DREUBEN@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU (Douglas Scott Reuben) (05/19/88)
Another COCOT story, submitted for your inspection:
Yesterday on the Mass Pike (I-90) I stopped at a Sunoco
station, about 10 miles West of Newton. Unlike the other Mass Pike service
stations, this one had the AT&T COCOTs. These are NOT AT&T Card Caller phones,
which you see in Airports and Hotels, which have the video display screen.
These are COCOT phones which AT&T makes, which have the little orange square
in the upper left corner of the phone, making them look a lot like regular
Bell Phones.
In any event, I tried to place a calling card call, and when I heard
to calling card tone, dialed "0" to ask the Alternate Operator Service (AOS)
operator what the surcharge was for using a calling card. She didn't have
any idea, and told me to call the 800 number listed on the phone. I called
the 800 number, and I was told by a really charming lady that "Dis in only
de answering service. I dunno nutin' 'bout no 'surcharge'!" Fair enough.
I call the AOS operator, and ask for Long Distance. She says "Where are you
calling to?" and I said, "Can you just get me the AT&T operator?!!". She
refused (which I don't think they are allowed to do), so I dialed "0", got
a New England Tel. operator, asked her for an AT&T operator, and then had
the AT&T operator place the call at regular AT&T rates. This took about 10
minutes, and my call lasted for maybe 45 seconds!
On the way back to the car, my friends asked me what too so long,
and I told them about how bad the phones were inside. They then pointed to
the Bell phones outside, and said I should NEVER use anything other than
'real' Bell phones...Guess all that advertising that the Bell Companies do
really DOES pay off!!
On a related note, last month I got a 'newsletter' from AT&T's Reach
Out American Program (where you buy Long Distance by the hour), and it
warned people not to use COCOTs for calling card calls, due to exessivly
high charges...Sort of rediculous that AT&T sells these things (which are
by far some of the WORST COCOTs as they don't let you get around using an
AOS service that easily), and then warns its customers not to use them. I
guess AT&T is ashamed of the COCOTs, and thats why it doesn't put its name
on them...
Finally, as to dialing 1+212-603-xxxx in NYC...The really interesting
things start happening when you want to make a Calling Card (or operator
assist) call. If you dial, for example, 0+603-555-1234, and you take a long
time to dial it in, the calling card equipment thinks you are dialing the
local number 603-5551, and hands you off to the NY Tel Calling Card system.
After you enter your Calling Card number, you get the wrong number, and since
you can't make an inter-LATA call after you dial a intra-LATA calling card
call in downstate N.Y., you have to hang up and dial the whole thing again.
I've seen people at Kennedy Airport with this problem, and usually they end
up having to have the operators place the call.
-Doug
DReuben%Eagle.Weslyn@Wesleyan.Bitnet
DReuben@Eagle.Weslyn