forrette@cory.berkeley.edu (Steve Forrette) (10/18/90)
As most of us know first-hand, a lot of the people working Customer Service in the telecom industry seem to be poorly trained, and not very knowledgable of how the telephone network really works. Since I know how much I enjoy hearing everyone else's horror stories, I thought I'd pass along a few of my own: US West: "Why not select the PIN of your Call Me card to be the same as your regular calling card, so that it's easy to remember?" Upon reporting a number that results in a "dead line" when dialed, Pacific Bell Repair stated "oh, that's normal. Sometimes we don't give a recording, just a dead line." Anonymous cellular telephone salesman: "This model is nice because it has true TouchTone. On the older cellular models, even though it's pushbutton, you have to wait for the number to pulse out when placing a call." Cellular One of Sacramento: "You have to pay airtime for calls forwarded from your cellular phone, because these calls actually go over the air." And perhaps the best one of them all, Cellular One of San Francisco: "10XXX dialing isn't available because it's incompatible with the microwaves we use between cell sites." Can anyone top these? [Moderator's Note: Cellular One/Chicago in their printed manual says that keeping a call on hold on your cell phone while accepting a call waiting will incur two overlapping airtime charges. Why? Because, as the rep told me, both calls are being transmitted through the air even though on one of them no one is talking at the moment. Hmmm. Likewise she said three-way cell calls incur double airtime since *your phone* (my emphasis) is connected to two people at one time. I asked if she meant their switch was connected to two people at one time, and it was sending me *one* transmission of the two callers combined. She said she hadn't thought about it that way before. Double hmmm. Yes readers, send along your 'can you top this' stories. PAT]
john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (10/21/90)
Steve Forrette <forrette@cory.berkeley.edu> writes: > Anonymous cellular telephone salesman: "This model is nice because it > has true TouchTone. On the older cellular models, even though it's > pushbutton, you have to wait for the number to pulse out when placing > a call." From the Pac*Bell repair "Gotcha" department: Among my many residence lines is one from the #5 crossbar switch -- the rest are on a 1ESS. I am not paying for TT on the Xbar line -- they can't (or don't seem to be able to) turn it off. Anyway, I have noticed for some time that it takes MUCH longer for calls to complete, particularly long distance calls, on the Xbar than on the 1ESS. Why? I don't know -- they both use archaic MF signaling. Being the pill that I am, called repair service and explained that calls seemed to take much too long to complete on the Xbar line. A technician called back and I explained that calls on my ESS lines completed MUCH faster than those on the number I was reporting. He had to take it under advisement. The next day the man called back with the explanation. He did some checking and found that my ESS lines had TT and the reported line didn't. He carefully explained that TT was much faster than rotary. If I were to get TT service on the Xbar line, the problem would be solved. Makes sense to me! The man should be taken to lunch by the sales department. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
oberman@rogue.llnl.gov (10/22/90)
In article <13877@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > From the Pac*Bell repair "Gotcha" department: > Among my many residence lines is one from the #5 crossbar switch -- > the rest are on a 1ESS. I am not paying for TT on the Xbar line -- > they can't (or don't seem to be able to) turn it off. Anyway, I have > noticed for some time that it takes MUCH longer for calls to complete, > particularly long distance calls, on the Xbar than on the 1ESS. Why? I > don't know -- they both use archaic MF signaling. I don't think that this could be the case here, but when visiting my mother in a small town in Colorado last year I noticed an interesting implementation of TT. The town is still on the old (circa 1950?) rotary switch. Of course it can't handle TT in any way, right? What Mountain Bell (now USWest) did was put DTMF receivers on the input to the switch which output pulses. So I entered the tones and could hear the pulses being generated in the background. And, no, it was not a pushbutton phone generating pulses. It was a phone that can so either with the switch set to tone position. I could clearly hear the DTMF. R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov (415) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing and probably don't really know anything useful about anything.
CRW@icf.hrb.com (Craig R. Watkins) (10/25/90)
In article <13940@accuvax.nwu.edu>, oberman@rogue.llnl.gov writes: > What Mountain Bell (now USWest) did was put DTMF receivers on the > input to the switch which output pulses. So I entered the tones and > could hear the pulses being generated in the background. And, no, it > was not a pushbutton phone generating pulses. It was a phone that can > so either with the switch set to tone position. I could clearly hear > the DTMF. I *think* this is what was happening to me (sometimes) at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in September. It made it really difficult (impossible) to DISA and/or voice mail. I think it might have worked once, but I couldn't figure out any possible timeouts, etc to repeat my success. Craig R. Watkins Internet: CRW@ICF.HRB.COM HRB Systems, Inc. Bitnet: CRW%HRB@PSUECL.Bitnet +1 814 238-4311 UUCP: ...!psuvax1!hrbicf!crw
BRUCE@ccavax.camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) (10/27/90)
In article <13940@accuvax.nwu.edu>, oberman@rogue.llnl.gov writes: > implementation of TT. The town is still on the old (circa 1950?) > rotary switch. Of course it can't handle TT in any way, right? > What Mountain Bell (now USWest) did was put DTMF receivers on the > input to the switch which output pulses. So I entered the tones and > could hear the pulses being generated in the background. And, no, it From about the start of TT there have been various converters for steppers. Many simply bolted to the frame behind the linefinders. Mitel made a "QuadPak" that took four cards, and later, as TT decoding got more compact their old #1625 cards zillions of which plugged into these, were upgraded to newer models that could do two lines per card. Actually the card space could by then do even more, but there were only card edge connections enough for one more line in the vast installed base of boxes. TelTone and others also made such devices, and their cards would slide into Mitel boxes, too. Another popular trick, rather than having a TT decoder per linefinder, was to have a few decoders, and some sort of allocater circuit between the linefinder and first selector. In 'slenderised' offices, something 'smart' was stuck in that location anyway, to possibly alter what you dialed into what was needed to transit the selectors. Such a box could have TT added easily. The bummer is that they don't always drop off the line. They are supposed to quit on a timer, or on answer supervision, but if they don't and you need to TT to the far end, try # or occasionally * to disable the decoder. With residential TT $s on the rise here in MA, I have been considering digging out some old 1625s I have stashed away. They ARE strappable for 48 or 24 v dc, and for 10 or 20 PPS. At 20 pps (which any xbar or electronic offic should be able to use), the delay is barely noticable. Anyone know of a really good but cheap TT-> pulse converter that properly deals with ALL the many problems? I havn't looked at that market in years, but with the chips now available, there just might be something in the < one year of TT service price range. LECs charging for TT deserve to lose the revenue.
Tad.Cook@beaver.cs.washington.edu (11/03/90)
In article <14017@accuvax.nwu.edu>, CRW@icf.hrb.com (Craig R. Watkins) writes: > In article <13940@accuvax.nwu.edu>, oberman@rogue.llnl.gov writes: > > What Mountain Bell (now USWest) did was put DTMF receivers on the > > input to the switch which output pulses. So I entered the tones and > > could hear the pulses being generated in the background. And, no, it > > was not a pushbutton phone generating pulses. It was a phone that can > > so either with the switch set to tone position. I could clearly hear > > the DTMF. > I *think* this is what was happening to me (sometimes) at the North > Rim of the Grand Canyon in September. It made it really difficult > (impossible) to DISA and/or voice mail. I think it might have worked > once, but I couldn't figure out any possible timeouts, etc to repeat > my success. The telco was using a standard touchtone to dialpulse converter, probably Mitel or Teltone, between the linefinder and the first selector. After the dialing is done, there are several ways to disable the converter for end-to-end DTMF signalling. Some of them are set up to disable the converter upon receipt of answer supervision, in the form of a line reversal. Some of them will accept a * from the caller to disable the converter. Most of them will time out the converter after about 15 or 20 seconds. Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7HFZ.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP
dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) (11/05/90)
In article <14287@accuvax.nwu.edu>, hpubvwa!ssc!Tad.Cook@beaver.cs. washington.edu writes: > The telco was using a standard touchtone to dialpulse converter, > probably Mitel or Teltone, between the linefinder and the first > selector. > Some of them will accept a * from the caller to disable the converter. Many of them accept the # to disable the converter. This is so common that it is used to advantage in the MCCS (mechanized calling card service) logo tone. This tone (sometimes called the Bong tone) is heard on 0+ calls and precedes the announcement that prompts for your card number. The first ten milliseconds of the BONG are actually a # which then fades into something else, as one of its two component tones decays. The intent here is that the if the caller (or the caller's telco) is using a tone-to-pulse converter, the converter will be disabled when the caller enters the card number. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857