ardai@sun.com (11/01/90)
Last Sunday evening, I arrived early at Penn Station in New York so I decided to do a little phone survey. There are 17 COCOTs in various shops, all run by 'Tel_a_booth Communications LTD' in Long Island City. These phones channel all other carrier access attempts to 'ITI', where an ACD that gives the option of either placing a collect call or connecting to an operator. Both of these options outpulsed a call, rang once and then returned a dialtone. The repair number terminated in an answering machine. 700-555-4141 resulted in 'restricted number.' In the Amtrack terminal area, there are 38 New York Telephone phones, and about 30 more had been removed since the last time I was there. These phones also blocked calls to other carriers, giving a message that 'it is not necessary to dial a company access code for this call' :-) Logically, 700-555-4141 reported ATT as the long-distance carrier. I called the local operator and asked about the problems connecting to a Sprint operator, and was told that it was impossible to reach anyone other than ATT. Repair claimed it was a switching problem that would be fixed by 6pm on Monday. Michael L. Ardai Teradyne EDA East ...!sun!teda!ardai or ardai@bu_pub.bu.edu [Moderator's Note: Sleaze, one and all! ITI is one of the worst rip-offs ever! Please follow instructions in previous issues of the Digest to notify the FCC of the situation there. They in turn will hopefully order the Pennsylvania Station Corporation (managers of the building) and the proprietors of the COCOTS to rectify the situation immediatly. It might be a good idea also to have a supply of out-of-order stickers with you on your trips through the station. Mark the offending phones out-of-order to warn other innocent users. PAT]