zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Patrick Tufts) (10/26/90)
In the thread on 'finding your own number', someone mentioned that dialing 958 in NJ worked. I tried 958 in my area. No response, so I continued with 6544, the last digits of the calling phone's own number, to see if it was a ringback. The response: three quick chirps and a faint hum of electronics waiting for something. After a pause, I got a quick busy signal. Any thoughts on the function of this number, (617)958-6544? BTW - I got the same response with the same number from another phone. Pat
covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 28-Oct-1990 1313) (10/29/90)
The 617-958-xxxx number referred to in Issue 766 is a pager. It answers, beeps three times to indicate readiness for Touch-Tone, accepts the tones, and signals the pager, placing the tones on the pager display. john
BRUCE@ccavax.camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) (10/29/90)
In article <14065@accuvax.nwu.edu>, zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Patrick Tufts) writes: > Any thoughts on the function of this number, (617)958-6544? Try dialing some TT digits after that. You will then get: "THANK YOU FOR USING PAGENET". You just beeped someone's beeper, and whatever garbage you TT'd in is displayed on his beeper. There IS a concerted push to reclaim 800 numbers from the paging folks in this area, and I think that at least three other exchanges are so used, and, like the previous 800 based paging services, are FREE to the local caller. Don't know about LD callers, though. It probably is the SAME whether dialled as a local number from 617 or 508. I just asked the local operator and that IS a paging exchange, and she did say there were others, BUT wouldn't volunteer any more info.
cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Ofer Inbar) (11/02/90)
In article <14065@accuvax.nwu.edu> zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Patrick Tufts) writes: [describes dialing a phone number, hoping to 'find his own number'] >The response: three quick chirps and a faint hum of electronics >waiting for something. After a pause, I got a quick busy signal. ... >BTW - I got the same response with the same number from another phone. This is the standard behavior for electronic pager numbers. Each pager number is associated with one pager, and dialing that number causes the person carrying that pager to be paged. Since the computer at the other end paused for a while, and seemed to be 'waiting for something,' it was probably connected to a display pager. If you had punched in some numbers from you DTMF pad while it was waiting, those numbers would have appeared on the pager when it beeped. The purpose of these is so you can inform the person who is on call what phone number you want him/her to call back on. I have one of these pagers, though the number you dialed was not mine (mine is an 800); you may however have paged someone, who probably had no idea what he/she was being paged for. -- Cos (Ofer Inbar) -- cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu -- WBRS (BRiS) -- WBRS@binah.cc.brandeis.edu WBRS@brandeis.bitnet
levitt@zorro9.fidonet.org (Ken Levitt) (11/06/90)
>>From: Patrick Tufts <zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> >>Subject: Odd (617) Number >>The response: three quick chirps and a faint hum of electronics >>waiting for something. After a pause, I got a quick busy signal. >>Any thoughts on the function of this number, (617)xxx-xxxx? The number quoted was someone's pager number. It was expecting you to enter a call back number from your touch tone phone. I bet the owner of that pager is really P***ed if a lot of telecom readers called that number. Ken Levitt - On FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 UUCP: zorro9!levitt INTERNET: levitt%zorro9.uucp@talcott.harvard.edu