goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) (03/19/90)
In article <5093@accuvax.nwu.edu>, SYSMATT@ukcc.uky.edu (Matt Simpson) writes: > A South Central Bell rep called twice, I was out both times, and left > a message for me to return her call. The number she left was a > 557-xxxx number, which is the format of all of SCB's business office, > repair service, etc. numbers in this area. Unfortunately, I work in a > GTE area, and it isn't possible to dial a 557 number from a GTE phone, > so I never got my answers. I had a similar problem last fall. Due to various real-estate weasel shenanigans, our scheduled move to our new house was delayed a couple of weeks. As I had previously arranged with Southern Bell to switch our line over to the new address on a given date (both houses are served by the same CO), I called them back four days before the scheduled switchover and informed them of the delay. "No problem," they assured me. Well, you guessed it, they blew it. Friday evening rolls around, and suddenly our phone no longer has dial tone. And of course, this is the Friday night before Labor Day, so I figure we're doomed to a long weekend without phone service. But I went back into work and tried to call Southern Bell's customer repair number anyway. This number (780-BELL) is toll-free and supposedly universally available across the multi-state Southern Bell territory. My only problem was that my work phone is in GTE-land, from which there seems to be no way on earth to dial that number! Finally, after getting the GTE operator to connect me with a Southern Bell operator, I managed to extract a real, dialable, long distance number which I was told I could dial collect. That worked, and our phone service was back by the next day. However, this business of undialable numbers is disturbing. It's bad enough that you can't directly dial +1-800-nxx-xxxx from other countries, but now local numbers too? Bob Goudreau +1 919 248 6231 Data General Corporation 62 Alexander Drive goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 ...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!goudreau USA