[comp.dcom.telecom] Bell of PA Answer Call Standardization

theall@rm105serve.sas.upenn.edu (George A. Theall) (03/24/91)

<begin journalistic mode>

  Bell of Pennsylvania says it will standardize its Answer Call voice
mail service in April. Essentially this means the numbers one presses
when retrieving messages will be rearranged.

  In the announcement, which Bell of PA left on subscribers' mailboxes
yesterday, this standardization will make it easier to interact with
other voice mail systems, at work, in businesses, etc ... details on
the new rearrangement will be sent to subscribers shortly.

<end journalistic mode>

  Does anyone know what standard Bell of PA is referring to? Is there
really a committee somewhere weighing such matters as to whether, say,
one should press <4> or <7> to delete a message? And exactly what sort
of compliance can realistically be expected of other, existing voice
mail systems?


George

theall@rm105serve.sas.upenn.edu		Dept. of Economics
theall@ssctemp.sas.upenn.edu		Univ. of Pennsylvania
gtheall@penndrls.upenn.edu		Philadelphia, PA 19104

yazz@prodnet.la.locus.com (Bob Yazz) (03/26/91)

theall@rm105serve.sas.upenn.edu (George A. Theall) writes:

>   Does anyone know what standard Bell of PA is referring to? Is there
> really a committee somewhere weighing such matters as to whether, say,
> one should press <4> or <7> to delete a message?  [as a voice mail standard]

Dialing 0 should get a human, preferably a competent one and
immediately, though no machine can guarantee that.

I posted the above opinion before and would be really interested if an
Actual Committee shared my view.  I think standardization would
benefit voice mail users.

But I have a New And Improved ritual for getting a human on voice mail
systems that seems to work even more often than pushing "0" -- do it a
bunch of times.  I speculate that some of these systems have an "Oh,
he's hopelessly confused" counter that I endeavor to exceed.

Is this a superstition or is it true, voice-mail installers?


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