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From: ceb@csli.stanford.edu (Charles Buckley)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones
Message-ID: <9304@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 26 Jun 90 13:19:16 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 456, Message 5 of 7


>blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes:

>I always figured if anyone hated COCOTS it was AT&T.  Well I found
>what I'd call an AT&T COCOT.

I have encountered AT&T "Charge-a-Call" phones at an airport recently
which cut off the keypad only when certain 800 numbers were called.  I
could call my paging service and use the keypad, but the keypad was
turned off when I called U.S. Sprint.  I can't blame them, but I was
very surprised.

Even worse, I recently made a call on a NY Tel payphone in Kennedy
airport, which cut off the keypad *after* I had dialled in 0 vvv
nnn-nnnn, so I couldn't dial my credit card number.  We were all
queued up as cattle, and people on either side of me were having
trouble too.  I learned quite a few card numbers to use, should I ever
think of doing such a thing.

I called up repair and asked why this was being done, and the first
thing the person on duty said was "Are you a phone company employee?".
I told the truth, and said no, so she wouldn't say why, but something
funny was going on, for sure.

I can't decide: drugs, espionage, or long distance competition
(against AT&T).  Any ideas?