Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: COCOTs, FCC, DPU, etc Message-ID: <9984@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 21 Jul 90 08:09:04 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 50 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 503, Message 5 of 8 Monty Solomon - Temp Consultant writes: > I wish to complain (loudly) about various local COCOTs practices of > prohibiting access to long distance carriers via 10XXX or 950-10XX and > of disabling the keypad after the call is completed. > Who should I write to? The FCC? The local DPU? Both? Oh, brudder. Get in line. Line forms to the right, down the block, left at the second star and on till morning. Realistically, don't bother. The FCC has on two major occasions admitted that COCOTs stink. They issued a bunch of guidelines, followed by a bunch of regulations with no teeth in them. Guess what! No improvement. I could give you a list a half-inch thick (in fact, the size of the document I submitted to the CPUC) of COCOT deficiencies. The CPUC sent me back a form letter thanking me for my thoughts and ASSURED me that my complaints would be turned over to the appropriate people involved. That was over two years ago. What's changed? Hint: An infinitely small number of things. Oh yes -- the FCC has decreed that COCOTs will allow access to all long distance carriers doing business in the area. That really got the COCOT owners worried. I believe the real penalty for non-compliance is that the FCC will think bad thoughts about the guilty COCOT owner. Has anyone ever--repeat EVER--found a COCOT that allows 10XXX access to multiple carriers? I rest my case. At either the Federal or state level, there will be no change in COCOTs until the agencies devise some mechanism for detection and enforcement of rule violations. The ultimate weapon, disconnection of service, is seldom used since the procedures are so cumbersome and the real arm of enforcement, the local telco, has many other things to worry about. Besides, why would they care? Disconnecting a COCOT would just mean less revenue. In the meantime, the CPUC's latest blatherings about new COCOT rules and regulations are just so much hot air. Frankly, short of tactics that are not to be mentioned in this forum, I have pretty much dropped the COCOT cause. The slimeball COCOT owners are laughing at us all the way to the bank, and the government that can seize computers, throw rock musicians in jail, grab the life's work of a San Francisco photographer, etc., etc., is powerless against the teflon owners and operators of fraudulent one-armed bandits masquerading as payphones. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !