Will Martin <wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil> (05/03/91)
What is the percentage in the US these days of telephones with touch-tone capability (on touch-tone-accepting lines) vs rotary phones? Are there now more TT than rotary phones? (If so, any idea when TT passed the 50% mark?) Is this statistic available for residential vs. business lines? (I would venture to guess that the business percentage is far higher than the residential -- maybe business is now 100% Touch-Tone [except for those few areas where TT is not yet available]?) What inspires this is a frustrating experience yesterday calling a company (Rhino Records, at 800-432-0020) from my home, where I have only rotary POTS. I got a voice-mail menu, which said to press 1 for this and 2 for that, or to hold on if one had a rotary phone. I waited through a couple iterations of that noise, and then got a ring signal. However, after it rang six times, another recorded voice came on and said "to return to the operator, press zero". No option was available at that point for someone on a rotary phone! Eventually, another voice said "Thank you" and hung up. I went through this nonsense six times! On the seventh occurrence, I got a "busy" instead of a ring from the sub-menu, or whatever you call it, and thereafter, I got a busy when dialling the 800 number so I just gave up. (An added annoyance was that they don't open up until 9:30 AM Pacific time, so I had to wait until 11:30 Central to even begin this futile process.) Today, at work, from a phone with TT capability, I called again and managed to get to a real operator, after wading thru a couple levels of voice mail menus, and eventually got connected to a real person to whom I explained their problem with the phone-order system. I had had a $75 order I had just about decided to forego, and I emphasized how they were losing business from any and all callers with rotary phones. (Personally, if it was my business and I received such a report from a customer [or ex-customer], I'd rip the damn voice mail system out and go back to having human beings answer directly... :-) But I wonder just what percentage of potential customers are they cutting off with this cruddy system of theirs? Maybe, if rotary usage is so low now, they can afford to ignore that segment of the market. [Interesting thought: I was calling to order vinyl LPs from their close-out sale, because they're terminating those. I woder how well rotary phone usage correlates with the use of LPs vs. CDs. Maybe that's why they didn't get orders for LPs any more -- all us LP enthusiasts still have rotary phones and could never get thru to order any! :-)] Regards, Will wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil
Jiro Nakamura <jiro@shaman.com> (05/07/91)
For my new line, I deliberately didn't order touch-tone service even though I have touch-tone phones. It's ridiculous to get charged $2.20 (NYNEX) a month for something that saves NYNEX money by cutting down on computation time. Once I get my line, I'm going to see if it supports touch-tone anyway. If not, it's my modem/fax line anyway, so it doesn't seriously bother me. I think almost all new phones sold in the U.S. have touch-tone and pulse. Some have touch-tone only (el-cheapo (tm) brand). In Japan, I've seen pulse only phones, but haven't seen a single one in America. Jiro Nakamura jiro@shaman.com Shaman Consulting (607) 253-0687 VOICE (607) 253-7809 FAX/Modem
"Derek E. Terveer" <det@nightowl.mn.org> (05/08/91)
jiro@shaman.com (Jiro Nakamura) writes: > For my new line, I deliberately didn't order touch-tone service even > though I have touch-tone phones. It's ridiculous to get charged $2.20 > (NYNEX) a month for something that saves NYNEX money by cutting down > on computation time. Once I get my line, I'm going to see if it > supports touch-tone anyway. If not, it's my modem/fax line anyway, so > it doesn't seriously bother me. I agree. For my data line, I specifically ordered it with just pulse and not tone because I didn't want to pay the extra few bucks a month for something that would be practically invisible to me. My (Unix) system does all the dialing whenever it wants and I don't supervise it. And it matters little to me whether the dial portion of a particular call at 3am took 1.2 seconds or 4.7 seconds. The only potential disadvantage that I see is if I want my Unix box to call long distance and use some sort of calling card code number or something like that that requires touch-tone. Haven't run into that problem yet in over five years of running this system. derek det@nightowl.mn.org
John McHarry <m21198@mwunix.mitre.org> (05/09/91)
"Derek E. Terveer" <det@nightowl.mn.org> writes: > I agree. For my data line, I specifically ordered it with just pulse > and not tone because I didn't want to pay the extra few bucks a month > The only potential disadvantage that I see is if I want my Unix box to > call long distance and use some sort of calling card code number or > something like that that requires touch-tone. Haven't run into that Most autodial modems, eg. Hayes compatible, can be set to switch to tone for the second part of the sequence. I used to do that quite often. I have one phone that switches to tone for the remainder of the current call only when you key in # with the switch set to dial pulse, cute.
Yoram Eisenstadter <yoram@cs.columbia.edu> (05/10/91)
In article <telecom11.344.1@eecs.nwu.edu> det@nightowl.mn.org writes: > The only potential disadvantage that I see is if I want my Unix box to > call long distance and use some sort of calling card code number or > something like that that requires touch-tone. The ability to use DTMF tones for non-dialing purposes does *not* depend on your subscribing to Touch-tone service (despite the lies that some local phone companies, like NY Telephone, will tell you). Having your modem dial the phone number in pulse mode, then switch to tone mode to enter the credit card number (after a suitable pause) works just fine on a pulse line -- I've done it. Once the actual phone number is dialed and you hear the "bong", you're talking to the long-distance carrier, which doesn't care whether you pay the local phone company's ripoff rates for touch-tone or not. The same principle applies to accessing services like bank-by-phone from a dial line -- just switch your phone to tone-dialing once you're connected.
rhyre@cinoss1.att.com (Ralph W. Hyre) (05/10/91)
In article <telecom11.344.1@eecs.nwu.edu> det@nightowl.mn.org (Derek E. Terveer) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 344, Message 1 of 10 > jiro@shaman.com (Jiro Nakamura) writes: >> For my new line, I deliberately didn't order touch-tone service ... > I agree. For my data line, I specifically ordered it with just pulse > The only potential disadvantage that I see is if I want my Unix box to > call long distance and use some sort of calling card code number or > something like that that requires touch-tone. You can STILL send touch-tones over your phone line, whether you pay for it or not. When you pay your local phone company for 'touch-tone' that just means you can dial your initial number using touch-tone. They don't card what you dial once you are talking to your long distance carrier/information provider whatever. Calling card example: (manual dial) pulse 10288 + 0 + 700 555 4141 [switch to tone] + Card Number (My phone has a push button to switch to touch tone mode, so it's really handy for this application.) Modem example: (don't try this at home, my recollection of the Hayes command set is fuzzy.) ATDP1073207005554141T {card number digits}