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From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses"
Message-ID: <9757@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 15 Jul 90 20:25:50 GMT
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Reply-To: John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 487, Message 3 of 11


"Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> writes:

> If you live in GTE areas, you'll find they now run TX spots
> showing people snoozing away in bed, happily confident that GTE is
> "testing their lines silently all night."  All that happened was GTE
> started its ALITs back in automatic mode again!

One other aspect of living in a GTE area (other than having my most
sincere condolences) is that you will probably get your ear blown off
eventually if you talk on the phone late at night. While real telcos
will skip busy lines during an ALIT cycle, GTE doesn't seem to deem
that necessary. While you are on the phone, suddenly you will hear,
"CLICK/CLUNK -- BZZZZT/BLAAAAT". Sometimes you remain connected to
your party after all that, sometimes you don't. You sort of ride it
out -- like an earthquake.

I have a tacit agreement with my friends who call me from GTE areas:
since it was their brain-dead company that caused the disconnection,
they call me back on their nickel.

Preventative Maintenance: Work done by GTE to _prevent_ normal use of
equipment.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 723 1395
    john@bovine.ati.com     | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !