am299bv%sdcc6@ucsd.edu (Ravinder Bhumbla) (10/13/90)
Last week I had posted a message here about the problem I had due to
redlining of payphones to prevent calls to certain countries. As a
response to my posting, Donald Kimberlin had posted the e-mail address
of Mr. Allen.
I sent email to Mr. Allen at that address and today I received a call
from the local AT&T operator services regarding the message. I was
told that I would be hearing from Mr. Allen separately and this call
was to address any problems I had. I am posting both my message to
Mr. Allen and the AT&T response below. I'll be posting Mr. Allen's
response if and when I receive it.
(Note: The only change I have made to this message is to delete the
actual name and AT&T number of the supervisor I had talked to.)
------My message to Mr. Robert E. Allen-----
To: reallen@attmail.com, ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu
Subject: International Calling Redlining from Payphones
Reply-To: rbhumbla@ucsd.edu (Ravinder Bhumbla)
Dear Mr. Allen,
I received your address as a response to a message I had posted on the
mailing list Telecom-Digest (Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom).
I had tried to place calls to India from payphones in San Diego,
California using my AT&T Universal Card and had been unable to
complete my calls. I had later tried to find the reason for this by
calling the AT&T international information at 1-800-874-4000 on
October 4, 1990 from my home phone number (619) 587-8536. Claiming
that she did not have any information about this, the operator asked
me to contact the long distance operator at 00.
Immediately after the above call, I called the long distance operator
at 00. The long distance operator, too, claimed that she had no
information about it and could not suggest who would have the
information either. At her suggestion I decided to talk to her
supervisor who she connected me to.
The supervisor told me that AT&T had nothing to do with the blocking
and it was done "at the request of the country that was being called".
To my incredulous reply that I couldn't believe that a country like,
say, Liberia could ask them to block calls from a downtown Los Angeles
payphone, she replied that "that was their prerogative".
At my request, she gave me her name, Mrs. XXXXX (she refused to give
me her full name), and her number, ####.
As I had doubts about the veracity of the statements of the AT&T
supervisor, I posted a message about this to the Telecom-Digest
mailing list (which, by the way, is read by more than 30000 people
worldwide). While posting my message, the Mdoderator of the list gave
his opinion that the information given by the supervisor was
incorrect. His opinion was that this "redlining" of payphones to
block calls to specific countries was done by the long distance
company (AT&T in this case). He was of the opinion that this activity
is illegal (as it seems to deny service on the basis of national
origin).
At the suggestion of another reader, who provided the list with your
address I am sending this message to formally request you to provide me
information about AT&T's policy on blocking calling card international
calls to specific countries. In case the information provided to me by
the AT&T supervisor was incorrect, willfully or otherwise, I would like
to request you to provide the employee(s) with the correct information
and to insure that AT&T subscribers are not misled when they request
information from AT&T. In case AT&T *is* responsible for this redlining
I wish to protest against this policy and request you to have it
withdrawn.
You can contact me through e-mail at rbhumbla@ucsd.edu. I can be
reached by telephone at (619)587-8536. My mailing address is:
Ravinder Bhumbla
8282, Regents Road, #102
San Diego, CA 92122
Please feel free to contact me if you need any further information.
Thanking you for your time,
Sincerely,
Ravinder Bhumbla
PS - I am sending a copy of this message to the Moderator of the
Telecom-Digest mailing list. I intend to post this message and your
response to this to the mailing-list when I receive your response.
-------End of my message--------
As a response to this message, which I had e-mailed on Monday, Oct 8,
I received a call from the local AT&T operator services today, Friday,
Oct 12. I was told that I would be hearing from Mr. Allen separately
and this call was to address any problems I had. A summary of our
discussion follows:
The AT&T representative told me that the supervisor I had talked to
earlier had indeed been incorrect. The redlining of payphones to block
international calls is done by AT&T and not by the country that is being
called. She said that this is done by their security operations when
analysis of a particular type of calls shows more loss than revenue.
Evidently, San Diego is one of those high fraud areas (frankly I find
that hard to digest considering the minuscule size of the Indian
population here. I would be willing to bet that they just group all
the so-called high-fraud countries together and block either all or
none of them). She told me that all the supervisors have been briefed
on the correct reason for this redlining, and her excuse for the
earlier misinformation was that Mrs. XXXX was inexperienced and was
substituting for the regular supervisor.
She told me that a way around my problem would be to talk to the
supervisor on duty when trying to make international calls. The
supervisors have been advised to make their own judgement at the
moment whether to override the blocking.
She did apologize for this inconvenience to AT&T customers due to
fraud by some. She, however, did not mention any plans AT&T had to
stop this redlining.
Ravinder Bhumbla rbhumbla@ucsd.edu Office Phone: (619)534-7894
[Moderator's Note: Thank you for passing this along. If Mr. Allen or
an associate in his office responds to you, we'd appreciate seeing
that response also. PAT]