telecom@ucbvax.ARPA (03/08/85)
From: Jon Solomon (the Moderator) <Telecom-Request@BBNCCA>
TELECOM Digest Thu, 7 Mar 85 23:23:03 EST Volume 4 : Issue 167
Today's Topics:
Equal access in Boston restored
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Date: Thu 7 Mar 85 17:03:10-EST
From: Robert Scott Lenoil <G.LENOIL%MIT-EECS@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Equal access in Boston restored
To: telecom@BBNCCA.ARPA
First, let me answer Brint Cooper's question from #166 about having a
phone with no long distance service. Here in Back Bay, where we have
equal access, if you elect not to subscribe at all to any long
distance carrier, your calls will be blocked, i.e. you could reach
AT&T by dialing 10ATT, or any other carrier. Also, if your primary
carrier is SBS, you must dial your authorization code whenever you
make a long distance call via SBS (you just dial 1 + auth. code +
phone #). The problem with this, though, is that someone could dial
10ATT, and route the call over AT&T, which won't require any
authorization code. I'm not sure if New England Tel offers the best
of both worlds; SBS as primary carrier plus blocking to prevent you
from using anybody else, but if they do, it would solve your problems.
(Of course, I don't know what your local telco in Virginia does, or if
you have equal access.)
Okay, now the good news. After my frustrating run-in with New England
Telephone over my equal access not working, I'm happy to say that the
problem has been fixed. Thank heavens for the service reps in the
business office; without them, I would have kept getting "it's not our
problem" from lower-echelon repair service employees who are only
slightly more animate than robots. I spoke today with the repair
service manager for Boston. He said the problem was due to some new
*SOFTWARE* to do translations that had been installed last week; it
seems that said software wasn't designed with equal access in mind.
The problem only arose when calling New York, but since that's all I
call, to me it seemed like equal access failed completely. I'm glad
that the trouble report was allowed to propagate to his desk; he told
me that everyone up until him said that the problem must have lied
with my long distance carrier, and he thanked me for heading off all
the future problems that would have ensued with that software.
(BTW, what are "translations?" I'm fairly sure that I know, but I'll
let one of the "pros" give a nice textbook definition.)
-Rob
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End of TELECOM Digest
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