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: How Does Changing of Prefix by Telco Improve Service? Message-ID: <9996@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 22 Jul 90 06:19:39 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 68 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 505, Message 2 of 7 Todd Day writes: > (4) If I call the university at 7:59am on August 4 using the 961 > prefix, what will happen to my call at 8:00am? If we had > caller ID out here, what would happen to an outgoing call? No matter when you make the call, it will be screwed up all day. Remember this is GTE. Why do you think they are making the change in the middle of summer? Since the CPID info is only transmitted at the beginning of the call, if you remained connected during the cut, nothing would happen on your display. I pity the university. > (5) Finally, a general question about intercepts. Why does it > seem that the intercepts know exactly what you're trying to > do, but just chastise you about dialing in the future and > don't complete your call? Obviously, you've never heard the Lily Tomlin routines or watched "The President's Analyst". Otherwise, you wouldn't ask such a silly question. I don't remember much about long distance calling before DDD, but I suspect that there was some truth to the routine. "Operator, I would like to call Washington, DC. The number is 736-5000." "Sir, the area code is 202" "Thank you, Operator" "What is the area code, please?" "Huh?" "The area code for Washington, DC is 202. Now what is the area code?" "202, Operator. The area code is 202." "Thank you, sir." > Now, in the case of UCSB, > instead of intercepting the 961, why don't they just tell the > dialer about the change and complete his/her call to the 893 > prefix anyway? Because, ultimately the caller WILL have to dial the 893 prefix. It's best to get them in the habit as early as possible. Otherwise, no one would change what they dialed until 961 actually became something else. And then you would have some customer really annoyed at the wrong numbers. I had a client move from the financial district to the south of Market area. This meant a change from the Bush/Pine CO to the Folsom St. CO and with it a number change. Their idea was to simply forward their old phone when they moved to their new number "to make the transition easier". I convinced them that it was a stupid idea. First, notification of the number change would become their sole responsibilty, since there would be no referral. If someone dials a number and it works, why change? All they would be doing is postponing the day of reckoning when the old number would eventually be disconnected. Second, they would be paying local charges for most of their incoming calls until they had the old number removed. Up until 1982, it was not necessary to dial an area code when calling across the 408/415 boundary within the metro Bay Area because it had been possible to avoid duplicating prefixes around the bay perimeter. Growth put an end to that, and a recording appeared that said "it is necessary to dial 415 when calling this number. Please hang up and dial your call again." There were the inevitable complaints about "if it knows that I need to dial 415, why not just put the call through?" Well, simply put, if that happened, suddenly that person would dial the seven digit number and find himself connected to a party in the wrong city since the prefix had been reused within his own area code. It's amazing how long a change has to be in place before the public gets the hang of it. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !