Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!samsung!umich!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: dave%westmark@uunet.uu.net (Dave Levenson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Plagued by Wrong Number Calls
Message-ID: <10488@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 6 Aug 90 03:18:57 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA
Lines: 46
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 544, Message 4 of 11


The U. S. Department of State has established a hotline for people
seeking information about their friends/relatives in Kuwait.  The
number, as published in the New York Times and shown on television, is
(202) 647 0900.

Here at Westmark, Inc., in New Jersey, we have since 1983 used the
number (201) 647 0900.  (We still receive calls dialed to that number,
though NJ Bell now calls this area code 908.)  Since last Thursday, we
have received approximately a dozen calls per day from people asking
for information about a flight from Baghdad, or whether communication
has been established with one or another town in Kuwait, or some
American company there, or whatever.  Some of the callers think they
have reached someone in Kuwait.  The calls continue into the night,
according to the answering service.

More than half of the calls, according to our Caller*ID display,
originate here in NJ. These may be being dialed as only seven digits.
(In most of NJ, you can dial the home area code if you want to, and
the call is still processed as a local call.)

We have tried to explain, very carefully for the benefit of these
callers, many of whom barely speak English, or have no idea what 'area
code' means, that they have reached New Jersey, not Kuwait.  We have
patiently explained how to call the State Department.  A few have
called us back a minute later, and we've had the same conversation
again.

Several people insisted that they had dialed area code 202.  None of
these, however, reached us again if they re-dialed after speaking with
us.  They insist that the number is right because it was on
television.  One man yelled at me that he got the number from AT&T and
I must be mistaken.  They don't believe that they could have
mis-dialed, but none have claimed that they meant to dial our number.

I suppose that if hundreds or thousands of people are trying to call
the number in Washington, it is not unusual that a few dozen of them
will mis-dial only the area code, and reach us.  The network is
probably doing the best it can with what they dial.  Still I wonder if
perhaps a few of these calls were correctly dialed, and are being
mis-routed by some minor piece of the PSDN?


Dave Levenson			Voice: 908 647 0900  Fax: 908 647 6857
Westmark, Inc.			UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Warren, NJ, USA			AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave