dgl292@pallas.athenanet.com (Doug Lee) (07/23/90)
All this talk of late intercepts fits well with what happened to me
just last week:
I have a good friend in Maine who I call periodically. Last week,
however, her phone line was disconnected (for reasons having nothing
to do with her). Rather than getting the standard "The number you
have reached -- ... -- has been [temporarily] disconnected," I received
the following message:
"We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. You must now
dial seven digits for a local call."
To slightly modify a quote from a Douglas Adams book, "That's
obviously a strange new use of the word _local_ with which I was not
previously acquainted."
Actually, I suspect the normal intercept, for whatever reason, missed
its opportunity to enlighten me as to the line's supposed condition,
allowing a Maine switch the honor. As long as I'm not charged for
that (actually, those--I tried several times) "local" call, I guess I
don't care who's responsibility it is to give me the bad news.
Curious as always,
Doug Lee (dgl292@athenanet.com or uunet!pallas!dgl292)schwartz@aiag.enet.dec.com (07/24/90)
- a party line, in which a special code is used to call other phones on the same line; - some one-exchange municipalities, in which the exchange can be omitted, and only four digits need be dialed. Obviously, coming from the outside, you should not hear such a recording. On the other hand, if the second situation above was the case, and the local network was recently "upgraded" to require seven-digit dialing, there might be bugs, one of which was waiting there for you. Steve Disclaimer: I don't believe Digital -has- any opinions about the phone company.