arnold%audiofax.com@mathcs.emory.edu (Arnold Robbins) (01/30/91)
There were two inserts in my bill from Southern Bell yesterday. This
note describes one of them.
Transcribed verbatim:
GEORGIA RELAY SERVICE
On December 4, 1990, the Georgia Public Service
Commision gave approval for a Dual Party Relay System. This
system provides telephone communications between deaf and
hearing/speech-impaired customers who use Telecommunications
Devices for the Deaf (TDD) and all customers who use standard
voice telephones. It will begin operation on April 1, 1991.
To fund the system, the Commision ordered all telephone
companies in Georgia to collect a monthly surcharge from their
customers beginning in January, 1991. This month's bill includes
a surcharge labeled "Dual Party Relay System for the Hearing/Speech
Impaired Surcharge." The amount of the relay surcharge is seven
cents per line per month.
The Georgia Relay Center will be located in Norcross
and will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Customers
can access the relay center using toll-free numbers.
Toll calls completed thorugh the relay center will be
billed from originating point to terminating point of the call,
as though the relay center did not exist, at the intrastate rate
minus a 25 percent discount.
For more information on the Georgia Relay Center, please
call Southern Bell at the following numbers:
Residence Customers: 780-2355
Business Customers: 780-2800
The numbers above are in the 404 area code. I'm posting this just to
provide the information to the Telecom readership.
Arnold Robbins AudioFAX, Inc.
2000 Powers Ferry Road, #200 / Marietta, GA. 30067
INTERNET: arnold@audiofax.com Phone: +1 404 933 7612
UUCP: emory!audfax!arnold Fax-box: +1 404 618 4581
[Moderator's Note: The other insert in Mr. Robbins' bill discussed the
introduction of Caller*ID in Georgia next month. This insert will be
printed in the next issue of the Digest. PAT]john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (02/02/91)
Bob Goudreau <goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com> writes: > What they *don't* > tell you is that these special numbers are *not* reachable from > outside of Southern Bell territory (such as my workplace, which is in > GTE-land). Trying to dial 1-404-780-2355 from GTE territory > intercepts after a few rings with a "Your call cannot be completed as > dialed" message, exactly the same as trying 1-919-780-2355. I suspect > that no one outside of Georgia's Southern Bell territory will be able > to get information about the Georgia Relay Center from the above > numbers. For years, Pac*Bell has had numbers reachable by the public of the form 811-XXXX. These are toll-free and can be used anywhere with Pac*Bell's territory. For a period, these numbers could not be reached by any non-Pac*Bell telephone. Gradually, the independents started making them available from their phones as well. At least GTE and Contel (soon to be one and the same) did. However, no area code is used when calling. My local residence business office is 811-5700. If I wanted to call that number from San Diego, I would pick up the phone and dial 811-5700 and would then be connected with the same people in the same office as if I dialed it from 408 or 415. For this reason, it would seem impossible to reach these numbers from outside of the state, since none is associated with a particular NPA. Anyone from outside CA ever tried one? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: For many years here, 811 was used for hotel/motel or other institutional accounts with switchboards which had to charge back calls to individual extensions. 811 reached a long-distance operator who knew automatically to send back time and charges ASAP via teletype to the subscriber following each call. (Although usually they batched the tickets and sent back all results once an hour.) The rest of us used 211 to reach the same long-distance operator. 811 has been gone for many years. I just now dialed 811, also 1-811. I got intercepted locally at that point and told my call could not be completed as dialed. PAT]