Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!wuarchive!texbell!attctc!vector!telecom-gateway From: klb@lzaz.att.com (Kevin Blatter) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: AT&T's ACUS Service Message-ID: Date: 12 Nov 89 01:55:22 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: AT&T ISL Lincroft NJ USA Lines: 44 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 506, message 7 of 10 In article , gkj@cunixb.cc.columbia. edu (Gregory K Johnson) writes: > At Columbia University, ACUS administers the billing for our ROLM PBX > campus phone system. I have the following complaints about it, some > of which have to do with ROLM I think more than ACUS, but I find the > ACUS people much more difficult to deal with than New York Telephone > or any other local phone company. > 3. ... they will not allow calls to 976, 1-900, > or any other exchanges which have special billing arrangements. > 4. They do not provide supervised billing. While they will give you credit > for uncompleted calls, they will admonish you not to let the phone ring > more than *six times* or you will be billed for the call. This is > ridiculous and I tell them so every time I have to call them to get > credit for my dozen or so uncompleted calls. > In conclusion, ACUS sucks and so does ROLM. Get a standard phone line > if you can. Unless the PBX is connected to the CO via ISDN lines, there is no way for the PBX to know if a call is completed or not. I suspect that whoever the "ACUS People" are also don't know whether calls were completed, since they probably draw their information from the ROLM SMDR (Station Message Detail Recording) port. Also, ACUS probably is not privy to the 900 billing database. Therefore, it is not just ROLM (or ACUS), but anybody with this kind of configuration would provide the same sort of thing. I was talking to my sister who is a college senior and they are doing this sort of thing on her campus (BYU) as well, so it seems to be a trend that is sweeping across college campuses. Don't feel bad, she says that her LD service is provided by a company called Tel-America and her opinion is that the line quality sucks. She makes all of her LD calls at pay phones or at friends' homes where she can choose her LD company. Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs Disclaimer -- I have nothing to do with ACUS (or ROLM ;-) ) and the opinions that are expressed herein are strictly my own.