wasilko@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Jeff Wasilko) (08/03/89)
The following article is from the L.A. Times. It describes a claim by an operator of a local 'talking yellow pages' that Pacific Bell is intentionally disrupting his Centrex service. There have been other claims against PacBell, such as a telephone installer who claims PacBell intentionally botched his company's ad that was placed in the yellow pages for the past two or three years. Rival Claims PacBell Gave It A 'Virus' Owner of Talking Yellow Pages Says Phones Often Go Dead By Bruce Keppel, Times Staff Writer To Michael Amin, it seemed a natural: A 'talking' phone book for people who would rather deal with the operator than finger through the yellow pages. So, Amin set up a Los Angeles-based firm, Primex Talking Yellow Pages, to provide callers a choice of whatever category of company or service the request--for example, a selection of physicians of a given specialty and working in a particular area. The Primex operator can connect the caller with the doctor he or she wants. But the hang-up for Amin has been Pacific Bell. The phone company says it has been unable to find the electronic 'virus' that, for 18 months, has bedeviled Primex. The result for Primex has been to have many of its 36 telephone lines go dead at crucial moments--such as right after broadcast of television and radio commercials inviting the audience to call for a trial. Don't Know the Cause -------------------- At other times, Amin said, conversations are cut off in mid-sentence. And sometimes callers hear ringing while Primex operators hear nothing or, answering a ring, find no one on the line. Despite extensive testing by Pacific Bell technicians, who say they don't know the cause of Primex's problems, the company's phone troubles have persisted for 18 months. Amin said they now threaten Primex's pioneering venture, which competes with Pacific Bell's yellow page directories. He noted that Pacific Bell and other former Bell companies have repeatedly--and vainly--sought court permission to enter the talking phone book business. Last month, Amin lodged a formal complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission, whose consumer division expects to compete its evaluation this month. Meanwhile, the PUC's five members held a final in San Francisco on Monday to hear from businesses such as Primex before deciding to accept proposals submitted separately by Pacific Bell and GTE California, to change telecommunications regulation in the state. Amin and other telephone industry entrepreneurs have complained that giving the big phone companies more flexibility might clear the way for Pacific Bell and GTE to use dirty tricks and other unfair practices to drive competitors out of business. For instance, Dennis Love has testified before the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce that his Marin County telephone-equipment repair service failed after advertisements bought in Pacific Bell's local phone books were botched in two of the last three years. In Amin's case, the business is still running, although the number of employees has plunged to 30 from a high of 70 when the company moved to larger quarters near Los Angeles International Airport. That day, Feb. 1, 1988, the young company's local telephone service unaccountably went haywire, Amin said. Deliberate Tampering -------------------- In it's complaint, Primex accuses Pacific Bell of indulging in 'illegal harassment' and 'deliberate tampering' with the company's phone lines, most of which are attached to a Pacific Bell Centrex control unit. The goal, the complaint charges, is to destroy the company's business. Amin attached several pages of single-spaced entries chronicling scores of service irregularities and said he has many more on file. Pacific Bell spokeswomen Kathleen Flynn confirmed the existence of repeated complaints by Primex but said that 2400 tests have so far turned up no glitch in the phone company's equipment. Flynn said 99.8% of Pacific Bell's test calls went through without a hitch. 'There's no reason for us at any time and at any case to disrupt a customer's business,' she said. 'That's just not the way we do business.' But Amin disputed the validity of that finding. When he asked Pacific Bell last month to monitor one day's phone traffic for his firm, he said, the utility found that 41% of the calls lasted less than 15 seconds--too brief, he said, to be completed business calls.
john@apple.com (John Higdon) (08/05/89)
Back in '85, GTE Mobilnet began cellular service in the San Francisco
bay area. It did a horrible job. In late '86 Cellular One came in as
the non-wireline carrier and offered greatly superior service. There
was a mass exodus to the new system that was owned 50% by Pacific
Telesis. They also offered a new twist: calls from anywhere in the
service area directed to a mobile would be toll-free no matter where
the mobile prefix was actually located.
GTE Mobilnet, which was by now getting its act together got the same
arrangement. But even though granted this "land line-no toll" by the
PUC, it doesn't really do them much good. Why? Pacific Bell runs the
phones. To this day, you can pick up virtually any PB pay phone in the
greater SF bay area and dial any Cellular One prefix from Santa Rosa to
San Jose for twenty cents. If you try it with a GTE Mobilnet prefix,
the automatic coin voice will ask for the prevailing toll rate for that
call, even though they have the identical tariff in the matter.
This is IMHO a blatant, clear-cut example of Pacific Telesis using its
control of the local telephone network to serve its own ends. The
standard answer from Pac*Bell whenever you confront them with something
like this is, "We would never do that intentionally. We don't have to
do business that way." I've been given that line from them many times.
While I am generally a fan of deregulation, I have seen enough evidence
that Pac*Bell tends to be slimy and the PUC should go very slowly in
the direction of removing controls.
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John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !