Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: nathan@eddie.mit.edu (Nathan Glasser) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Satanic Long Distance Carrier Message-ID: Date: 13 Jul 89 19:08:32 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: MIT EE/CS Computer Facility, Cambridge, MA Lines: 46 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 237, message 1 of 8 I am served by New England Telephone in Somerville, MA, which became ESS and began allowing custom calling features a couple of years ago. I have had the same phone number since before this change took place. For the record, AT&T is my primary long distance carrier. I discovered an interesting feature a couple of nights ago involving three-way calling and equal access. If, while talking on the phone to someone, I flick (my word for pressing the switch hook in order to activate three-way calling) and call 10-666-1-, after the , I get a ringing following by an error message "Your long distance call cannot be completed as dialed..." Fine, that sounds like maybe an invalid long distance carrier code, you say. So I hang up on this message by flicking a few more times. However, it is no longer possible for me to dial any other calls after flicking! If I flick and begin dialing any phone number, I get the same message given above after dialing any of 10,1,0,, or 00. (I didn't try 0 or 0). This seems to last for the duration of the original call, or at least for quite a long time. However, hanging up the phone entirely, disconnecting the original call, solves the problem. A feature(?) of the three-way calling in my area is that if I flick, wait for the dial tone, and then hang up, my phone will begin ringing until I answer it, at which point I'm back with the original call. Handy for transferring between phones on the same line in different rooms. (Is this true of three-way calling in all areas?) Anyway, I found that if I do the flick-and-hang-up trick, things also go back to normal. So is 666 the code for a Satanic long distance carrier, or what? -- Nathan Glasser fnord nathan@{mit-eddie.uucp, brokaw.lcs.mit.edu} ST Quote: "I've never heard a malfunction threaten me before." - Sulu Question: "Our prices range from $20-$40, and up." What does that mean? [Moderator's Note: It is worth noting that '666' has never been, and probably never will be assigned as part of a carrier access code, due to the ignorance and superstition so prevalent among many Americans. Illinois Bell even has a hard time getting people to take service on the old Monroe CO, which went from Monroe to MONroe to MO-6 and finally '666'. Checker and Yellow Taxicab Radio Dispatching was on there for over sixty years: MON ==> MO 6 ==> 666-3700, and they finally gave up and moved to a different CO. They say they got a lot of harassing phone calls from, uh, strange people. PT]