Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Can We Outlaw Junk Calls? Message-ID: Date: 12 Sep 89 03:24:28 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: campbell@redsox.UUCP (Larry Campbell) Organization: The Boston Software Works, Inc. Lines: 36 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 378, message 7 of 9 Karl's "solution" to junk calls (use an answering machine to answer all your calls) doesn't work. Suppose I get an answering machine and use it to screen all my calls. Now suppose all my friends and relatives do the same. We'll never reach each other, because we're all just taping each other's messages instead of having conversations. There is a real and significant difference between junk mail and junk calls that Karl doesn't seem to understand. I can deal with junk mail at my leisure. I cannot do that with telephone calls. The telephone interrupts me. I refuse to screen all my calls with an answering machine because of the problem stated above. And I get _mighty_ upset when I jump out of the shower, or off the pot, to run and answer the phone, and it turns out to be some asshole selling timeshare condominiums. I agree completely that business users should be prohibited from making unsolicited telephone calls to residence telephones. (This would also stop telephone polls, a highly desirable side effect.) Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. campbell@bsw.com 120 Fulton Street wjh12!redsox!campbell Boston, MA 02146 [Moderator's Note: Well Mr. Campbell, why don't you install a pot next to your phone, er, uh, I mean a phone next to your pot. Then put the pending call on hold or otherwise muffle the mouthpiece when you engage in the normal hygenic practices associated with concluding your visit to the water closet. Just the other day I had the dubious distinction of being seated on my throne when what should arrive on the devil's instrument but a call from the Rosehill Corporation, managing agents for our local industry, the Rosehill Cemetery. The young man wanted to sell me a prepaid burial plan and gravesite. My answer was a three letter word, "NOE", and I had but barely resumed my originally scheduled activities when the thing rang again. This time it was the wanting to know if my papers 'were arriving okay each day'. Thank goodness for my wall trimline phone in the kitchen with the 25 foot cord which stretches down the hallway and into the door of the water closet. PT]