jsol@bu-it.bu.edu (09/23/89)
Ah yes, I have stories about the mass calling prefixes (or numbers) in Connecticut (there weren't any) and elsewhere. First of all, the Mass Calling Prefixes (as I were told they were called) were designed as others have described them to limit the number of calls to one exchange or number so that hundreds of thousands of calls wouldn't interfere with the normal operation of the phone network. Nowadays this is only needed for the local exchange network, the long distance carriers have computers to restrict the number of calls to a given number to no more than a couple from each tandem. The 900 number used to call the President way back when was the experiement that led to this. I won't go into the details of this because someone already described the system, but they basically set up regional centers which took limited numbers of calls and sent them to a target spot in Washington and two lines to the president (one for the Call In Progress and one Waiting). *Everybody* else got a recording saying try again. It was toll free unless the call was answered. I had fun. In Hamden (a suburb of New Haven, CT), there was a small radio station, WCDQ (I was friends with the son of the owner of the station). The station was within the walking distance of my home. Their number was on the 203-281 ESS #1 exchange, as was mine. This was before the days of "user settable speed calling". I had WCDQ's phone number programmed in as *1 (it was *1 to *8 then, not 2# to 9# like it is now). When they announced a contest, I was quick on the trigger. All the other phones in the area were on step-by-step machines. I had the *fastest* route to the station. I was caller 2, 4, 6, 8, and the winner, 10. every time. They eventually told me I could only win one contest a month. Sigh. They almost told me I couldn't win anything since I was friends with the Station Owner..... but ..... My first experience with a MCP was in NYC, 212-955 (now also 718-955). I was calling in Long Distance from Hoboken, NJ, so it wasn't so bad. I did manage to win a few times. The system there seemed to be geared towards callers from outside of the 212/718 area codes. Maybe because I was in 201 helped since the lines went through ATT. In LA I found 213-520 (and now 818-520). Interesting about them was that they did two things. They 1) prevented you from flooding the network, and 2) prevented you from using speed dialing. The way they did that was to insert pulse dialing between the last tandem and the target machine. In additon, calls from that machine went out to the tandem FIRST so they would be treated the same as outside calls. I am fairly sure that 520 had a step tandem of sorts, because you always got the familiar rapid busy signal if you overloaded the tandem switch. Bop bop bop bop bop bop............. At the very least it was a step front end to the final machine making it impossible to be quick-on-the-fingers. I got around that by using several lines. --jsol [Moderator's Note: Jon Solomon was the founder of TELECOM Digest and the moderator for several years. PT]
vern@zebra.uucp (09/26/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0397m02@vector.dallas.tx.us>, jsol@bu-it.bu.edu writes: > Ah yes, I have stories about the mass calling prefixes (or numbers) in > Connecticut (there weren't any) and elsewhere. In the mid-fifties when television was in it's infancy, one of local stations teamed with a super market chain to produce an audience participation version of Bingo. The playing slips were passed out at the super market during the week. Then on Saturday evening at 6 or 7 pm the station had a 'LIVE' show during which the numbers were picked with the usual column of air blowing numbered ping-pong balls from the bin. Innocently, the TV station advertised it's own telephone number. "Gee, with a ten line PBX, we can handle the calls." No way! When the game progressed to the point that boards were nearly complete, the calls started to come in and all the telephones in downtown Denver quit working. On Monday, the Engineering staff was put to work to find a way that this wouldn't happen again. The TV station and the super-market had spent a lot of money promoting the game so they were 'extremely' reluctant to postpone future shows just because of an inconvenience to the Phone Company. Obviously the solution required additional equipment but where could they find the equivalent of another Central Office in less than than a week? Then someone eyed the companies own PBX. It was the equivalent of a central office and virtually unused at that time of the week. During normal working hours some twenty operators were employed answering incoming calls. All the requests for service, personal calls to employees as well as the many business calls were handled through the one rotary number ( TAbor 5-4171 ). But on Saturday night, only two ladies were enough to handle the low volume of traffic. Even then, they brought in knitting to keep themselves busy. Since the Central Office equipment and the PBX were in the same building, it was a reasonable task to tie-in the PBX to the general network. They then assigned an unused prefix to generate a pseudo-exchange. Calls coming into this pseudo-exchange were to be routed to the PBX and paesed out to the TV station on a special line. When the next Saturday night rolled around, the TV station announced a different number in the pseudo-exchange for each game. Actually, it didn't matter what number they used used, everything went to them anyhow but it added drama to the show. They didn't announce the number until half way through each game so the people at home could become anxious as their boards began to fill in. Everything worked well at the phone company except for one minor detail. They forgot about the switchboard. When all these calls came in on the PBX, the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree. The poor operators were sure that the city had suffered a major calamity and they nearly had heart attacks. The next week, the switchboard was blocked out except for the couple of lines reserved for company use. This tale was related to me at the time by my father. He was in the Dial Traffic Engineering group at Mountain States Tel. & Tel., now U. S. West Communications etc. etc. etc. ( Why they ever adopted such an obnoxiously long name, snows me! ) It was his job to get something working in one week's time. Vernon C. Hoxie {ncar,nbires,boulder,isis}!scicom!zebra!vern 3975 W. 29th Ave. voice: 303-477-1780 Denver, Colo., 80212 TB+ uucp: 303-455-2670
joe@mojave.ati.com (Joe Talbot) (09/27/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0397m02@vector.dallas.tx.us>, jsol@bu-it.bu.edu writes: > I am fairly sure that 520 had a step tandem of sorts, because you > always got the familiar rapid busy signal if you overloaded the tandem > switch. Bop bop bop bop bop bop............. At the very least it was > a step front end to the final machine making it impossible to be > quick-on-the-fingers. 213 520 was one of the strangest things I've ever encountered. Calling the same number several times, you would sometimes receive ESS precise busy signal or ring, sometimes SXS "honker" busy or ring. Certain numbers always gave you SXS ring/busy etc. It always dial pulsed into the switch (whatever it was!). That all finally went away maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Does anybody know the story on 213 520 ? joe@mojave I finally changed my dumb signature. People were always telling me what a great signature I had.