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From: macy@fmsystm.uucp (Macy Hallock)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: MCI as Slamming King
Message-ID: <13050@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 4 Oct 90 06:37:30 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 713, Message 3 of 11


In article <12719@accuvax.nwu.edu> David Tamkin writes:

>No one has yet, as far as I've noticed, submitted
>"my independent telco let a long-distance carrier slam me"
>nor "my Bell telco stymied a slamming attempt on me."
 
I've had several customers in GTE North territory slammed.  To the
best of my knowledge, I have never had a GTE rep call to confirm a
carrier change.  Ditto for Ohio Bell territory.
 
Letters to OBT and GTE restricting carrier changes to requests
submitted in writing only seem to work if you say "no one is
authorized to change this service, but the owner/subscriber in
writing."  This apparently locks the account in the computer somehow.
Any attempt to do anything short of this, e.g. "carrier changes only
in writing" seem to just get a remarks line in the computer and carry
little weight.
 
Both MCI and Sprint were the slammers, plus one other smaller outfit
(a reseller, I think) were involved.  They lost anyway, because I
program all my customers with "smart" system to automatically dial
their chosen carrier's 10XXX code before all calls.  They can't slam
10XXX!  This also puts their intra-LATA calls on their selected
carrier's bill, usually generating more savings.
 
My customers with dumb key systems have had the usual slamming problems.
 
I've also found a few Ohio Bell payphones that did not use the carrier
shown on the front label ... the label usually said AT&T, but the
carrier was actually someone else.
 
On the subject of carriers (and other things):
 
My personal favorite carrier is Litel.  I've been able to call their
technical people directly, gotten good cooperation, and fast response
when needed.  AT&T, MCI, Sprint and others could stand to learn a few
things from them.  GTE has wiped out Litel's access from certain CO's
a few times (usually by killing a T1 feed or invalidating their 10432
carrier code in the CO database ... but that's par for the course with
GTE.
 
The fact is, for stone cold reliability, I have to say AT&T is still
the carrier of choice.  Their marketing and responsivness have
improved, but the still need to learn from their competitors.  I have
to deal with too many vestiges of the "old" bureaucratic AT&T far too
often, especially on special services circuit repair (tie lines, T1's,
etc.)  I should note that the largest percentage of our AT&T problems
are actually Ohio Bell or GTE access link problems, but AT&T does not
see to it that the job gets done ... they just refer it out to the
telco and wait ... just like old times: finger pointing and
bureaucracy.
 
So ... we're back to the same old thing: the local telcos are the
weakest link in the chain.  Their monopolistic attitude from
pre-divestiture is still evident in their customer service and repair
practices.  Their indifference toward slamming, poor repair/operating
practices and anti-competitive tarriff are all symptoms of that
attitude.

 
Macy M. Hallock, Jr.     macy@NCoast.ORG      uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy