bukys@cs.rochester.edu (03/14/90)
I have recently discovered that my department is being charged for long-distance phone calls after 4 rings, whether there is an answer or not. The University has a ROLM phone system internally. It does "least cost" routing to a number of long-distance carriers. Now, in the consumer world, I thought it was long settled that charges for incomplete calls were not acceptable and that the various technical issues had been laid to rest. Am I right? Now, I'm wondering (1) whether there is any technical excuse: (a) in general, or (b) for a PBX (e.g. our ROLM system), or (c) for international calls. (2) whether this violates any tarriffs. I will be pursuing this with our telecommunications people as well, but would appreciate the commentary of all you smart and disinterested telecom experts. Liudvikas Bukys <bukys@cs.rochester.edu> University of Rochester Rochester, NY USA
Andrew Boardman <amb@cs.columbia.edu> (03/16/90)
In article <5181@accuvax.nwu.edu> bukys@cs.rochester.edu writes: >I have recently discovered that my department is being charged for >long-distance phone calls after 4 rings, whether there is an answer or >not. The University has a ROLM phone system internally. It does >"least cost" routing to a number of long-distance carriers. All of the ROLM systems I have seen have done very clever things as far as returning call supervision to calling parties (they don't until they *sbsolutely* have to; following the letter of the law lets them get away with some interesting things), *HOWEVER*, "supervision" is a foreign word when it comes to outgoing calls. The rationale I've gotten from ROLM and other *BX vendors is that they are primarily targeting for a business environment, and businesses aren't particularly concerned with calculating which account made which calls, as they are all presumably made to further the cause of the business. >Now, in the consumer world, I thought it was long settled that charges >for incomplete calls were not acceptable and that the various technical >issues had been laid to rest. Am I right? As the saying goes, no one ever gets fired for buying (recommending to buy, et cetera) IBM stuff. "How could it have been the wrong choice, it was made by IBM!" The consumer world is not the business world, not by far. >Now, I'm wondering > (1) whether there is any technical excuse: > (a) in general, or No. I've worked on several ROLM boxes, and they've *all* been junk. > (b) for a PBX (e.g. our ROLM system), or No. (presuming any sort of sanity with outgoing trunk connections) > (c) for international calls. Hmm... not so sure about this one... > (2) whether this violates any tarriffs. As far as I can tell, no. (I wish!) I currently live in Columbia University housing, and am forced to live with an IBM/ROLM 9751. Most people were quite unhappy with the price/performance ratio of ROLM when it was newly installed, and some people (students, like me) were looking for any means at all to get out of it (from lawsuits to starting their own telephone service (a certain party with a NYNEX line and a 5 station key system won't be mentioned :->)). It's a classic case of the fascist-university-wants-to-be-a-telephone-company-too thing that's been posted about a lot lately. I thought AT&T would stop appearing in my *local* phone bills after 1984. (They still do, courtesy ACUS.) [I eventually forked over for having a New York Tel. line installed in addition to the ROLM line. The ROLM only gets use for those under-45-second calls. (Like those $50 900 numbers and such.) (Of course, two weeks later, idiot contractors cut through *all* of the New York Tel lines around here, and the out-of-service credits for the month it took to get fixed (during the NYNEX strike) counterbalanced my phone bills for months. The striker-replacement "repair" people were really pathetic. My line was fixed within 48 hours of the end of the strike. :-> (They traced the problem in about 15 minutes, and then spent the next few hours ripping out a wall (*not* mine :->) with three of their friends to get at the cable break. (They said it was the most fun they'd had in a while.)))] Andrew Boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu ...rutgers!columbia!amb amb%cs.columbia.edu@cuvmb.bitnet or try amb@ai.ai.mit.edu if the Columbia machines are having problems
jimmy@icjapan.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) (03/17/90)
In article <5181@accuvax.nwu.edu> bukys@cs.rochester.edu writes: >I have recently discovered that my department is being charged for >long-distance phone calls after 4 rings, whether there is an answer or >not. The University has a ROLM phone system internally. It does >"least cost" routing to a number of long-distance carriers. A lot of these problems stems from the fact that telcos will normally refuse to give answer supervision except to real carriers. I have never quite understood why. What do they have to lose by providing it? But since they will not provide any indication of when a called number has answered, most private telephone systems have no choice but to establish a time period, after which, they assume the call has been answered. Jim Gottlieb Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ <jimmy@pic.ucla.edu> or <jimmy@denwa.info.com> or <attmail!denwa!jimmy> Fax: (011)+81-3-237-5867 Voice Mail: (011)+81-3-222-8429