pf@islington-terrace.csc.ti.com (Paul Fuqua) (11/10/89)
The November 9, 1989, Dallas Morning News contains a short
article about a suit that AT&T filed the day before, charging that pay
phones made by Intellicall, a COCOT manufacturer in Carrollton (a
northwest suburb of Dallas), "surreptitiously reach into AT&T's
computerised system of verifying calling cards." AT&T wants
unspecified damages plus $2 million in punitive damages.
Intellicall's phones, called IntelliStar, "call into remote
computer systems, such as AT&T's, to retrieve information about the
caller and verify the card." AT&T also says they can't block the
calls, because "when the call comes in, it looks like any other
customer call." (Sounds like a case of the COCOT placing a call via
AT&T just to verify the card, then cancelling and calling via its
usual carrier.)
The article also includes the usual amount of sniping from both
sides (AT&T says talks with Intellicall failed, Intellicall says there
were no such talks). Coincidentally enough, Intellicall was about to
sell 1.25 million shares in a new public stock offering; that's
delayed now, and Intellicall's stock dropped from $14.50 to $12.00.
Paul Fuqua pf@csc.ti.com
{smu,texsun,cs.utexas.edu,rice}!ti-csl!pf
Texas Instruments Computer Science Center
PO Box 655474 MS 238, Dallas, Texas 75265