roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (08/31/90)
While playing with my latest techo-toy (a marine VHF handheld) I overheard somebody attempting to place a call via the local marine operator (perfectly legal, to the best of my knowledge; this isn't cellular, or even cordless). He gave the operator the number he wanted. Then I heard the number being touch-toned, and then, "La-Dee-DAH! The number you have reached, xxx-xxxx i ..." I have attempted to represent as best as I can in ascii the sound of the operator hanging up in the middle of the word "is". Then the operator asked the calling party to repeat the number he wanted (which did indeed match the xxx-xxxx in the intercept message) and told him that the number "doesn't exist" (yes, that's the phrase the operator used). The problem is that the operator never listened to the complete message, just enough to get the number. Did she have some way of knowing what the rest of the message was going to be without having to listen to it, or did she just make a data-free guess? It could have been "is no longer is service", "is currently being checked for trouble", "has been changed ...", or any of a number of alternatives which don't correspond very well to "doesn't exist". Of course the number exists, it just may not be bound to anything useful! [Moderator's Note: She was just guessing at it, and wasting everyone's time, including her own. It might well have given a referral elsewhere for all she knew. PAT]