gkj@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gregory K Johnson) (11/09/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0491m05@vector.dallas.tx.us> rmadison@euler.berkeley. edu (Linc Madison) writes: >In article <telecom-v09i0486m05@vector.dallas.tx.us> Bill Fenner >(wcf@hcx.psu.edu) writes: >>AT&T announced a new service at Penn State's University Park campus >>this fall, called ACUS long-distance service. With this service, each >>student gets their own PSC (Personal Security Code). The PSC >>identifies the student, no matter which room he is calling from.... >This sounds very similar to the system used in the dorms at >UC-Berkeley, although my understanding was that it was more the >University than the telco or LD Co that put this into place. There >was one HUGE hitch: if you ever accepted a collect call, you were hit >with a HEFTY surcharge, to the tune of $20 or some such absurdity, to >cover the administrative cost of manually assigning the charge to your >account. At Columbia University, ACUS administers the billing for our ROLM PBX campus phone system. I have the following complaints about it, some of which have to do with ROLM I think more than ACUS, but I find the ACUS people much more difficult to deal with than New York Telephone or any other local phone company. 1. They will charge $5 to accept a collect call, because it requires a human clerk to handle the billing. 2. They will cut off your service when either (a) you are more than 5 days late in paying it or (b) you go over some pre-set credit limit. You get no warning if either of these conditions is imminent, and it takes *over two weeks* in some cases to reactivate service because the only way to get it back is to mail them a check and wait for them to get around to processing it. 3. Due to the problem in (1), they will not allow calls to 976, 1-900, or any other exchanges which have special billing arrangements. 4. They do not provide supervised billing. While they will give you credit for uncompleted calls, they will admonish you not to let the phone ring more than *six times* or you will be billed for the call. This is ridiculous and I tell them so every time I have to call them to get credit for my dozen or so uncompleted calls. In conclusion, ACUS sucks and so does ROLM. Get a standard phone line if you can. Greg Johnson
klb@lzaz.att.com (Kevin Blatter) (11/12/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0501m01@vector.dallas.tx.us>, gkj@cunixb.cc.columbia. edu (Gregory K Johnson) writes: > At Columbia University, ACUS administers the billing for our ROLM PBX > campus phone system. I have the following complaints about it, some > of which have to do with ROLM I think more than ACUS, but I find the > ACUS people much more difficult to deal with than New York Telephone > or any other local phone company. > 3. ... they will not allow calls to 976, 1-900, > or any other exchanges which have special billing arrangements. > 4. They do not provide supervised billing. While they will give you credit > for uncompleted calls, they will admonish you not to let the phone ring > more than *six times* or you will be billed for the call. This is > ridiculous and I tell them so every time I have to call them to get > credit for my dozen or so uncompleted calls. > In conclusion, ACUS sucks and so does ROLM. Get a standard phone line > if you can. Unless the PBX is connected to the CO via ISDN lines, there is no way for the PBX to know if a call is completed or not. I suspect that whoever the "ACUS People" are also don't know whether calls were completed, since they probably draw their information from the ROLM SMDR (Station Message Detail Recording) port. Also, ACUS probably is not privy to the 900 billing database. Therefore, it is not just ROLM (or ACUS), but anybody with this kind of configuration would provide the same sort of thing. I was talking to my sister who is a college senior and they are doing this sort of thing on her campus (BYU) as well, so it seems to be a trend that is sweeping across college campuses. Don't feel bad, she says that her LD service is provided by a company called Tel-America and her opinion is that the line quality sucks. She makes all of her LD calls at pay phones or at friends' homes where she can choose her LD company. Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Disclaimer -- I have nothing to do with ACUS (or ROLM ;-) ) and the opinions that are expressed herein are strictly my own.
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (11/15/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0506m07@vector.dallas.tx.us>, klb@lzaz.att.com (Kevin Blatter) writes: > Unless the PBX is connected to the CO via ISDN lines, there is no way > for the PBX to know if a call is completed or not. Not true. Hotel/motel PBXs have been doing this for decades. The most common way for a CO to signal to the PBX that the call has been answered is a battery reversal on the trunk (not very high tech, but such is life). The means is there; the question is whether or not they make use of it. > I was talking to my sister who is a college senior and they are doing > this sort of thing on her campus (BYU) as well, so it seems to be a > trend that is sweeping across college campuses. This seems to be the order of the day since the big breakup. Anytime some slimeballs see a concentrated, easy pickens market to skim from, a new "service" is born. Remember how we were now supposed to be able to *choose* who provided our services? > She makes all of her > LD calls at pay phones or at friends' homes where she can choose her > LD company. It seems that more and more, service providers are trying to make sure our choices are limited so they can sock it to us. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
dave@uunet.uu.net (Dave Levenson) (11/16/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0506m07@vector.dallas.tx.us>, klb@lzaz.att.com (Kevin Blatter) writes: ... > Unless the PBX is connected to the CO via ISDN lines, there is no way > for the PBX to know if a call is completed or not. Not necessarily true. Answer supervision on outgoing trunks is available from most local central offices including #5 crossbar, 1ESS, 1AESS, and 5ESS. It takes the form of a trunk battery reversal when the far end answers. It is an extra-cost feature, at least according to NJ Bell's tariffs, but it is available if you buy it. Some PBX equipment is designed to use this information if it's provided. Mitel PBX equipment can use it to decide whether or not to generate an SMDR record for an outgoing call. I don't know about the Rolm switch used to provide ACUS. Dave Levenson Voice: (201) 647 0900 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave