Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.telcom From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: telcom Mon, Feb 17 1992 Date: Mon, 17 Feb 92 06:46:35 EST Message-ID: DECISIONLINE: Telecommunications USA TODAY Update Feb. 17, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network TELETEK BUYS UNITED PAYPHONE: Teletek Inc. said Friday it has signed a letter of intent to buy a control interest in United Payphone Services Inc. from the Higgins Family Limited Partnership. The partnership will be issued 66 million common shares of Teletek stock. Teletek is a Denver-based telecommunications company. United Payphone operates and maintains privately-owned pay telephones in four western states. NARROW-BAND STANDARD ENDORSED: U S West NewVector Group says it is endorsing narrow-band cellular technology and urged its acceptance as a technological standard by the Telecommunications Industry Association. Developed by Motorola, Narrow-Band Advanced Mobile Phone Service can triple the capacity of cellular voice channels and enhance the quality of voice transmission, U S West says. IOWA CUSTOMERS MAY GET REFUND: The 750,000 U S West Communications telephone customers in Iowa would get a $16 refund and pay $1 to $2 less for phone bills each month under pact that has been agreed to by the company and the office of consumer advocate. The total cost of the plan would be $41 million per year. It needs the approval of the State Utilities Board to go into effect. PAY-PHONE CONTACT BEING PROBED: Corrections officials should be prosecuted if North Carolina competitive bidding laws were broken in a $1.2 million pay-phone maintenance contract, state prison officials say. According to newspaper reports, officials ignored warnings that the contract was full of irregularities. MOBILNET TEAMS WITH MOVIEFONE: GTE Mobilnet:Pacific Region has signed an exclusive agreement with MovieFone, a telephone mobile guide service. It will allow customers in the San Francisco area to access information on movie and theatre showtimes by pushing (star) 3456 on their Mobilnet cellular phone. Customers will also have the option to purchase tickets by using a credit card. JUDGE OPPOSES CALLER I.D.: A California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge has urged the commission to reject caller I.D. services proposed by Contel Corp, GTE California Inc. and Pacific Bell. Caller I.D. should not be approved because answering machines, voice mail and services such as call trace, call blocking and call return accomplish the same results, Judge John Lemke says. FMC LAYS OFF ONE-THIRD OF STAFF: FMC Corp. has laid off a third of its telecommunications staff. It plans to restructure the remaining staff, FMC officials say. It also has yet to decided if it will go through with plans to build a private frame-relay system. FMC's telecommunications director, Philip Evans, was among those laid off. AT&T UNVEILS OPTIMUM SERVICE: AT&T has unveiled Optimum service. It will provide discounts, customized billing options and maintenance guarantees to users that spend $10,000 to $30,000 on outbound voice calls. It is primarily designed primarily for users that place many calls to non-company sites. Users will be able to combine the cost of calls made from various locations for a bulk discount on long-distance service. SMALL FIRMS COULD SAVE 15%: AT&T says that small companies will be able to cut their monthly long-distance rates anywhere from 4% to 15% by using its Optimum service. The amount of the discount will depend on traffic volume. Users of Optimum can also choose at what time of the month they want to receive their phone bill and if they want to to come on magnetic tape, a computer disk or paper. MOTOROLA UNVEILS MODEMS: UDS Motorola has unveiled two high-speed modems designed to operate with Unix computer systems. The FasTalk V.32x and the FasTalk FAX 32x fax:modem implement the Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocal, which is used by Unix computers for file transfer and electronic mail. Available in the second quarter, they are priced at $795 for the V.32x and $995 for the FAX 32x. BT WORKING ON NEW SYSTEM: BT North America Inc. says it plans to let retailers with point-of-sale systems access its X.25 packet switching network by using new cellular technology by Cellular Data Inc. The system allows credit card data to be sent over existing cellular networks. The service is scheduled to be available by the end of this year. BELLCORE TO HOLD ISDN WORKSHOP: Bell Communications Research Inc. will hold a two-day workshop Feb. 24 to Feb. 25 in Huntsville, Ala., for National ISDN customer premises equipment vendors and application developers. The agenda includes a discussion of National ISDN-1 data terminal requirements and an opportunity for ISDN terminal vendors to discuss views on ISDN evolution. Telecommunications Editor: Ed Kelleher. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. 08:0002170000D0217 TREN-R J Job-searches-are-briefer.............. A D0217 This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM