AI.CLIVE@MCC.COM (Clive Dawson) (09/29/88)
I thought you folks would be amused by the letter I just received from my friendly local phone company: ****************** September 26, 1988 Dear Customer: Southwestern Bell Telephone Company has filed a tariff with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of Texas which, if approved, will affect the hunting line feature you currently have with your telephone services. The PUC has assigned Docket 8256 to this tariff filing. Hunting line service, also called "hunting," "rotary" or "companion line" lets incoming calls to customers with two or more premise lines "hunt" for the first available line which isn't busy. Except for select El Paso territory "hunting" lines which were transferred from Mountain Bell to Southwestern Bell in 1982, the PUC has not authorized us to provide hunting line service to residence or message rate business customers. Therefore, your account is one where Southwestern Bell Telephone has been providing hunting line service in error. This service has been provided to you at no additional charge. In Docket 8256, Southwestern Bell has asked the PUC to allow the company to continue to provide hunting line service to its single-party residence and message-rate business customers. We have proposed a monthly rate of $.50 per month per line for "Series Hunt"-- in addition to the applicable line rates. Series Hunt is the most common form of hunting and is the service you currently have. Southwestern Bell has also requested tariffs for other enhanced hunting arrangements. The company also proposes that, after the hunting tariffs are approved, our customers would be given the option of continuing the service and paying the additional monthly rate. You will not, however, be charged for service connection or installation fees if you retain the hunting line service in your present service arrangement. Under the company's proposal, if you choose not to retain the hunting line service, or if you do not make a choice, your hunting service will be discontinued and you will not pay the additional monthly rate. There will be no charge if you discontinue the hunting line service. These proposed changes will not occur until the PUC makes a decision on our tariff filing. If the PUC does not approve hunting line service for message rate business or residence customers, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company proposes to disconnect your hunting service at no charge. In that event, you may retain hunting service by subscribing to flat rate multi-line business service. If you wish to intervene in this proceeding you should contact the PUC of Texas, 7800 Shoal Creek Blvd., Suite 400N, Austin, Texas, 78757, (512)458-0100 or (512)458-0221, teletypewriter for the deaf, no later than October 27. Once the PUC has made a final decision on this tariff filing, we will notify you of your service options. If you would like more information about the proposed changes in your hunting line service, please call your local business office. Southwestern Bell Telephone Company ************ I'm considering the idea of attending the PUC hearings to give my views on this. Any tips about how this service works in other states and what typical fees are would be helpful. This is a perfect example of a feature (like Touch-Tone) which effectively is controlled by one or more bits inside the ESS system, and which has worked very nicely for several years. Now that the bean counters have found out about it, it may very well disappear. By the way, an amusing side light to this that when I moved into my house and ordered two phone lines with the hunting feature, the installation charges were actually CHEAPER than if I had ordered two completely independent lines! Cheers, Clive
dts.UUCP@seismo.css.gov (Daniel Senie) (10/05/88)
[Discussion of hunting on residential lines] New England Telephone does not charge any fee for hunting and will provide it to residential customers. The cheapest phone service in my area is about $5. With call waiting costing at least $3 (I can't get it -- more later) it makes much more sense to get two lines and the hunt. Of course installation of the second line does cost something... This is basically the only option in my town as we have a step-by-step exchange. The old mechanical dinosaur does not handle touch-tones (it takes forever for the modem to dial...) and needs to have its contacts cleaned every few weeks. N.E. Tel. Has informed me that they will put an ESS into service on Nov. 3, 1990. It seems kind of odd that they know the precise day, but that's typical of them. -- Daniel Senie UUCP: harvard!ulowell!cloud9!dts Stratus Computer, Inc. ARPA: anvil!cloud9!dts@harvard.harvard.edu 55 Fairbanks Blvd. CSRV: 74176,1347 Marlboro, MA 01752 TEL.: 508 - 460 - 2686
AI.CLIVE@mcc.com (Clive Dawson) (03/21/89)
A few months ago I posted an item dealing with hunting service on residential lines. Southwestern Bell had been offering this service for years, then discovered that they weren't charging for it, and finally got a tariff approved with the Texas Public Utility Commission. Those of us which used this service received a letter in which we were told we could either drop hunting or start paying $.50 per month per line for the service. I have two lines at home, A and B. When somebody calls A and A is in use, the call will come in on line B. However, if somebody calls B and B is in use, they will get a busy signal. Here's the problem: I elected to keep hunting, and I just received my first phone bill with the new hunting charges on it. I was expecting a $.50 charge, but instead was charged $2.00! An inquiry yielded resulted in this dialog: SWB: "Yes, we made a mistake by charging you $1. per line, we should have charged you only $.50 per line. We will credit your account with $1." ME: "The credit should be $1.50. Only one of my lines has hunting. The other one doesn't." SWB: "No, the charge is $.50 per line. You can't have hunting with only one line; that wouldn't make sense." ME: "Why should I pay for hunting on my second line when it doesn't have it? Why are you charging for a service on the second line when it doesn't do anything different for me that a regular line doesn't?" SWB: "I'm sorry, but that's the way hunting works. Some places have 20 or 30 or 50 lines, and they pay $.50 per line." ME: "All right, I'd like to cancel hunting on my second line, please." SWB: [Long pause.] "I'm sorry, sir, we can't do that without canceling it for you altogether." ME: "Fine. Then I would like to ADD hunting on my second line, please." I want calls to be sent to my first line if the second line is busy. SWB: "Oh. That's called circular hunting. There are different rates for that, but I'm not familiar with them, so I'll have to research this and call you back." That's where things stand now. I'll be calling the Texas PUC to get a copy of the actual tariff. I was upset enough about the fact that the bean counters decided they had to make money from a service it was costing them nothing to provide, and which actually enhanced their revenue since fewer busy signals meant that more long distance calls get charged. Now I discover that the $.50 charge is a myth, since they are claiming that there is no way to get hunting on only one line, and this is even more infuriating. Does anybody have an experience with hunting tariffs in other parts of the country which would help in this battle? Thanks, Clive ------- [Moderator's Note: I've had hunting on my residential lines for years. Illinois Bell does not charge for hunting, or its close relative, 'jump hunting', which occurs when the hunted number is in proximity to, but not next in sequence to the hunting number. They do charge for circular hunting, and backward hunting, both of which are theoretically only possible on an ESS exchange. They will hunt off your exchange for an added cost. If you have hunting, then call-waiting is only available on the last line in the hunt group since call-waiting relies on a line testing busy, which it will never truly do as long as it can hunt elsewhere. PT]
syd@eecs.nwu.edu (Syd Weinstein) (03/22/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0100m01@vector.UUCP> AI.CLIVE@mcc.com (Clive Dawson) writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 100, message 1 of 7 >Does anybody have an experience with hunting tariffs in other parts >of the country which would help in this battle? I have had hunting, both on residence and business in several parts of the country. Bell of PA doesn't charge a recurring charge for hunting for residence or business. Note, hunting is only available in older exchanges if you have adjacent numbers, or on modern exchanges anywhere in the exchange. I have never been charged anywhere for hunting, other than a one time setup charge. -- ===================================================================== Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900 {allegra,bpa,vu-vlsi}!dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235