edg@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Edward Greenberg) (11/30/89)
Last month, my phone bill advertised a little service called Intercom Plus. Being the phone junkie I am, I called up the business office and ordered it right up. I'll spare you the details of how the business office didn't understand this, or what I went through to get it, and tell about the service. I'll describe the service in technical terms rather than marketing fluff. 1. You pick up the phone and dial one of three codes, and hang up. The phone rings back, and when you pick up you get talking battery. 2. You're talking to somebody and want to signal somebody else in the house to pick up. You flash, dial one of the three codes, and hang up. The phone rings back and you wait until the other party picks up. (Then you optionally pick up too, depending on whether you wanted to continue to participate.) For the above two services, the codes are: *51 short-short *52 short-short-long *53 short-long-short 3. Extension hold. You want to put a call on hold. You flash, hit *54 and hang up. Your call sits until picked up or the other party hangs up. 4. Three way calling. Since the service requires the ability to flash, it requires Three Way calling. They bundle three-way in, so if you had it before, you stop paying for it separately. Pacific Bell sells this for $4 per month. -edg Ed Greenberg +1 415-694-2952 (day) uunet!apple!netcom!edg edg@cso.3mail.3com.com 76703,1070 on CompuServe
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (12/03/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0542m01@chinacat.lonestar.org>, apple!netcom!edg@ ames.arc.nasa.gov (Edward Greenberg) writes: > Last month, my phone bill advertised a little service called Intercom > Plus. Being the phone junkie I am, I called up the business office > and ordered it right up. Leave it to Pac*Bell to sell its ringback codes to the public and then have to gall to refer to it as "advanced" service. How long is Pac*Bell going to sell bits and pieces of Centrex service to the residential and small business public while avoiding the necessary upgrades to offer really state-of-the-art telephone service? They could have offered "Intercom Plus" over twenty years ago when they installed my CO switch. It took them this long to come up with this marketing ploy? I had better shut up before the Phone Police discover that I have more than a black rotary dial phone in my house. The CPUC has made it quite clear that this as much as anyone really needs. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
deej@bellcore.bellcore.com> (12/05/89)
In article <1755@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > In article <telecom-v09i0542m01@chinacat.lonestar.org>, apple!netcom!edg@ > ames.arc.nasa.gov (Edward Greenberg) writes: > > Last month, my phone bill advertised a little service called Intercom > > Plus. Being the phone junkie I am, I called up the business office > > and ordered it right up. > Leave it to Pac*Bell to sell its ringback codes to the public and then > have to gall to refer to it as "advanced" service. > How long is Pac*Bell going to sell bits and pieces of Centrex service > to the residential and small business public while avoiding the > necessary upgrades to offer really state-of-the-art telephone service? As long as necessary to fully depreciate their 1AESSs. Pac*Bell has a whole pile of 1As; the 1A feature book is about 4 pages thick; Pac*Bell is not allowed by the CPUC to writedown their 1As for several years yet; it doesn't take a genius to figure out their best move... Seriously, have you seen a thing called the "Intelligent Network Task Force Report"? Their definition of "Intelligent Network" is about 10 times the size of my definition, but it's interesting -- the definition of what's needed for "really state-of-the-art telephone service." I won't go into it (it's a fairly long piece of work), but copies should be available -- it's a public document. However, the only address I have for Pac*Bell documentation is: Pacific Bell Information Exchange 2600 Camino Ramon, Room 1S450 San Ramon, CA 94583 (415) 823-0222 (I got my copy at the 1989 IN ComForum in Chicago.) David G Lewis ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej (@ Bellcore Navesink Research & Engineering Center) "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower."
John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com> (12/07/89)
In article <1803@accuvax.nwu.edu>, nvuxr!deej@bellcore.bellcore.com (David Lewis) writes: > > How long is Pac*Bell going to sell bits and pieces of Centrex service > > to the residential and small business public while avoiding the > > necessary upgrades to offer really state-of-the-art telephone service? > As long as necessary to fully depreciate their 1AESSs. I have no problem with Pac*Bell keeping their 1As around for awhile. They can provide almost any service currently available (with help from an adjunct, they can provide *any* service) and they do it in a grand style when compared to DMS or 5ESS. 1AESS has always had superior feature implementation, IMHO. My major gripe involves the way Pac*Bell can't get off their can and replace their rickety-tickety crossbar. Don't tell me they can't write those dinosaurs off yet. And in my case, I am sick of this 1ESS that can't even do "cancel call forwarding". My CO has four prefixes of 1ESS (marginal, at best) and eight (8) prefixes of crossbar. For any telco that pretends to be "big time", this is laughable. But it boils down to: Yes my calls are completed somewhat reliably (if slowly), dialtone is there most of the time (when the earth doesn't shake), and I can hear the party to whom I am speaking. If it was GTE, that would all be somewhat iffy. So I'm supposed to count my blessings, and be thankful that I have Pac*Bell. Well, I guess crossbar is better than directorized step-by-step. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !