2.) French Videotex/Minitel Systems and Services 3.) Interesting and Rare Acronyms Explained 4.) Closing section: 1 ________ Forward: ^^^^^^^^ Ok, I am starting yet another part one of an unknown total part series here, this one is going to be on misc. telephony subjects, acronyms, systems, and phone company/products. I hape you will like this, and if you have any- thing you would like to incluse in this series, send me mail at mechanic@javanet.com, and it will be included in the next part of this series. It should be a well written, pretty well researched articles, totally origional, and nothing incriminating. You can incluse stuff on boxes, systems, anything Phreaking related!@ So start writing.. and enjoy! section: 2 ______________________________________________ French Videotext/Minitel Systems and Services: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In this article, I will try to explain to you, the workings, and basics of the French Videotex system. In France, the videotex system is a net- work of services that you can access throughout the public telephone system. What you access it with is a France Telecom (FT) Minitel terminal. The Minitel terminal is to them what q-tips are to us. It is manufactured by many comp- anies other than just Minitel, but a Minitel is the most common/generic, such as Alcatel, Phillips, and many more. The principles of Videotex are as follows: this is a rather low-cost terminal, which the user has access to many online services of all types. Which is much different than accessing an IP with your system and a modem. Scince the creation of the service, FT has been giving out one Minitel per residential phone line for free. Scince Minitel was first intoduced as a means to access an electronic phone directory, like our [4] [1] [1], you have the coice with your FT account, to choose either between the white pages, or a Minitel. The Minitels remain the property of FT, which was a sort of risky move for FT, but it turned out allright, because approximatly 6 million house- holds have Minitels out of 22 million people in France. Another part that has made the Videotex services a hot item in France, are the billing methods. FT bills the users on the phone bill for the use of the services accessable through Videotex, and FT pays back the service pro- viders, from the money off the phone bill, which saves people a lot of time paying bills to maybe even a few hundred different service providers on the Videotex. And also, the users do not need to subscribe to every service they intend on using. And the companies do not have to handle any customer data- bases or billing systems, because FT pays the serice providers. This may sound bad, becuase the FT watches all of what you do through their billing/ accounting system attached to your phone bill. But, people are able to sort of beige box these things up there in France, or so I have heard. If we do have any readers from France, please send us here at DMS anything about your phone system, and especially the Videotex network. Services Available through Videotex: ------------------------------------ As I have mentioned previously about the services available on a Minitel/Videotex network, here is a brief overview of them. The kinds of services available are huge, almost a service for any- thing and everything is available on the Videotex, well, just about anything that is all possible on an ASCII terminal with little graphics capability and a modem (from what I know, the last I knew for the highest speeds of these modems are 1,200 bps, they may have upgraded, if not, I will make a damn modem for these things that runs at 33.6 bps and sell it to a few million people, and retire a billionaire =). There are around 15,000 - 20,000 services available through a Minitel. the Minitel is used as both a business, and a personal tool. The most frequented service that are avaiable through a Minitel is the electronic phone directory, which is free to all customers for the first 3 minutes of connection time, and is very useful. It takes practicaly no time to find someone's number internationally, if you have some- one's name or address, it's even quicker, even with a 1.2 bps modem. A good way to cheat the bills for the phone dirctory is to connect for anout 2 and a half minutes, then disconnect, than re-connect again, so you are not billed for the 2 and a half minutes because the first 3 minutes of each connection are free. Also, you may look for products and services through the Minitel by searching through a broad category such as, "a good resturant", or, "a comapny that can fix your computer." I'd say this is better than most U.S. operators can do, seeing as how you have to have a specific name and an add- ress most all of the time. Another service is access to several foreign phone directories, incluseing the good ol' U S of A. Someone in France, with a Minitel, can find your number almost faster than a live U.S. operator, as long as you do have a published number. So much for our phone service eh? Banking services are a must on almost all Minitels, and are VERY popular. Imagine public banks and such? No need for trying to hack into one when you got it right there, out in the open through a Minitel? Wow!@ Heh. These services will do more than just an ATM machince can, you can get account balances, scedule transfers and payments to other accounts, some sevices through the Minitel also let you buy, sell, and trade on the stock- market, right from your comfortable chair, on the desk, in your home, from your own Minitel. Some other professional services on the Videotex are travel services, to order plane and train tickets, insurance sservices, information services, and much, much, much, more. The Internet can also be accessed through a Minitel, though your bill may get quite high, if you enjoy "surfing the net" for a few hours a day like any hax0r in their right mind would do. Game services are another reason why the Videotex is very popular. Companies have even gona as far as to program their PBX's not to dial out to these sservices because employees are wasting time on these gaming services wile at the same time riding up a huge bill for the company. People have tried lobbying against online services like these, because children are making huge bills which some parents aren't able to pay, because such services have highly inflated prices, but not much is happening. That would be like trying to ban 900 numbers in our country, it just will not happen. The Videotex serivce is definetly not as popular in other countries as it is in France. Becuase FT is not letting other operators follow in it's footsteps, and her eis another good example of politics and greediness in the telecom industry. There are 2 companies that provide access to the Videotex network. the French standard, or Teletel, and the British standard, or Prestel. Teletel charges users