Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!bu.edu!rpi!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!bionet!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: la063249@zach.fit.edu (Bill Huttig) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 800 Numbas Message-ID: <14138@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 29 Oct 90 15:49:05 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: Bill Huttig Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL Lines: 31 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 774, Message 8 of 12 I called MCI several times. They still say that it is your home number with the area code replaced with 800. They also said that it will take 45 days because the local phone company has to 'program it'. I wish MCI would train their people better. The lady this morning at the Maryland office (I call there because the CS people in Atlanta are stupid and rude) said that the 800 service was a product of TELECOM*USA and was going to be billed on their computers. That is why they can't add it to existing accounts and it will take 45 days to set up. I think that they haven't finished the programming yet and that is why it will take so long. Bill [Moderator's Note: Telecom*USA offers no such package. What they offer are regular 800 numbers, from the block of same assigned to their company, which terminate on their switch in Iowa somewhere. The calls arriving there, DID-style (never a busy signal at that point, no matter how many people dial your 800 number at one time), are then outdialed to your regular number. It is all very transparent; the only thing an experienced 800 user would notice is there is a slightly longer delay in getting the distant end to ring -- like maybe five seconds longer -- since the call has to go into Telecom*USA's switch and back out again. Maybe this is the program MCI reps have in mind and are trying to describe. They probably mean to say "you get a regular 800 number but no line appearance at your end; it terminates on your regular number." PAT]