Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!bionet!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: dittman@skbat.csc.ti.com (Eric Dittman) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Answering Machine Messages Message-ID: <12256@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 17 Sep 90 19:19:27 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Texas Instruments Component Test Facility Lines: 52 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 654, Message 1 of 11 In article <12188@accuvax.nwu.edu>, appell@hou2d.att.com (David Appell) writes: > mpd@anomaly.sbs.com (Michael P. Deignan) writes: >>This reminds me of what I generally do the first time I get a new >>number: I call the number and record the " The number you have >>reached ... has been disconnected..." on a special outgoing >>message tape, which I save for later use. > My housemate did this once, and the confusion it caused among > callers, and their queries to the phone company, ultimately caused NJ > Bell to call him and tell him, "Hey, just cut it out, OK." I was playing with my answering machine one day and accidentally changed the message to dead silence followed by the "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up ...". My sister called to talk to me and got that message. She hung up and tried again, and got the same message (obviously). She tried a few more times with no luck, and the dead space before the actual beep was long enough that she wasn't waiting for the beep. She had the operator put the call through, same message. She had the operator stay on the line. They tried to figure out what was going on with no luck, but this time they stayed on long enough that I got some of their dis- cussion recorded. Finally she called me at work and told me that my phone line at home was messed up and told me to call the local office. I called my home first and figured out what was going on, which was good, since upon calling the local company I found out that they were ready to disconnect the line until they could isolate the problem. I explained what had happened, and fixed the OGM. My question is, shouldn't the local company (Southwestern Bell) have been able to tell that everything was okay and the problem was just a bad OGM? Or would the disconnect have been to simply prevent a lot of calls from people calling my home and encountering this message? Eric Dittman Texas Instruments - Component Test Facility dittman@skitzo.csc.ti.com dittman@skbat.csc.ti.com Disclaimer: I don't speak for Texas Instruments or the Component Test Facility. I don't even speak for myself. [Moderator's Note: When you do something which causes a disruption or degradation in the service of other subscribers, then telco can cut you off if necessary. Although in your case it was an accident that the message was played out, it did cause some wasted network resources to say nothing of wasted operator's time. PAT]