telecom@ucbvax.ARPA (04/28/85)
From: Jon Solomon (the Moderator) <Telecom-Request@BBNCCA>
TELECOM Digest Sun, 28 Apr 85 15:36:21 EDT Volume 4 : Issue 184
Today's Topics:
long distance carriers
re: Surge Supressors for Telephones
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Date: Sat, 27 Apr 85 16:41:41 pst
From: sdcsvax!sdcc7!li63sdl@Berkeley (DAVID SMITH)
To: -s@Berkeley, AT&T@Berkeley, Billing@Berkeley, PacTel@Berkeley,
Please post the following to telecom digest
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I recently had my telephone disconnected due to the fact that my
roommate had forgotten to pay the bill. I have no dispute with the
billing, however, my question is: My PacTel bill was around $15. We
had paid off $85 of our bill, leaving a balance of $82. Therefore, I
would assume, we had paid our debt to PacTel and only owed money to
AT&T. Now at the bottem of my monthly long-distance statement, it says
that the billing is only provided as a service to AT&T, with whom
Pacific Telephon has no connection. If this is the case, under what
authority did they cut off my telephone service. If I fail to pay my
MCI bill, would PacTel cut me off? Shouldn't I just be cut off from
AT&T's lines, and collecting is their problem? Just a little more
confusion resulting from the break-up.
David L. Smith
UC San Diego
sdcsvax!sdcc7!li63sdl
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Thanks,
Dave
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Date: Sat, 27-Apr-85 23:38:49 PST
From: vortex!lauren@rand-unix (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: long distance carriers
To: TELECOM@MC.ARPA
You can't blame AT&T for the problems with your local business
phone -- that's under PacBell's control, and that ain't AT&T.
Saying "Pacific Bell/AT&T" has no meaning anymore--they are
not the same company!
As for the alternates' billings--I've seen piles of
examples of inaccurate billings (mostly resulting from a lack
of called party supervision control). Automated data calls
are the biggest culprit--where the other end didn't answer or
was busy and the modem took about a minute to timeout (typical
setting for a long distance call). The calls charged as if
they had been answered in each and every case. There are many
more mundane cases that are generally known--the CSPAN cable
service had some problems since they let the phones keep ringing
on their talk shows until they are ready to put people on the air.
Thus, the phones might ring for five or ten minutes or more, and
many people just got ringing and eventually gave up. Guess what?
The people calling via alternates discovered that they had gotten billed
for those calls--even though they were non-answered. Lots of them.
Now if a company wants to make it a policy that you pay for all
calls whether they are answered or not that exceed a certain
duration, I guess that's OK, but nobody doing this has ever ADMITTED
PUBLICLY that that's what they do! In fact, if you confront them
with the question they deny it as often as not (most likely because
they don't understand what you're talking about because THEY'VE
never been told what's going on!)
About route quality: As I've said many times, there are some good
routes on the alternates. However, the people who have the most
trouble with the alternates are the ones who make a lot of calls
to different parts of the country. They're the ones who get hit
the most with the *variability* from route to route and time to time.
The little guy who makes a few long distance calls a week doesn't
have to worry about calling up the alternate's business office
once a month to clear off a couple of hundred bad billings among
thousands of calls! But many busnesses are in exactly this sort
of situation, and needless to say they can get a bit tired of it
pretty quickly.
--Lauren--
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Date: 28 Apr 1985 04:13-PDT
Subject: re: Surge Supressors for Telephones
From: John McLean <john@sri-csl.arpa>
To: telecom@BBNCCA
Cc: john@SRI-CSL
I'm not sure what is contained inside the (expensive!!!) boxes marketed
as telephone line surge supressors. However, I do know of one proven
method (survived several lightning strikes) that is currently used on a PBX
system. And it uses about $5.00 in parts. Basically, the circuit
consists of an MOV (metal oxide varistor) in series with a metal-
oxide (important) resistor. [The breakdown of the MOV is about 400 V
and the resistor is about 400 ohms.] This circuit is simply connnected
across tip and ring and normally has no effect on the phone line. But
the circuit goes into "action" when the breakdown of the MOV is exceeded,
absorbing some of the electrical energy.
The several telephony engineers I've dealt with in the past seem to
feel that such protection is inexpensive insurance and worth the money
(for a production PBX design). However, experience indicates that damage
to systems due to line transients is not too common an occurance (in
most areas of the country, at least). So I don't think that installing
a protective device will be buying much. Although, if I were going
to do it, I'd probably build my own rather than buy the overpriced
box in the store.
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End of TELECOM Digest
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