TELECOM@Usc-Eclb (06/03/82)
TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 3 June 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 70
Today's Topics:
Who Wrote The Book On Communications?
Trouble With TelCo's - Centralized Repair Bureaus
Calling Patterns - Advanced Warning Of Higher-Than-Normal Bills
Data Lines - Repair Troubles
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Date: 1 Jun 1982 1950-PDT
From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode)
McNamara is this gentleman from Digital who wrote a book
"Technical Aspects of Data Communications" published on Digital
Press. Too bad the Bantam paperback is not out yet.
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Date: 2 June 1982 0141-PDT (Wednesday)
From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: telco troubles
To: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS
Bob,
Sorry to hear you're having so much trouble with a D1 out there.
Your story sounds pretty typical. I can only make a couple of
general suggestions:
a) Don't sit around hoping for competition to show up and do better,
and least not for awhile. Eventually, local microwave networks
provided by non-telco entities will appear, but it is not clear
how cost effective these will be, or WHEN they will be available.
Don't even THINK about cable TV companies. Lauren's Maxim
#432 says, "Most cable TV companies make General Telephone
look GOOD." Not only are many cities fragmented between different
companies, all using different sorts of equipment with different
sorts of services, but most are grossly incapable of doing more
than pointing a dish at a satellite and pumping a mediocre signal
down the cable to provide a movie channel or two. There are some
notable exceptions, but they are few and far between.
b) When you are forced to deal with "centralized" repair (pretty typical
throughout AT&T companies these days in metro areas), ALWAYS speak
to a supervisor for all but the most trivial problems. Get the
person's name, a direct inward dialing number to that person (if you
can talk them into it) and then whenever you call back, ask to talk
to that person. This is very important to prevent your problem from
being passed around all over the place with no single person
ever watching over the whole process. This procedure is not
100% effective, but has generally served me well. I used a system
like this just last week when an installer woke me up one morning
(here at home) insisting he had to install a TELEX line at my house.
A TELEX LINE???? Yep. Turned out that Western Union in NYC had
screwed some stuff up and I was the innocent victim, but it took
awhile to convince telco of this. Amusing, in hindsight.
I'll be in Boston for about 5 days starting around the 4th of July,
maybe we can get together and I can try my hand at dealing with your
local repair people...
--Lauren--
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Date: 2 Jun 1982 1759-PDT
From: Jon Solomon <JSol at USC-ECL>
Subject: Centralized Telephone Repair Service
The multitude of times I have had to contact Repair Service here
(611), I have typically asked to speak with a supervisor. I am
currently trying to get them to fix a noisy trunk group between me and
one of the GTE areas (West LA). They seem to fix it, then call me to
verify that I am happy and then go and break it again. This one isn't
going through a supervisor, but I am sure now that they have a note
next to my name to treat me specially, as I am always given a DID
number, and some supervisor's name when I get verified ("just in case
this stops working, you can call me directly at ..."). I no longer
have to ask for this.
The reason I have this "mark" on my record is that when I started to
have trouble with my custom calling, I always got some random call
from a clerk at the Repair Service office trying to make sure I know
how to use the feature. The trouble was that I always had the card in
front of me and CORRECTED the clerk every time she made a mistake ("Now
check the card, remember: one of my lines has speed calling 8 and the
other has speed calling 30, you use 75# for 30, not for 8!" (her
reply) "hold on, sir. (pause) Oh yes, you're absolutely right, my
mistake."). Eventually they caught on that I knew more about it than
the clerks did, so they bypass that step now.
You don't always have to get the same person (at least in the greater
LA area), just make sure you get the same office. I have called both
the business office and repair center and had my "rep" either on a
call or out to lunch, and someone always can look on her desk and get
the work sheet she was working on, you should get the name tho. Also,
local repair center clerks are good at checking for past problem
records on file. If you are having the same problem as a previously
reported one, just tell them to find it and reissue it. The method
used to fix it the last time is also marked and it saves them *lots*
of time and trouble (gets your service back into shape sooner too).
--JSol
p.s. Be sure you give as accurate a description of the problem as you
can. With this latest problem, I always flash into 3-way calling and
try one of the numbers known to have scratchy trunks, this way the rep
calling me back can verify along with me what is going on.
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Date: 2 Jun 1982 0827-PDT
From: HAL at SRI-NIC
Subject: phone bills
I have some friends who live in the WDC area who got a call the other
day from the phone company saying that their next phone bill would be
over $250, the accumulated charges to that date, and it was only
three-fourths of the way through the billing period. Although
shocked, they were glad to have gotten the information so that they
could budget the big one. (Of course, they will be looking at the
itemized listing of phone numbers called quite carefully.)
This amount owed is about four times the size of their biggest bill so
far. I was wondering, is it standard practice for the telco's to set
a flag on major increases of accounts and call the customer to let
them know of the "big one"? If I were to suddenly increase my usage
of my phone one month, would I too get the service of a warning? If
this is standard, when is the procedure initiated - double the bill?
three times? (I've had bills double over a month's time, and received
no such call.) Do they keep averages for everyone and compare total
billing to date with them or just keep highest bill to date and
compare?
It would seem logical they do some sort of checking just to protect
themselves from an "I didn't make any of those calls" excuse, and also
to warn the customer there may be someone abusing their phone. Or do
they have different reasons for doing this?
Hal Huntley
[In Connecticut, I remember being told that if my bill goes over $100,
they will call me on the phone to let me know, and in the LA phone
book, they tell you that they will bill you (and expect payment in 7
days) if your bill goes over $150.00, and again if it goes over
$400.00, though I suspect that they will catch on if your bill does
that all the time. --JSol].
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Date: 2 Jun 1982 15:01 EDT
From: Axelrod.WBST at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: Unnatural monopolies and the good 'ole days
Perhaps you already know about this but:
If a line is part of an inTERstate network, then you may order the
line from AT&T Long Lines, even if the line itself is inTRAstate.
As a matter of fact, AT&T will actually sub-contract the line back to
the local operating company, but the main difference is service.
We've had experience with an number of OpCo's and with Long Lines.
The OpCo's vary all over the spectrum in quality of service. New
England Tel is not a good one, in our experience. AT&T is usually
excellent. The line is almost always up (solid) within 4 hours of a
call, usually under 2. Very often, the price is lower from AT&T also.
Another advantage is that during the order and installation period,
AT&T will do the kind of tracking that you described.
Just what exactly constitutes an "Interstate Network" is sometimes
open to interpretation. As a general rule, if data normally flows
from the DTE to another across state lines, then the line will
qualify. (Then there's the thing called the "rusty switch"
arrangement, which is illegal and unethical, but still happens.)
Sorry to bore you if you already know this. Or if you have any
questions, feel free to ask.
Art Axelrod
Xerox Webster Research Center
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End of TELECOM Digest
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