phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) (03/09/91)
I thought the following press release might be of interst:
Southwestern Bell won a 1-year trial from Texas regulators of what it
calls Intercept Referral Services. With these services, an operator
and/or a mechanized system can provide information to a caller
regarding the new telephone number, address and/or city and state
location for customers who have disconnected or changed their
telephone numbers.
The services will be tried out in San Antonio.
One new service in the intercept line is Location Intercept Referral,
which provides a recorded announcement for a disconnected number,
referring the caller to a new number and address including street
address, city and/or state. Another is Special Intercept Referral,
designed for a number that is disconnected and changed to two or more
numbers, as when partnerships split up. Calls to the disconnected
number are routed to a recorded announcement or operator providing the
caller with the new phone numbers. Expanded Intercept Referral,
routes calls to a recorded announcement for which the called customer
provides the text provided by Southwestern Bell. These announcements
cover such situations as office relocation, the dissolution of a
business, business expansion, seasonal businesses and separation of a
family or couple.
The Intercept services are available for a minimum of three months, at
$54-108, depending on the service. The more expensive services are
run by operators. "We've had these kinds of services before, but they
were just recorded announcements of numbers being pulled," the
spokesman told Newsbytes.
Southwestern Bell plans to file tariffs to offer the service in
Missouri and Oklahoma later this year and in its other two states --
Arkansas and Kansas --at a later date.
J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067
Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110
phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - Internet (314) 362-3617
uunet!wuarchive!wubios!phil - UUCP (314)362-2693(FAX) C90562JM@WUVMD - bitnet