telecom@ucbvax.ARPA (09/16/84)
From: Jon Solomon (the Moderator) <Telecom-Request@MIT-MC>
TELECOM Digest Monday, 17 Sep 1984 Volume 4 : Issue 86
Today's Topics:
Discovering your own phone number(s)
Re: TELECOM Digest Determining your own phone number.
rephrasing
1+
Hotel telephones
ITFS/MDS
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Date: Thu, 13 Sep 84 21:01:58 EDT
From: Jim Berets,,, <jberets@bbn-vax>
Subject: Discovering your own phone number(s)
I'm in the Boston area, so the various 1-(200)+ numbers work. However
an interesting thing happens... When I try it from work (497-XXXX), I
get a recording saying I'm calling from 491-XXXX. Trying again will
give a different 491-XXXX (though sometimes the same one). Are these
the outgoing lines allocated to our PBX? Dialing the given 491
numbers yields ring sometimes (no answer), but busy more often. I
would guess the following. Dialing out causes the PBX to choose one
of its available outgoing lines (491's), so that is what 1-(200)+
tells me. Someone dialing in (to 497) would have some piece of the
XXXX handled by our PBX (we don't have all of 497). Someone dialing
in (to one of the 491 numbers allocated to us) would get the PBX (so
of course it is either busy or no one answers). The telco can't
allocate the same numbers for both incoming and outgoing, because then
if the PBX gave person X 497-XXXX for an outgoing call, this would
cause person Y (whose number is the same as that for the outgoing
call) to not be able to use his phone. The 491/497 difference dates
back to before the installation of the PBX (our main number is a 491
so I presume this has never changed). The installation of the PBX
required a bigger block of numbers than remaining in 491. Does this
sound reasonable?
Jim
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From: ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!digi-g!dan@Berkeley
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 84 02:30:08 cdt
Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest Determining your own phone number.
Around Minneapolis, I can dial "511" and get the mechanical voice
reciting my phone number over and over and .... But I just tried it
and only got a busy signal. I don't know if that function is really
busy, or the feature has been removed. I used it no more than two
weeks ago.
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Date: Fri, 14 Sep 84 11:22:13 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@Brl-Vld.ARPA>
Subject: rephrasing
In those places which require any sort of 1+ dialing, you cannot make
a toll call by dialing only 7 digits. (JSol, do you understand what I
was trying to say? In New Jersey before the 1+ implementation, you
dialed just the 7-digit number for local calls and for ANY
direct-dialed call in your area code.)
[To the best of my knowledge, you still dial just the 7 digits in NJ
to place a call within the area code. 1+ is only for out of area code
calls. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. --JSol]
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Date: 14 Sep 84 12:23:22 PDT (Friday)
From: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: 1+
Part, if not all, of area code 714 (next to Los Angeles) recently
switched the meaning of dialing 1+. It used to mean a toll call
(regardless of being in the area code or out), but now means outside
area 714 (regardless of being toll or not). Out of habit, I recently
dialed a toll call within 714 with the 1+, and was rewarded with an
earsplittingly loud triple tone, followed by a recording telling me to
redial without the 1. I found it very annoying since they knew what I
wanted. There should be no ambiguity since I don't believe that 714
has any area codes duplicated as prefixes; nor should they have to do
that in the near future, since they carved 619 out of 714 to free up
hundreds of new prefixes. /Don Lynn
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Date: Fri, 14 Sep 84 15:40:07 EDT
From: Will Martin <wmartin@BRL-TGR.ARPA>
Subject: Hotel telephones
The past two hotels I've stayed at, and several I recall before those,
have tried to stick members of my party with charges for local calls
though no such calls had been made. They definitely generate a
"local-call" charge when you merely make an intra-hotel room-to-room
call; I believe that merely picking up the handset (other than to
answer a call coming in) will generate such an automated billing
entry. It has gotten so that I will not even touch the telephone in a
hotel room except to answer it. If I want to call home, I'll go to a
payphone in the lobby or somewhere else.
I assume they have designed the system this way because those people
who DO make local calls from a hotel phone make enough that they have
no idea exactly how many, and the hotel collects (really "steals")
lots of extra local-call charges without having to pay the telco
anything, so it is all pure profit.
Will Martin
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Date: Fri, 14-Sep-84 00:47:40 PDT
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA>
Subject: ITFS/MDS
ITFS is a microwave band that was originally set aside for educational
video broadcasts of various sorts. When you see a church with a small
dish pointed at some local high spot, it's ITFS. MDS is Multipoint
Distribution Service -- which is a pair of microwave channels normally
used for movies (like the "Z" channel in L.A. or HBO in many cities).
It is unauthorized MDS receivers that are the target of much legal
activity in many cities right now, since they can be received via
various sorts of antennas/receivers including small dishes, horns,
converted coffee cans (as published in "73 Magazine" years ago) and
the ever-popular "white dildo" units.
Since the former of these services is little used, action has been
taken to open up many of the channels for other uses. However, in
most cities, all people really want to do with them is show movies,
though some legitimate data uses are contemplated in some areas as
well.
--Lauren--
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End of TELECOM Digest
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