TELECOM ACCESS STANDARDS NEWSLETTER NO. 145 December 2003 CONTENTS 1. NEW FAX NUMBER FOR ACCESS STANDARDS 2. RE-LOCATION OF TELECOM'S AUCKLAND BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY 3. TELEPHONE HANDSET HEARING AID COMPATIBILITY 4. ADDRESSING TELEPERMIT APPLICATIONS TO ACCESS STANDARDS 5. SUPPORT STAFF CHANGES 6. CHRISTMAS GREETINGS RETURN TO MAIN INDEX 1. NEW FAX NUMBER FOR ACCESS STANDARDS Access Standards has had another change in accommodation but, this time, only a short move on the same floor. However, this had led to our moving closer to another fax machine, the number of which is (04) 385 6476, as shown above Any fax messages addressed to our previous fax number will still get to us, but this machine is on a lower floor and there could be delays in fax messages being sent on to us. It is also worth mentioning that the Reception area for courier-delivered parcels and letters at the Tory Street Telecom Centre has been re-located to Unit 2, Level 2. Signs have been set up and most local couriers will be familiar with this move, but showing the new location on any courier packs might help avoid any confusion. 2. RE-LOCATION OF TELECOM'S AUCKLAND BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY The Telecom test laboratory in the Mayoral Drive Building in Auckland is being incorporated into the Technology Solutions Laboratory in Telecom's Tory Street complex in Wellington early in the New Year. As a result, the information given in Newsletter No. 143 about PTC 220 compliance testing will need to be changed. We will publish new contact details on our website as soon as these come to hand. Needless to say, there will be some disruption of the services provided by this laboratory during the period that the equipment is being shifted and set up in its new location. We hope to be able to give more information on this matter after transfer project timings have been confirmed. 3. TELEPHONE HANDSET HEARING AID COMPATIBILITY When telephones were deregulated here in 1988, we made a conscious decision NOT to mandate hearing aid compatibility, in contrast with what was done in Australia. At the time, it was felt to be an unreasonable requirement, as so many existing Telecom phones had no coupling facility and we did not want to limit the potential supply of overseas handsets or telephones. It was thus decided that we would regard hearing aid compatibility as a marketing feature. Many phones offered here are common to Australia, of course. As a result, some phones have a T-coupling and some don't. Austel originally mandated hearing aid coupling within TS.002 and TS.004, but the requirement is now covered in ACA/ACIF S.040, which is available from http://www.acif.org.au/ACIF/files/S040_2001.pdf This is 24 pages in total, but only Section 5 on page 11 is really significant to the technical requirements. Australia is progressively tightening its standards, with a current requirement for the magnetic field strength radiated from handset receivers of between -17 dB and - 34 dB relative to 1 A/m at 1 kHz. The lower limits will be increased to - 30 dB relative to 1 A/m at 1 kHz in July 2005. It is not expected that Telecom will mandate hearing aid compatibility within PTC 200 or any other of its PTC specifications. Nevertheless, it is recommended that products comply with the Australian requirements in this respect, as the feature will be useful to quite a large number of hearing aid users in this country. 4. ADDRESSING TELEPERMIT APPLICATIONS TO ACCESS STANDARDS Quite a lot of Telepermit applications and follow-up documents are addressed to a specific member of our team. The same applies with emails, which can be even more of a problem. Should the addressee be away for some reason, papers and emails addressed to one member may not be accessible to the other members and may then be subject to unnecessary delay. It is recommended that all Telepermit submission documents be addressed to "Access Standards" in a more generic way. Alternatively, Telepermit applications and related documentations could be marked "Telepermit Application". This avoids any concerns that personal mail is being opened inadvertently. On receipt of applications, we log them and allocate a specific reference number to each. This number should preferably be marked on the envelope, as well as on the covering letter for any papers which may be sent after an application has been acknowledged. Doing this will avoid unnecessary delays and make sure the additional documents are immediately associated with the original application. With emails, it will pay to copy them to another member of the team if there is no response within a day or two and enquirers are unable to contact the required team member by telephone. 5. SUPPORT STAFF CHANGES Many in the CPE business will have had contact with John Windley of Telecom's Wellington office and Graham Ockleston of Telecom's Auckland test laboratory over the past many years. John and Graham are leaving Telecom at the end of this year and it would be very remiss of me not to mention the valuable support and advisory roles they have carried out for Access Standards. In John's case, he was one of my Customer Services Telephone group staff members when I took over that role in 1981 and he greatly assisted me in the preparation of PTC 202, way back in 1987. John has since been a key figure in any of Telecom's technical investigations into CPE-network incompatibility issues. He was also the primary driver instigator of Telecom's "2-wire" jackpoint design, which significantly reduced customer service problems due to corroded jackpoints. Graham has perhaps had a more "public" role in working with 3rd party CPE suppliers, as well as those suppliers whose products have been marketed by Telecom. He originally joined Telecom Equipment Supplies Ltd in 1989 and has since done a lot of valuable testing and design work on CPE products, including our "Rentel" series of rental telephones. With the combination of John's broad and detailed knowledge of telephony standards and practices and Graham's testing and design expertise. A wide range of problems have been quietly and efficiently solved in recent years, not only to the benefit of Telecom, but also to the benefit of our customers and CPE suppliers. My Access Standards team wishes them the very best for the future and I hope they won't be too rude to me if I sometimes ring and ask for their advice. Some of their work will continue to be done by Bill Dawid, currently in the Auckland laboratory. Bill has the task of managing the shift of the lab equipment to Wellington. He will then share some of the ongoing testing and investigation roles with other Wellington technical staff. 6. CHRISTMAS GREETINGS Richard Brent, Alan Reedy, Marilyn Humphrey and I all wish our readers a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. This year seems to have gone by with a rush, although the number of Telepermit applications has been almost the same as we received last year. ADSL modems and DECT cordless devices seem the most "popular items" this year, but there is still a big variety of new products being connected to the network and plenty of choice for our customers. Access Standards has been involved in a wide range of issues, not all of which have appeared in these Newsletters. It is interesting that some issues cause a lot of fuss and concern, then nothing happens. A particularly good example of this was the "V.92 modem issue", which could have caused a lot of service problems had it come to fruition. On the other hand, some issues, like VoIP, have not gone away and could continue to be a source of concern if they are not handled properly. Nevertheless, I guess most readers in our half of the world will have a couple of weeks off work and we look forward to some good weather. For readers in the Northern hemisphere, please note that Access Standards will be closed for business from 24 December until 5 January. DOUG BURRUS Manager Access Standards