AWalker@RED.RUTGERS.EDU (*Hobbit*) (01/26/86)
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the local operating companies [at least here in Bell Atlantic territory] are attempting to *suppress* knowledge of 10XXX-format dialing capability. [This, oddly enough, is called "Tenex dialing" by the biz office people ... are they going to have twenex dialing someday?] The point is, half the employees don't know what no-pick is or how 10XXX really works. A lot of them will tell you that you need to sign up with the carrier before you can successfully use a different carrier than your default 1+ one. It is *company policy* that they cannot provide any information about other carriers, specifically what 10XXX carrier codes are recognized by a given office. To get this info you have to call the Teleconsumer people in DC and get the list for your area, which has a good possibility of being outdated or inaccurate. Bell people also don't deal with 950 at all and will very likely deny all knowledge of its existence. The point is that the general public is being in effect lied to, and not given the information they want about how divestiture is affecting their service. This angers me and I am trying to educate as many people as I can reach about equal access and how it works. They are always amazed to learn that they can dial a call through an alternate carrier without having an account with them first. Why is this suppresssion being done? Because the billing arrangements with the other carriers, i.e. you are what's called a "casual caller" on a carrier you don't have your own account with, are so hairy and horrendous that making a call on an alternate seems to introduce a nominal *6* month delay in getting the bill to the customer, and there seems to be a large margin for screwup that may lose the billing completely. In some areas that recently went equal access, you walk up to a public phone, dial 10XXX 1 301 4nn qqqq, and talk to your friend in Maryland for a while for free, because the carrier had no idea that the calling number was a pay station. This shows that a lot of the carriers are still in their Mom-n-Pop stage and can't handle the intricacies of getting the bills to the right places. The LOC's know this too, and to avoid the chance that people will take advantage of this "legalized toll fraud", they withhold the information. Could some of the other readers who have had equal access for a while, and who have made "casual" calls with different carriers relate their experiences with how the billing was handled [if at all] and what kind of charges showed up? I am burningly curious if this lossage exists everywhere, or just around here in NJ. My home office is just about to go equal access [although the Piscataway office that handles Rutgers has had it for a while]. I intend to place calls and keep careful records of date/time and carrier used, and see how long it takes them to figure out who I am. I also urge my colleagues to do likewise, so the carriers will be *forced* to get their acts together. Maybe the local operating companies will get a little more reasonable about the whole thing if they are forced to by the public. _H* -------
Frankston@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (01/29/86)
A related question is how to specify the carrier one wants when calling from a hotel. They typically seem to disable 10xxx dialing and select a carrier on the basis of minimum signal to noise ratio and maximum delay. Also, what is the deal on the ATT calling card. Since that number is shared by the local operating company now, what are the rules on it being usable by alternate carriers and what is the reality.
telecom@ucbvax.UUCP (01/31/86)
Since you're educating people, how about educating me as to what
10XXX, no-pick, and 950 are? I've gathered from the discussions in
mod.telecom that you can select different long distance carriers
with 10XXX, but how does this work, how do you dial with it, and
where can I write to find out what's available in my area?
[Buffalo(home), and Rochester(college)]
thanx in advance...
==============================================================================
Steve Wall @ Rochester Institute of Technology
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