Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!attctc!vector!telecom-gateway From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Some Comments On The GTE "Problem" in California Message-ID: Date: 19 Sep 89 05:24:46 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 68 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 388, message 2 of 8 In article , kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) writes: > The apparatus will indeed do the job - but in the situations which > you describe it is PEOPLE who have let the apparatus down and caused these > service problems. It is obvious, from the very encounters that I have experienced with GTE that it is indeed the people who make (or in GTE's case) break the operation. > Beats the hell outta me... I have seen the No. 1 EAX, and it is > not junk. I don't know why there was trouble in this particular office, > unless it was a very early machine (say, before 1974). Part of the As a matter of fact, it was installed in about 1974. At that time they offered no features whatsoever. It was many years before I learned that they were offering call waiting and call forwarding (and nothing else). At a place served by this switch, I had particular use for three-way calling, but it has never been available. Down south, I know that GTE does offer 3-way in the No. 1 EAX. The scuttlebutt around the times the switch went completely down was that some local character who knew nothing really about the equipment was fooling around with the programming and managed to screw it up to the point where it would no longer process calls. The reason it was down for so long is that they had to fly a specialist up from Santa Monica to straighten the mess out. The EAX call forwarding has a neat feature (seriously). If you dial 79#, you will be immediately forwarded to the number previously forworded to. This is handy if you regularly forward to the same number, or want someone to forward your phone without having to reveal the number it's being forwarded to. As an aside, I should point out that GTE Mobilnet (the wireline cellular provider in the Bay Area) is quite an excellent operation. The coverage is good, the service reliable, the people responsive. Calls complete in about 2 seconds (as opposed to about 20 seconds for PacTel Cellular in the LA area). GTE Mobilnet offers superior subscription plans to Cellular One (the Bay Area non-wireline system owned primarily by Pacific Telesis) and has been first with all of the GeeWhiz features like a big area, follow-me roaming, etc. We have all theorized that it must be some other GTE, since GTE California is just the opposite--running the worst phone company I have ever seen. > The Bell System has also used subscriber line carrier of the lowest > quality - the infamous Superior/Continental AML. This subscriber line > carrier provides no bridged ringing (ringing is brought out on a third wire), > and offers an on-hook loop voltage to the subscriber station of a whole > 6 volts (less, if the battery ain't charged). Needless to say, such > subscriber line carrier at best can operate a 500-type set, and nothing > else. Fortunately, I have never seen any of that. But GTE in California used theirs as a matter of routine. A favorite trick of the pea-brains in Los Gatos was to install subscriber carrier and then at some future time turn off the service of the metallic subscriber (battery and all). After some indeterminate amount of time, the nicad in the SC unit would become weak and the carrier subscriber's service would just fade away. This actually happened to me. You should have heard me trying to explain this to some 611 droid. You should have seen how long it took them to fix it. After several days I rigged up an outboard supply and got my service back. That fix would be there to this day if they hadn't finally added more cable to the area and converted my line to metallic. And this was business service! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !