Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!umich!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: dpletche@jarthur.claremont.edu (David Pletcher)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Autoconnect From DA in PA
Message-ID: <14072@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 90 18:30:41 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 767, Message 6 of 8


In article <14014@accuvax.nwu.edu> gkj@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gregory
K Johnson) writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 762, Message 7 of 13

>AT&T College & University Systems has a brain-damaged computer that
>does this also when it asks you for your account number.

>But what was most galling was that when I called back and waited for
>an operator, the operator couldn't look up my account number!

>This is one of many tales of woe with ACUS.  In my opinion their
>service is completely incompetent.

Another particularly annoying feature of ACUS is that great AT&T
itself is charging based on a timeout rather than answer supervision.
In the literature we got with our cards it warns us that we will be
charged for our call if we let it ring more than five times.  To
further complicate matters, our campus PBX is set up badly so that you
cannot reliably hang up when you want to.  Often the phone starts
ringing again after a few seconds, and when you pick it up you hear
your outgoing call in progress (which you are now being charged for
after the fifth ring.)  In light of recent messages which said that
uncompleted interstate calls cannot be charged, I am thinking about
taking this up with the FCC.

It sounds like ACUS does not believe in echo-cancellation either; when
I make outgoing long distance calls it sounds like I am calling from
inside a cave to both parties.  When I am called by others I do not
have this problem.  I have spent quite a long time on the phone with
AT&T people and campus phone service people; neither will accept
responsibility or even claim to understand what I am talking about.

I really expected better from AT&T.


David Pletcher
dpletche@jarthur.claremont.edu