for the time spent by minutes. Prestel charges by the number of pages viewed. Company's that provide internet access in France are having a real hard time competing with the Videotex network. More people use the Videotex in France than the internet, and it is becoming a huge competition. This is definetly one of the faster changing electronic markets in Europe. Videotex is including internet services, but the internet is not including that many Videotex services, so more people are sticking to the Videotex, because that's what they are more familliar with. I hope this has been an interesting and informtional piece for all of you, and if you ever go to France, you'll actually have some idea of what those out of date looking dumb terminals are. section: 3 ________________________________________ Interesting and Rare Acronyms Explained: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In this next part, I will present to you some telephony related acronyms that are interesting, and rare, meaning you don't hear alot about them, nor has anyone really heard about them, unless you are a hardcore phreak and have a photographic memory of all of those thousands of telco manulas you have lining your walls. I will even include some that are known, but nobody, actually the newbies, know exactly what it is, because everywhere I look, i always see stuff on ANI and it being caller ID, It _*IS NOT*_ the same thing as caller ID, get it right okay? Because false information is what corrupts us all, especially having a well respected lamer going around telling all his friends and the world that ANI is Caller ID, and when you actually tell them what it really is, they don't belive you, and do something real stupid. Automatic Number Identification (ANI): Refers to the process that identifies the phone number of callers provided by service bureaus or carriers. The public switched telephone network (PTSN) can send the telephone number of the calling party directly to the destination telephone in either dual tone multi- frequency (DTMF) or dialed number identification service (DNIS) sig- nalling. Call Pickup Group (CPUG): A CPUG is whe multiple telephone extensions ring when the same phone number is dialed and the calls are evenly distributed between the appearances of the telephone exchanges. The most common example of CPUGs are the operator stations that answer all the calls made to main telephone number or answer all internal calls directed to the operator. Centrex: Any one of a number of large telephone switching systems that the telephone company might deploy to provide telephone service to an area. DMS100, DMS200, 5AESS, DEX 600, and 400, are among the more common modern centrex switches used today. Class Of Service (COS): In order to let one telephone be able to access certain outbound facilities, features, and functionality, while another phone is given to a different group of facilities, features, and functionality, a class of service is assigned which defines these criteria. An example of a COS difference is a hall phone that can only make calls within an organization, and the phone of the president of the company, which can make calls anywhere in the world and has voice mail, call forward- ing, and a host of other features. COS can also be assigned to auth- orization codes to temporarily increase the COS of a telephone for a single call. Demarcation Point: The location where two seperate ends of telephone cable or wiring meet. Typically used to mean the place where the telephone company's wiring and the customer premesis come together. This is where the responsibility of the local phone company endsand the customer's responsibility begins. Dialed Nuimber Identification Service (DNIS): A more adavanced method of delivery of automatic number identification that uses out-of-band signalling (signals that can not be heard by the human ear), DNIS also provides the capability to T-1 telecommuni- cations equipment to accomodate simultanious calls to independant phone numbers connected through computer technology. This feature pre- vents callers from getting busy siginals when the call. DNIS can in- clude the calling parties telephone number withing the siginal and can also tell the recieving system what telephone number was dialed so that many calls coming over the same telephone lines can be broken apart to seperate destiations, such as an operator, IVR (interactive voice response) system, or voice mail. DNIS can also pass a host of other information in a similar fashion to telephony devices to gather further information. Direct Inward System Access (DISA): The method for dialing into a telephone system. DISA can be used for everything from accessing one's voice mail to connecting to an out- bound trunk to make long-distance calls. DISA cn be the cause of toll fraud if not properly implemented. (this is what us phreaks use when we call into a PBX to make free calls) E&M Signalling: Uses separate paths for signalling and voice signals. The E lead (derived from the ear) recieves incoming signals as either ground or open condition. The M lead (derived from the mouth) transmits ground or battery towards the switch. Lead Retrieval: A system that will capture the caller ANI, theif fax number, name of caller, and company name. Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) lines: Local Exchange Carrier or local phone company telephone lines used to supply telephone service to a location. LEC lines are needed by all organizations to handle local telephone traffic. Local telephone traffic is defined as telephone calls that do not leave the lata (intralata). Local Loop: The transmission path between a user's premesis and a central office (CO). The connection between the local telephone company's network and the customer premesis equipment is formally called the network inter- face, or point of termination (PoT). PCMCIA: People Can't Memorize Complex Industry Acronyms. Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN): The telecommunications network commonly accessed by all of us vir- tually every day of our lives when we make a telephone call. The PSTN is a gigantic maze of switching computers that can connect any two (sometimes more) telephony points in potentially hundreds of different ways. Trunk: A single circuit between two points, both of which are switching centers or individual distribution points. Trunk Group: A set of telephone circuits provided by any number of telecommunica- tions firms for a specific purpose, such as to place long distance toll calls, to provide local calling capability, to provide WATS service, to provide inbound calling, etc. section: 4 ________ Closing: ^^^^^^^^ I hape this has been informational, and I encourage ALL readers to send something in to add to this series. In the next part, I will list some more interesting acronyms, and a lot of great telco related places and numbers. later.