covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 28-Feb-1990 0811) (02/28/90)
Last November/December, in V9#5xx, there was a discussion of International Directory Assistance. Patrick made the eminently reasonable suggestion that International D.A. be directly diallable, as D.A. here in the U.S. and Canada is. Though I agreed with him in principle, I pointed out several technical and cultural problems with his suggestion. Well, there are more than technical and cultural problems. Quoting from CCITT Recommendation E.115 Section 3 "General principles applicable to the various methods of obtaining information": In any relation, Administrations should abide by the following general principles: a) Inquiries from customers concerning foreign subscribers' numbers should normally be addressed to operators in the country of origin who will obtain the required information; it may be useful to keep the customer on line while this information is being sought. b) In order to give operators in the country of origin ready access to the international telephone inquiry service in other countries, it is desirable that Administrations, in conformity with Recommendation E.149, provide common routing codes or abbreviated access numbers to the foreign computer- ized or manual telephone inquiry services. c) Technical arrangements should, as far as practicable, prevent access by a subscriber of one country to an operator of the telephone information service of another country. Administrations should not communicate access numbers of telephone information services in foreign countries to their subscribers. d) Exceptionally, however, subscribers in one country may be permitted to have access to the information service in another country subject to bilateral agreement between the Administrations concerned. /john [Moderator's Note: In response, in (a) if that is what they think is a good idea, then god-bless 'em. Personally I think it only adds additional confusion, given the relative lack of training AT&T is providing for their operators these days. If they want the US Operator to stumble through the call when it would take me thirty seconds to query the distant point, then its their nickle, not mine. Regards (b) 'common routing codes' of the form 555-1212 work fine here; some variant -- but as standard as possible -- would work on international calls. In point (c), nothing currently prevents me from dialing international DA direct *if* I know the number assigned for the purpose in the country being called; that is, the number being called by the operator presently. And in (d), here in the United States we already do this: We call direct for Canadian DA; along with any number of countries (or telephone administrations) in the 809 area. Why shouldn't we do it when calling the UK or West Germany? As per point (d), how do we rate all the exceptions where 809 is concerned? PT]
jcp@cgch.uucp (Joseph C. Pistritto) (03/01/90)
Living in Europe, let me tell you its a PITA that I can't
access directory assistance in the US... (Yes, even 555 1212 is
blocked from over here in Switzerland). Until USA Direct service came
to Switzerland (about 18 months ago), I had to impose on friends in
the US to call DA over there for me. Usually did this with folks with
3 way calling. Really freaked a few operators out...
This was in fact, the major reason I subscribed to USA Direct
(they issue 'imaginary number' calling cards, as I no longer have a US
valid phone number). Is it possible that the CCITT directives
mentioned before are the reason they WON'T give a calling card to
someone who isn't a US citizen, by the way? (It's worth noting that
over here they bill your calling card calls to your American Express
or Visa card ONLY, direct billing is *NOT* allowed. I would think
that by having your verified credit card number would be enough of a
credit verfication, they wouldn't need my US passport number as
well...) Besides, I don't think the State Department collects bad
debts, or is that a new service... (maybe that's the REAL story with
Noriega... :-) )
-jcp-
======================================================================
Joseph C. Pistritto HB9NBB N3CKF
'Think of it as Evolution in Action' (J.Pournelle)
Ciba Geigy AG, R1241.1.01, Postfach CH4002 Basel, Switzerland
Internet: jcp@brl.mil Phone: (+41) 61 697 6155
Bitnet: bpistr%cgch.uucp@cernvax.bitnet Fax: (+41) 61 697 2435
Also: cgch!bpistr@mcsun.eu.neturlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) (03/02/90)
In comp.dcom.telecom, article <4531@accuvax.nwu.edu>, covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 28-Feb-1990 0811) writes: < In any relation, Administrations should abide by the following general < principles: < a) Inquiries from customers concerning foreign subscribers' numbers should < normally be addressed to operators in the country of origin who will > obtain the required information; it may be useful to keep the customer > on line while this information is being sought. Last time I was in the US, I had to get a number in Nuernberg (Nuremberg to you), West Germany. I had lots of fun convincing first the International D.A. and then the operator to place the call (no intl dialing...) that the area code of Nuernberg is in fact valid -- it's 911, which seems to be used for a quite different purpose in the US... On the other hand, I was astonished that there are still corners in the US (it was somewhere near Philadelphia, in fact) where one still couldn't dial international calls directly, or (once in Boston) where the public phone where I dialled 011-49-911-... seemed to have overlooked the first five digits, and the call was free. :-) Matthias Urlichs
covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 03-Mar-1990 0837) (03/03/90)
Matthias Urlichs writes: >Last time I was in the US, I had to get a number in Nuernberg >(Nuremberg to you), West Germany. >I had lots of fun convincing first the International D.A. and then the >operator to place the call (no intl dialing...) that the area code of >Nuernberg is in fact valid -- it's 911, which seems to be used for a >quite different purpose in the US... The problem here was that you probably "said too much." To call D.A. in Germany, an operator just presses the "Overseas" button and dials 49-1188. (In accordance with the CCITT recommendation, this doesn't work for us mere mortals.) You should have simply said "please get me Directory Assistance for Nuernberg, Germany." She would have looked up the location in the routing guide and dialled what it told her to dial. Incoming International D.A. for all of Germany is handled in Ffm, and your providing the area code only confused matters. An exception to the above is D.A. for U.S., Canadian, and British Military. The routing guide lists all the military prefixes, and AT&T will call the U.S. military PBX information operators as a free D.A. call, dialling the same number you could have dialled for a fee. This is why, when you say "D.A. for Nuernberg, please," the operator will often ask "is that military." >On the other hand, I was astonished that there are still corners in >the US (it was somewhere near Philadelphia, in fact) where one still >couldn't dial international calls directly, This has been discussed before -- No. 5 XBar offices in most of the country (PacTel apparently being an exception) do not have the register capacity to handle the long numbers. >or (once in Boston) where the public phone where I dialled 011-49-911-... >seemed to have overlooked the first five digits, and the call was free. :-) I suspect if you had tried any other international number it might have been free as well. There is a fairly common No. 1 ESS C.O. programming error which makes all 011+ calls free. If undiscovered by the masses, the bug may hang around for years. If the location of the misprogrammed phones gets published and people start using them, the phone company will often try to have the police catch some of the offenders before fixing the problem. /john
urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de (Matthias Urlichs) (03/04/90)
In comp.dcom.telecom, article <4692@accuvax.nwu.edu>, covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 03-Mar-1990 0837) writes: < Matthias Urlichs writes: < > I had lots of fun convincing first the International D.A. and then the < > operator to place the call (no intl dialing...) that the area code of < > Nuernberg is in fact valid -- it's 911, which seems to be used for a < > quite different purpose in the US... < The problem here was that you probably "said too much." To call D.A. < in Germany, an operator just presses the "Overseas" button and dials < 49-1188. (In accordance with the CCITT recommendation, this doesn't < work for us mere mortals.) Thinking back, it was somewhat more complicated. German DA was switching their number from 118 to 1188 at that time. The old number, understandably, did not seem to do anything. Major confusion resulted. :-) I managed to persuade the D.A. operator to at least _try_ 1188 (seemed to be very astonished when it actually worked) -- then when she started reading back that number (didn't let me in on the call) she stopped halfway and exclaimed "Sorry, but that can't be correct". Me: "Yes it is, please give me the rest of the number." You can probably think of the next few exchanges yourself... < [...] I suspect if you had tried any other international number it might < have been free as well. There is a fairly common No. 1 ESS C.O. < programming error which makes all 011+ calls free. [...] This seems to be a somewhat better ;-) explanation than my conjecture. Thanks. Matthias Urlichs
hrs1@cbnewsi.ATT.COM (herman.r.silbiger) (03/05/90)
The full title of Rec. E.115 is "Computerizedd Information Service for Telephone Subscriber Numbers in Foreign Countries (Directory Assistance), Reserved for Operators". This Rec. contains not only the rules for operating the service, but also the format of the messages, and the protocols to be used. There is also a format definition of directory messages in ASN.1. This Rec. has only been implemented in a limited number of European countries. There is general thatt the future for this kind of system lies with the use of F.500 and X.500 based systems. Herman Silbiger